There's a difference. John's not claiming 2 state records from Missouri and 1 state record from MI and a world record from MI. No one is saying that MR is NOT a good hunter. He is most likely great in the woods. Both these guys are probably great hunters that put a TON of time into their hunting efforts. Great hunters have a knack for finding big bucks in their areas even where there aren't many. In MR's case though, they conveniently happen to be bigger than everybody else's since he was 9 years old. The odds of killing a big buck w/ a bow are low. Really low but it can be done w/ regularity if you put your time in. The odds of killing 2 or 3 state records and the world record? That's so low it's off the charts. The math doesn't lie. No one is that good.
Among the other bucks Mitch has entered in the Michigan record books, Mitch had the Michigan state record for the largest archery killed typical buck that stood for 28 years. That state record buck scored 181-7/8" taken in Grand Traverse County, Michigan in 1985 stood until Robert Sopsich beat it with a 182-1/8" buck taken in 2013.
There's no doubt that hunting trophy bucks in northern Michigan is tough to do, but Mitch has been successful at succeeding at just that. Most Michigan hunters looking for trophy bucks will concentrate on the southern lower peninsula including John E. I'm sure if Mitch chose to hunt in the southern lower where good bucks are more plentiful his record tally would be much higher. Few huge bucks come out of northern Michigan.
There are many facts that point to the buck taken in 1998 being legit. The fact that Mitch is a terrific hunter, he's taken other record book bucks from the same area. Several of Mitch's book bucks bear a close resemblance of the monster buck taken in 1998 so there obviously genic traits that tend to show a gene pool of bucks with wide kind of oddly shaped antlers. If Grand Traverse County can produce a 180" buck, who's to say it can't produce anything bigger? The buck was seen and inspected by quite a few people including a Conservation Officer when it was a fresh kill. How do you fake the antlers on a fresh kill?? I can only imagine it would be a bit time consuming to fake a set of antlers so no one could tell they had been altered. Again, how do you do that on a fresh kill?? Three well respected CBM Scorers inspected it and measured it and swear it's not been altered. Plus I just can't believe a respected scorer himself and the Scoring Chairman of CBM would try to pass off a fake deer to his peers. It's just really hard to believe.
Then there's the facts that point to it being fake. Why would anyone refuse to clear their name when others cry foul and call it a fake? With the amount of money tied to a world record buck and the fame attached, who would pass that opportunity up? That's a pretty hard question to get past. The buck I killed this past season with my bow measured 147" and I chose not to enter it in CBM nor P&Y because there's no real point to it. It's not worth any money nor fame so I didn't see anything to gain from entering it and I can understand someone not wanting to enter a buck. A world record is totally different and that is the way most of us look at it. Why wouldn't you want to enter a new world record buck?? And that is really the only argument anyone can levy against the buck. Why not enter it in the record books, CBM or B&C? It wouldn't qualify for P&Y due to Mitch's bow having more than 65% let off which was a rule at that time. It seems to me there are more qualifying reasons that the buck might be legit than not, but for now we just don't know and maybe we never will...
Fun fact: I am probably one of the few on this site that has actually spoken to Mitch, not that is has any bearing on this topic. Back in the late 80's I killed a buck that scored in the mid 140's. My cousin that same year killed a nice buck that scored 160 but the scorer made a mistake on his scoring of that buck. My cousin urged me to get my buck re-scored so I called Mitch who was the Scoring Chairman at that time. CBM frowns on "shopping for scores" but Mitch okayed me to have another scorer double check the measurement of the first scorer, which yielded no change in the score.