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Rompola Buck Update

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Swampwalker said:
What little if any here have mentioned is Mitch is/ was a helluva hunter. I tend to believe him and the story. Just my humble opinion.
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Hmm....I respectfully disagree. If you are asking for trust based on strength of character, the whole character matters. And if the details of why he was fired from his job and his criminal record are true, I have no faith in his word. JMHO too.
 
I don't think we will ever know definitively if the buck is real or fake. Based on what I've read and the podcasts I've listened to, I lean towards fake.

Some of the most damning evidence to me are the other pictures of bucks that Rompola had posted online. Many of the bucks looks unusual, and one looks like a doe. Very odd.
 
HaunSolo said:
I don't think we will ever know definitively if the buck is real or fake. Based on what I've read and the podcasts I've listened to, I lean towards fake.

Some of the most damning evidence to me are the other pictures of bucks that Rompola had posted online. Many of the bucks looks unusual, and one looks like a doe. Very odd.
Click to expand...
The truth will come out eventually. It may not be until Mitch Rompola is dead but some day someone will get their hands on that mount after he is gone and x-ray it.
 
Take a step back, pretend you never heard of this story before, and look at from an unbiased point of view. We have 2 major parts to this situation in my opinion.
#1 Was the buck real.
#2 If so, where the heck did it come from.
It’s really as simple as that. Now for #1, I believe the deer in question was real. I believe that because of all the people that actually handled it and their credibility in deciding so, a Tribal conservation warden, and several certified deer scorers. They handled it and were witness's to it dead in the back of his truck, I believe these people over anyone just looking at pictures on the internet, and that’s basically what we have to deal with, not one single person who actually placed hands on those antlers question their authenticity, so looking at this from an unbiased point of view, a non hunter if you will, show someone that proof and tell me what conclusion they would get from that, my guess is they would say the deer must be real and not altered. Do I think Rompola’s credibility sucks, yes I do, does his past legal trouble bother me, yea it’s disgusting enough said, I also think some of those other pictures of dead deer, not the one in question, but other’s, are fakes, they look ridiculous to me and I can’t believe they are real, does that make the “big” buck fake, no it doesn’t. People who have a criminal record, lie, and even fake deer, can still kill a trophy deer, as much as we mite not like it, a person guilty of all those things still could potentially kill a legit animal, it’s not impossible, do those other actions establish a credibility issue for Rompola, absolutely, but it still doesn’t mean the deer in question was a fake or altered animal. So with all that, I believe the deer was real, and that’s about where it ends with me in believing stuff with this story.
#2.. So if your of the mindset the deer is real, like me, where did this thing come from, how did Mitch Rompola come into possession of such a beast, because really, if you follow the evidence, that’s all we know for sure, that he was in possession of a monster dead buck. I believe that it‘s not probable, given the history of the bucks produced in the past from that area, that one single man could pull off such a feat, kill all those wide rack bucks with mega inches while nobody else around kills, enters in the books, or even witnesses such deer, I just don’t think that‘s possible, so with that I agree with some of the latest youtube videos, the odds of that happening are next to impossible. So where did this deer come from, farm, pen raised, deep on some public property lol. I don’t believe it could come from a farm, a buck like that would be worth serious money for breeding purposes, Rompola wasn’t known to be wealthy, I don’t believe that was possible. Deep on public, I doubt it, who knows anything is possible but once again I feel like the odds of a deer like this living deep on public without one single other person having any idea of such an animal seems unlikely, not to mention Rompola has several dead deer, with the same wide racks which would lead one to think others in the area would have tapped into that genetic trait eventually as well, more bucks with wide racks being killed by someone other than Rompola, if in fact he was killing these deer on public land. So where did this buck come from…… I have a theory.. Now I just had a long day at work and it’s been a while since I researched this stuff so I mite be off on some of this a bit, but I believe Rompola lived right across the road from an airport, he still does, it’s no secret anyone can google it, and it’s long been common knowledge he supposedly killed that deer right next to his house and near the airport. I have a good friend that works at an airport about the same size as the one Rompola lives next to, he hunts just like us, and just like most of us he gets excited over anything bigger than 100”, he regularly tells me about seeing big bucks all over the place inside the fence, I told him yea right… now you have to understand my local area does not produce much of anything over 120”, hardly ever…so when he told me about bucks in the 150” class walking around inside a fence by this airport I told him he was crazy, so he took a walk on his lunch break one day and sure enough I started getting pictures of 150” bucks sent to my phone from my buddy while he was out walking, dumb as a box of rocks, big bucks staring at him while he took their picture. I’m pretty sure a few years ago a local guy got caught killing a big buck, inside that fence, he was using a crossbow or something and had a hole cut in the fence he used like a gate and sure enough he killed a larger than life buck for our area and it wasn’t long and word got out and he was busted. So anyways all this got me thinking, Rompola lives next to an airport. He used a bow during open gun season.. hmmmm.. maybe if he had a felony record that is why, or maybe not… but we all know a bow is quiet… he killed many bucks with the same wide rack genetic trait, almost like the deer were closely related, in the dog breeding business that’s called line breeding, or simply put inbreeding, trapped animals inside a fence not being regulated like in a proper deer farm this is the kind of stuff that would happen. Nobody ever knew where he was hunting, his truck was never seen parked anywheres lol, cmon… My theory would also explain how he got those pictures of the deer alive before he killed it, with a regular old camera, that’s a part of this story that’s not talked about much, he somehow managed to walk up to a 200”+ buck and snap photos of it alive with a regular old camera from back in the day, to me that seems more impossible than killing it, I mean can you imagine heading out the door with a Polaroid and snapping a few pics of a 200” deer on the hoof lmao.. So that’s my theory, everybody has one and that’s mine, I believe Rompola walked across the road and had a hole in the fence of that airport property and had his own little hunting paradise to himself, to me it explains a lot of the unknown’s to this story. If your still reading however it gets even better, years ago while researching this stuff online I stumbled onto a thread on some forum, I can’t remember where, in it a gentlemen was talking about this very Rompola mess, he was talking about the airport property and how a wealthy man from Texas had bought a large piece of land bordering the airport (next to Rompola), I believe for hunting reasons, ironically enough when I looked up said property on the county land portal it had a name like Record Book Buck INC or something I can’t remember lol, anyways the man on this forum had did some research on this wealthy buck hunter and found photos of deer he had killed from his ranch, pen, whatever from Texas and they too had crazy wide racks… just like Rompola’s, so is this all a coincidence, who knows… did that rich dude drop a few wide rack bucks or well bred (genetics) does on his Michigan land for breeding reasons and did one hop the fence to Mitch’s honey hole lmao, who knows… do I have a wild imagination and spend way too much time on this subject.. most definitely lmao, I know for sure one thing, only one man knows the truth and whether he spills the beans or not someday is debatable, what isn’t debatable is that some of us will probably not believe him regardless, that includes me. I believe the buck was real, I do not however believe it was killed under fair chase practices hence why he clammed up for all these years, nothing else makes sense to me. All the latest youtube videos bring nothing new to the plate, same old crap, people going back and forth debating the same old stuff, most of it is hearsay, not real proof. The only new development is Gary Berger, one of the actual people that had their hands on that rack scoring it for 1.5 hours, he recently came out and once again said the buck is real, and he was very adamant about it.
 
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Topdog said:
Take a step back, pretend you never heard of this story before, and look at from an unbiased point of view. We have 2 major parts to this situation in my opinion.
#1 Was the buck real.
#2 If so, where the heck did it come from.
It’s really as simple as that. Now for #1, I believe the deer in question was real. I believe that because of all the people that actually handled it and their credibility in deciding so, a Tribal conservation warden, and several certified deer scorers. They handled it and were witness's to it dead in the back of his truck, I believe these people over anyone just looking at pictures on the internet, and that’s basically what we have to deal with, not one single person who actually placed hands on those antlers question their authenticity, so looking at this from an unbiased point of view, a non hunter if you will, show someone that proof and tell me what conclusion they would get from that, my guess is they would say the deer must be real and not altered. Do I think Rompola’s credibility sucks, yes I do, does his past legal trouble bother me, yea it’s disgusting enough said, I also think some of those other pictures of dead deer, not the one in question, but other’s, are fakes, they look ridiculous to me and I can’t believe they are real, does that make the “big” buck fake, no it doesn’t. People who have a criminal record, lie, and even fake deer, can still kill a trophy deer, as much as we mite not like it, a person guilty of all those things still could potentially kill a legit animal, it’s not impossible, do those other actions establish a credibility issue for Rompola, absolutely, but it still doesn’t mean the deer in question was a fake or altered animal. So with all that, I believe the deer was real, and that’s about where it ends with me in believing stuff with this story.
#2.. So if your of the mindset the deer is real, like me, where did this thing come from, how did Mitch Rompola come into possession of such a beast, because really, if you follow the evidence, that’s all we know for sure, that he was in possession of a monster dead buck. I believe that it‘s not probable, given the history of the bucks produced in the past from that area, that one single man could pull off such a feat, kill all those wide rack bucks with mega inches while nobody else around kills, enters in the books, or even witnesses such deer, I just don’t think that‘s possible, so with that I agree with some of the latest youtube videos, the odds of that happening are next to impossible. So where did this deer come from, farm, pen raised, deep on some public property lol. I don’t believe it could come from a farm, a buck like that would be worth serious money for breeding purposes, Rompola wasn’t known to be wealthy, I don’t believe that was possible. Deep on public, I doubt it, who knows anything is possible but once again I feel like the odds of a deer like this living deep on public without one single other person having any idea of such an animal seems unlikely, not to mention Rompola has several dead deer, with the same wide racks which would lead one to think others in the area would have tapped into that genetic trait eventually as well, more bucks with wide racks being killed by someone other than Rompola, if in fact he was killing these deer on public land. So where did this buck come from…… I have a theory.. Now I just had a long day at work and it’s been a while since I researched this stuff so I mite be off on some of this a bit, but I believe Rompola lived right across the road from an airport, he still does, it’s no secret anyone can google it, and it’s long been common knowledge he supposedly killed that deer right next to his house and near the airport. I have a good friend that works at an airport about the same size as the one Rompola lives next to, he hunts just like us, and just like most of us he gets excited over anything bigger than 100”, he regularly tells me about seeing big bucks all over the place inside the fence, I told him yea right… now you have to understand my local area does not produce much of anything over 120”, hardly ever…so when he told me about bucks in the 150” class walking around inside a fence by this airport I told him he was crazy, so he took a walk on his lunch break one day and sure enough I started getting pictures of 150” bucks sent to my phone from my buddy while he was out walking, dumb as a box of rocks, big bucks staring at him while he took their picture. I’m pretty sure a few years ago a local guy got caught killing a big buck, inside that fence, he was using a crossbow or something and had a hole cut in the fence he used like a gate and sure enough he killed a larger than life buck for our area and it wasn’t long and word got out and he was busted. So anyways all this got me thinking, Rompola lives next to an airport. He used a bow during open gun season.. hmmmm.. maybe if he had a felony record that is why, or maybe not… but we all know a bow is quiet… he killed many bucks with the same wide rack genetic trait, almost like the deer were closely related, in the dog breeding business that’s called line breeding, or simply put inbreeding, trapped animals inside a fence not being regulated like in a proper deer farm this is the kind of stuff that would happen. Nobody ever knew where he was hunting, his truck was never seen parked anywheres lol, cmon… My theory would also explain how he got those pictures of the deer alive before he killed it, with a regular old camera, that’s a part of this story that’s not talked about much, he somehow managed to walk up to a 200”+ buck and snap photos of it alive with a regular old camera from back in the day, to me that seems more impossible than killing it, I mean can you imagine heading out the door with a Polaroid and snapping a few pics of a 200” deer on the hoof lmao.. So that’s my theory, everybody has one and that’s mine, I believe Rompola walked across the road and had a hole in the fence of that airport property and had his own little hunting paradise to himself, to me it explains a lot of the unknown’s to this story. If your still reading however it gets even better, years ago while researching this stuff online I stumbled onto a thread on some forum, I can’t remember where, in it a gentlemen was talking about this very Rompola mess, he was talking about the airport property and how a wealthy man from Texas had bought a large piece of land bordering the airport (next to Rompola), I believe for hunting reasons, ironically enough when I looked up said property on the county land portal it had a name like whitetail trophy properties or something I can’t remember lol, anyways the man on this forum had did some research on this wealthy buck hunter and found photos of deer he had killed from his ranch, pen, whatever from Texas and they too had crazy wide racks… just like Rompola’s, so is this all a coincidence, who knows… did that rich dude drop a few wide rack bucks or well bred (genetics) does on his Michigan land for breeding reasons and did one hop the fence to Mitch’s honey hole lmao, who knows… do I have a wild imagination and spend way too much time on this subject.. most definitely lmao, I know for sure one thing, only one man knows the truth and whether he spills the beans or not someday is debatable, what isn’t debatable is that some of us will probably not believe him regardless, that includes me. I believe the buck was real, I do not however believe it was killed under fair chase practices hence why he clammed up for all these years, nothing else makes sense to me. All the latest youtube videos bring nothing new to the plate, same old crap, people going back and forth debating the same old stuff, most of it is hearsay, not real proof. The only new development is Gary Berger, one of the actual people that had their hands on that rack scoring it for 1.5 hours, he recently came out and once again said the buck is real, and he was very adamant about it.
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This sounds just crazy enough to have some truth to it. Nothing else using common sense adds up at all. Like you say it's all just hearsay and nobody's side makes sense.
 
Topdog said:
Take a step back, pretend you never heard of this story before, and look at from an unbiased point of view. We have 2 major parts to this situation in my opinion.
#1 Was the buck real.
#2 If so, where the heck did it come from.
It’s really as simple as that. Now for #1, I believe the deer in question was real. I believe that because of all the people that actually handled it and their credibility in deciding so, a Tribal conservation warden, and several certified deer scorers. They handled it and were witness's to it dead in the back of his truck, I believe these people over anyone just looking at pictures on the internet, and that’s basically what we have to deal with, not one single person who actually placed hands on those antlers question their authenticity, so looking at this from an unbiased point of view, a non hunter if you will, show someone that proof and tell me what conclusion they would get from that, my guess is they would say the deer must be real and not altered. Do I think Rompola’s credibility sucks, yes I do, does his past legal trouble bother me, yea it’s disgusting enough said, I also think some of those other pictures of dead deer, not the one in question, but other’s, are fakes, they look ridiculous to me and I can’t believe they are real, does that make the “big” buck fake, no it doesn’t. People who have a criminal record, lie, and even fake deer, can still kill a trophy deer, as much as we mite not like it, a person guilty of all those things still could potentially kill a legit animal, it’s not impossible, do those other actions establish a credibility issue for Rompola, absolutely, but it still doesn’t mean the deer in question was a fake or altered animal. So with all that, I believe the deer was real, and that’s about where it ends with me in believing stuff with this story.
#2.. So if your of the mindset the deer is real, like me, where did this thing come from, how did Mitch Rompola come into possession of such a beast, because really, if you follow the evidence, that’s all we know for sure, that he was in possession of a monster dead buck. I believe that it‘s not probable, given the history of the bucks produced in the past from that area, that one single man could pull off such a feat, kill all those wide rack bucks with mega inches while nobody else around kills, enters in the books, or even witnesses such deer, I just don’t think that‘s possible, so with that I agree with some of the latest youtube videos, the odds of that happening are next to impossible. So where did this deer come from, farm, pen raised, deep on some public property lol. I don’t believe it could come from a farm, a buck like that would be worth serious money for breeding purposes, Rompola wasn’t known to be wealthy, I don’t believe that was possible. Deep on public, I doubt it, who knows anything is possible but once again I feel like the odds of a deer like this living deep on public without one single other person having any idea of such an animal seems unlikely, not to mention Rompola has several dead deer, with the same wide racks which would lead one to think others in the area would have tapped into that genetic trait eventually as well, more bucks with wide racks being killed by someone other than Rompola, if in fact he was killing these deer on public land. So where did this buck come from…… I have a theory.. Now I just had a long day at work and it’s been a while since I researched this stuff so I mite be off on some of this a bit, but I believe Rompola lived right across the road from an airport, he still does, it’s no secret anyone can google it, and it’s long been common knowledge he supposedly killed that deer right next to his house and near the airport. I have a good friend that works at an airport about the same size as the one Rompola lives next to, he hunts just like us, and just like most of us he gets excited over anything bigger than 100”, he regularly tells me about seeing big bucks all over the place inside the fence, I told him yea right… now you have to understand my local area does not produce much of anything over 120”, hardly ever…so when he told me about bucks in the 150” class walking around inside a fence by this airport I told him he was crazy, so he took a walk on his lunch break one day and sure enough I started getting pictures of 150” bucks sent to my phone from my buddy while he was out walking, dumb as a box of rocks, big bucks staring at him while he took their picture. I’m pretty sure a few years ago a local guy got caught killing a big buck, inside that fence, he was using a crossbow or something and had a hole cut in the fence he used like a gate and sure enough he killed a larger than life buck for our area and it wasn’t long and word got out and he was busted. So anyways all this got me thinking, Rompola lives next to an airport. He used a bow during open gun season.. hmmmm.. maybe if he had a felony record that is why, or maybe not… but we all know a bow is quiet… he killed many bucks with the same wide rack genetic trait, almost like the deer were closely related, in the dog breeding business that’s called line breeding, or simply put inbreeding, trapped animals inside a fence not being regulated like in a proper deer farm this is the kind of stuff that would happen. Nobody ever knew where he was hunting, his truck was never seen parked anywheres lol, cmon… My theory would also explain how he got those pictures of the deer alive before he killed it, with a regular old camera, that’s a part of this story that’s not talked about much, he somehow managed to walk up to a 200”+ buck and snap photos of it alive with a regular old camera from back in the day, to me that seems more impossible than killing it, I mean can you imagine heading out the door with a Polaroid and snapping a few pics of a 200” deer on the hoof lmao.. So that’s my theory, everybody has one and that’s mine, I believe Rompola walked across the road and had a hole in the fence of that airport property and had his own little hunting paradise to himself, to me it explains a lot of the unknown’s to this story. If your still reading however it gets even better, years ago while researching this stuff online I stumbled onto a thread on some forum, I can’t remember where, in it a gentlemen was talking about this very Rompola mess, he was talking about the airport property and how a wealthy man from Texas had bought a large piece of land bordering the airport (next to Rompola), I believe for hunting reasons, ironically enough when I looked up said property on the county land portal it had a name like whitetail trophy properties or something I can’t remember lol, anyways the man on this forum had did some research on this wealthy buck hunter and found photos of deer he had killed from his ranch, pen, whatever from Texas and they too had crazy wide racks… just like Rompola’s, so is this all a coincidence, who knows… did that rich dude drop a few wide rack bucks or well bred (genetics) does on his Michigan land for breeding reasons and did one hop the fence to Mitch’s honey hole lmao, who knows… do I have a wild imagination and spend way too much time on this subject.. most definitely lmao, I know for sure one thing, only one man knows the truth and whether he spills the beans or not someday is debatable, what isn’t debatable is that some of us will probably not believe him regardless, that includes me. I believe the buck was real, I do not however believe it was killed under fair chase practices hence why he clammed up for all these years, nothing else makes sense to me. All the latest youtube videos bring nothing new to the plate, same old crap, people going back and forth debating the same old stuff, most of it is hearsay, not real proof. The only new development is Gary Berger, one of the actual people that had their hands on that rack scoring it for 1.5 hours, he recently came out and once again said the buck is real, and he was very adamant about it.
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I will go with some of what your saying, if you can post some of those pictures of those 747 size deer walking around the airport property. But I also would think that if the airport has a high fence area, they are allowed to manage the deer. Like kill offs. I live on the back side of a large automotive fenced in property. Also worked briefly on property and know they drive around at night shoot everyone they can. one guard use to make lots of jerky.
I would think if the airport security shoots some 160s in the airport fenced area, there would be some more evidence. Can you produce any of that? Or should I pop another cold one? Which I may do any way.
 
Topdog said:
On fakebook there is a page called Mitch Rompola Fan Club.. Gary Berger was one of the three officials that scored the buck, he is in all the famous pictures you find online of the guys pulling a tape on the rack, don’t quote me on this but I believe he was the Boone and Crockett representative that night they scored it.. anyways just a few days ago he broke his silence on that fakebook page and said the buck is real and everyone that thinks different didn’t actually see it, he did, for several hours and video taped the whole scoring session, his hands were on that rack all night and has no hesitation in saying the buck was real, he is very adamant about the buck being real, another forum called Michigan Sportsman or something has many new lengthy threads of the same crap going back and forth about the Rompola buck, but anyways Mitch’s son has come forward and said the horns are safe and never burnt up in a fire, that story was BS, and supposedly Mitch’s step daughter has come forward recently and publicly said a few things as well… but my internet snooping skills have not located that… hey it’s -20 outside what else can a bored deer hunter do besides spend money and scour the web about a deer that mite have been killed in 1998 lmao… regardless it seems like things are heating up and one can only imagine a resolution mite happen sometime soon, these guys aren't getting any younger… I have only one thing to say that is my opinion and mine only, not one person that has actually handled the rack has come out and publicly said it was fake, they all believe it was real, everyone that believes the deer is fake have all been people looking at pictures, bad pictures I mite add online like us. I believe the deer and horns are real and nothing else about the whole story, I just can’t imagine how anyone could fake horns that good to fool certified scorers, and multiple scorers at once, sure maybe a pro taxidermist could, but if he pulled off such a task, create a fake set of deer hunters, it is my belief that he, Mitch, would have needed help, and by now one would think somebody would have spilled the beans on all of it… the fact that in all these years nobody can say with 100% certainty the buck is real or not is what drives this story to still exist, people have opinions, and some really strong ones, but show me the evidence one way or another like this is a court of law and the truth is know one can say with complete conviction it is fake or real.
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I don’t disagree with any of your points. I would only add that it would be much easier to be fooled if you were not specifically looking for a fake. You get caught up in the excitement of the moment, you like be part of making history, you are not the kind of guy that would fake something yourself so you kind of assume the same about others. And then, in the aftermath, if all that were true and everything has blown up, you would be real reluctant to admit that you really weren’t actively looking for signs that it was a possible fake. I’m not rabid over this topic one way or the other, although IMO statistically it’s highly unlikely that it was real given the multiple deer that he put up, all from an area that hasn’t ever produced a deer like that, much less several. Maybe it was real and just didn’t come from where he said he killed it. May never know. Fascinating topic for sure.
 
Topdog said:
Take a step back, pretend you never heard of this story before, and look at from an unbiased point of view. We have 2 major parts to this situation in my opinion.
#1 Was the buck real.
#2 If so, where the heck did it come from.
It’s really as simple as that. Now for #1, I believe the deer in question was real. I believe that because of all the people that actually handled it and their credibility in deciding so, a Tribal conservation warden, and several certified deer scorers. They handled it and were witness's to it dead in the back of his truck, I believe these people over anyone just looking at pictures on the internet, and that’s basically what we have to deal with, not one single person who actually placed hands on those antlers question their authenticity, so looking at this from an unbiased point of view, a non hunter if you will, show someone that proof and tell me what conclusion they would get from that, my guess is they would say the deer must be real and not altered. Do I think Rompola’s credibility sucks, yes I do, does his past legal trouble bother me, yea it’s disgusting enough said, I also think some of those other pictures of dead deer, not the one in question, but other’s, are fakes, they look ridiculous to me and I can’t believe they are real, does that make the “big” buck fake, no it doesn’t. People who have a criminal record, lie, and even fake deer, can still kill a trophy deer, as much as we mite not like it, a person guilty of all those things still could potentially kill a legit animal, it’s not impossible, do those other actions establish a credibility issue for Rompola, absolutely, but it still doesn’t mean the deer in question was a fake or altered animal. So with all that, I believe the deer was real, and that’s about where it ends with me in believing stuff with this story.
#2.. So if your of the mindset the deer is real, like me, where did this thing come from, how did Mitch Rompola come into possession of such a beast, because really, if you follow the evidence, that’s all we know for sure, that he was in possession of a monster dead buck. I believe that it‘s not probable, given the history of the bucks produced in the past from that area, that one single man could pull off such a feat, kill all those wide rack bucks with mega inches while nobody else around kills, enters in the books, or even witnesses such deer, I just don’t think that‘s possible, so with that I agree with some of the latest youtube videos, the odds of that happening are next to impossible. So where did this deer come from, farm, pen raised, deep on some public property lol. I don’t believe it could come from a farm, a buck like that would be worth serious money for breeding purposes, Rompola wasn’t known to be wealthy, I don’t believe that was possible. Deep on public, I doubt it, who knows anything is possible but once again I feel like the odds of a deer like this living deep on public without one single other person having any idea of such an animal seems unlikely, not to mention Rompola has several dead deer, with the same wide racks which would lead one to think others in the area would have tapped into that genetic trait eventually as well, more bucks with wide racks being killed by someone other than Rompola, if in fact he was killing these deer on public land. So where did this buck come from…… I have a theory.. Now I just had a long day at work and it’s been a while since I researched this stuff so I mite be off on some of this a bit, but I believe Rompola lived right across the road from an airport, he still does, it’s no secret anyone can google it, and it’s long been common knowledge he supposedly killed that deer right next to his house and near the airport. I have a good friend that works at an airport about the same size as the one Rompola lives next to, he hunts just like us, and just like most of us he gets excited over anything bigger than 100”, he regularly tells me about seeing big bucks all over the place inside the fence, I told him yea right… now you have to understand my local area does not produce much of anything over 120”, hardly ever…so when he told me about bucks in the 150” class walking around inside a fence by this airport I told him he was crazy, so he took a walk on his lunch break one day and sure enough I started getting pictures of 150” bucks sent to my phone from my buddy while he was out walking, dumb as a box of rocks, big bucks staring at him while he took their picture. I’m pretty sure a few years ago a local guy got caught killing a big buck, inside that fence, he was using a crossbow or something and had a hole cut in the fence he used like a gate and sure enough he killed a larger than life buck for our area and it wasn’t long and word got out and he was busted. So anyways all this got me thinking, Rompola lives next to an airport. He used a bow during open gun season.. hmmmm.. maybe if he had a felony record that is why, or maybe not… but we all know a bow is quiet… he killed many bucks with the same wide rack genetic trait, almost like the deer were closely related, in the dog breeding business that’s called line breeding, or simply put inbreeding, trapped animals inside a fence not being regulated like in a proper deer farm this is the kind of stuff that would happen. Nobody ever knew where he was hunting, his truck was never seen parked anywheres lol, cmon… My theory would also explain how he got those pictures of the deer alive before he killed it, with a regular old camera, that’s a part of this story that’s not talked about much, he somehow managed to walk up to a 200”+ buck and snap photos of it alive with a regular old camera from back in the day, to me that seems more impossible than killing it, I mean can you imagine heading out the door with a Polaroid and snapping a few pics of a 200” deer on the hoof lmao.. So that’s my theory, everybody has one and that’s mine, I believe Rompola walked across the road and had a hole in the fence of that airport property and had his own little hunting paradise to himself, to me it explains a lot of the unknown’s to this story. If your still reading however it gets even better, years ago while researching this stuff online I stumbled onto a thread on some forum, I can’t remember where, in it a gentlemen was talking about this very Rompola mess, he was talking about the airport property and how a wealthy man from Texas had bought a large piece of land bordering the airport (next to Rompola), I believe for hunting reasons, ironically enough when I looked up said property on the county land portal it had a name like Record Book Buck INC or something I can’t remember lol, anyways the man on this forum had did some research on this wealthy buck hunter and found photos of deer he had killed from his ranch, pen, whatever from Texas and they too had crazy wide racks… just like Rompola’s, so is this all a coincidence, who knows… did that rich dude drop a few wide rack bucks or well bred (genetics) does on his Michigan land for breeding reasons and did one hop the fence to Mitch’s honey hole lmao, who knows… do I have a wild imagination and spend way too much time on this subject.. most definitely lmao, I know for sure one thing, only one man knows the truth and whether he spills the beans or not someday is debatable, what isn’t debatable is that some of us will probably not believe him regardless, that includes me. I believe the buck was real, I do not however believe it was killed under fair chase practices hence why he clammed up for all these years, nothing else makes sense to me. All the latest youtube videos bring nothing new to the plate, same old crap, people going back and forth debating the same old stuff, most of it is hearsay, not real proof. The only new development is Gary Berger, one of the actual people that had their hands on that rack scoring it for 1.5 hours, he recently came out and once again said the buck is real, and he was very adamant about it.
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When I was growing up my dad worked for the FAA as a equipment crew chief at that airport. I spent a lot of time at the airport in those days (1970's) riding in a truck around the "public off limit areas" and I can say there was only a small portion of the fenced airport property that wasn't open field at that time, let alone 20 years later. That was probably a 100 acre chunk that was directly across the road from Mitch's place (now the terminal and a major big box store). That would have been the only fenced airport land in the area and that wasn't exactly a high fence area. A lot of deer were car killed along that stretch of road as the deer crossed through there (I think the deer crossing signs still exist today). Its possible a deer could live its whole life there but I don't think it's that likely.

There is a large section of airport and conservancy property directly south of the airport along with some private on the same side of the road as Mitch. That private property would cut Mitch's (and most anyone else's) direct access to the "public" land. That airport property though is not fenced and the deer would be essentially wild and free roaming. It would be a classic "overlooked" spot but still human populated enough, even in the 90's that I find it unlikely that any deer this big could go unnoticed for any length of time if it was wandering free in that area. Eventually it would walk out in front of someone's automobile at some time or another. The presence of bucks that size would be impossible to keep secret in a hunting community like Grand Traverse Co.
 
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Topdog said:
Take a step back, pretend you never heard of this story before, and look at from an unbiased point of view. We have 2 major parts to this situation in my opinion.
#1 Was the buck real.
#2 If so, where the heck did it come from.
It’s really as simple as that. Now for #1, I believe the deer in question was real. I believe that because of all the people that actually handled it and their credibility in deciding so, a Tribal conservation warden, and several certified deer scorers. They handled it and were witness's to it dead in the back of his truck, I believe these people over anyone just looking at pictures on the internet, and that’s basically what we have to deal with, not one single person who actually placed hands on those antlers question their authenticity, so looking at this from an unbiased point of view, a non hunter if you will, show someone that proof and tell me what conclusion they would get from that, my guess is they would say the deer must be real and not altered. Do I think Rompola’s credibility sucks, yes I do, does his past legal trouble bother me, yea it’s disgusting enough said, I also think some of those other pictures of dead deer, not the one in question, but other’s, are fakes, they look ridiculous to me and I can’t believe they are real, does that make the “big” buck fake, no it doesn’t. People who have a criminal record, lie, and even fake deer, can still kill a trophy deer, as much as we mite not like it, a person guilty of all those things still could potentially kill a legit animal, it’s not impossible, do those other actions establish a credibility issue for Rompola, absolutely, but it still doesn’t mean the deer in question was a fake or altered animal. So with all that, I believe the deer was real, and that’s about where it ends with me in believing stuff with this story.
#2.. So if your of the mindset the deer is real, like me, where did this thing come from, how did Mitch Rompola come into possession of such a beast, because really, if you follow the evidence, that’s all we know for sure, that he was in possession of a monster dead buck. I believe that it‘s not probable, given the history of the bucks produced in the past from that area, that one single man could pull off such a feat, kill all those wide rack bucks with mega inches while nobody else around kills, enters in the books, or even witnesses such deer, I just don’t think that‘s possible, so with that I agree with some of the latest youtube videos, the odds of that happening are next to impossible. So where did this deer come from, farm, pen raised, deep on some public property lol. I don’t believe it could come from a farm, a buck like that would be worth serious money for breeding purposes, Rompola wasn’t known to be wealthy, I don’t believe that was possible. Deep on public, I doubt it, who knows anything is possible but once again I feel like the odds of a deer like this living deep on public without one single other person having any idea of such an animal seems unlikely, not to mention Rompola has several dead deer, with the same wide racks which would lead one to think others in the area would have tapped into that genetic trait eventually as well, more bucks with wide racks being killed by someone other than Rompola, if in fact he was killing these deer on public land. So where did this buck come from…… I have a theory.. Now I just had a long day at work and it’s been a while since I researched this stuff so I mite be off on some of this a bit, but I believe Rompola lived right across the road from an airport, he still does, it’s no secret anyone can google it, and it’s long been common knowledge he supposedly killed that deer right next to his house and near the airport. I have a good friend that works at an airport about the same size as the one Rompola lives next to, he hunts just like us, and just like most of us he gets excited over anything bigger than 100”, he regularly tells me about seeing big bucks all over the place inside the fence, I told him yea right… now you have to understand my local area does not produce much of anything over 120”, hardly ever…so when he told me about bucks in the 150” class walking around inside a fence by this airport I told him he was crazy, so he took a walk on his lunch break one day and sure enough I started getting pictures of 150” bucks sent to my phone from my buddy while he was out walking, dumb as a box of rocks, big bucks staring at him while he took their picture. I’m pretty sure a few years ago a local guy got caught killing a big buck, inside that fence, he was using a crossbow or something and had a hole cut in the fence he used like a gate and sure enough he killed a larger than life buck for our area and it wasn’t long and word got out and he was busted. So anyways all this got me thinking, Rompola lives next to an airport. He used a bow during open gun season.. hmmmm.. maybe if he had a felony record that is why, or maybe not… but we all know a bow is quiet… he killed many bucks with the same wide rack genetic trait, almost like the deer were closely related, in the dog breeding business that’s called line breeding, or simply put inbreeding, trapped animals inside a fence not being regulated like in a proper deer farm this is the kind of stuff that would happen. Nobody ever knew where he was hunting, his truck was never seen parked anywheres lol, cmon… My theory would also explain how he got those pictures of the deer alive before he killed it, with a regular old camera, that’s a part of this story that’s not talked about much, he somehow managed to walk up to a 200”+ buck and snap photos of it alive with a regular old camera from back in the day, to me that seems more impossible than killing it, I mean can you imagine heading out the door with a Polaroid and snapping a few pics of a 200” deer on the hoof lmao.. So that’s my theory, everybody has one and that’s mine, I believe Rompola walked across the road and had a hole in the fence of that airport property and had his own little hunting paradise to himself, to me it explains a lot of the unknown’s to this story. If your still reading however it gets even better, years ago while researching this stuff online I stumbled onto a thread on some forum, I can’t remember where, in it a gentlemen was talking about this very Rompola mess, he was talking about the airport property and how a wealthy man from Texas had bought a large piece of land bordering the airport (next to Rompola), I believe for hunting reasons, ironically enough when I looked up said property on the county land portal it had a name like Record Book Buck INC or something I can’t remember lol, anyways the man on this forum had did some research on this wealthy buck hunter and found photos of deer he had killed from his ranch, pen, whatever from Texas and they too had crazy wide racks… just like Rompola’s, so is this all a coincidence, who knows… did that rich dude drop a few wide rack bucks or well bred (genetics) does on his Michigan land for breeding reasons and did one hop the fence to Mitch’s honey hole lmao, who knows… do I have a wild imagination and spend way too much time on this subject.. most definitely lmao, I know for sure one thing, only one man knows the truth and whether he spills the beans or not someday is debatable, what isn’t debatable is that some of us will probably not believe him regardless, that includes me. I believe the buck was real, I do not however believe it was killed under fair chase practices hence why he clammed up for all these years, nothing else makes sense to me. All the latest youtube videos bring nothing new to the plate, same old crap, people going back and forth debating the same old stuff, most of it is hearsay, not real proof. The only new development is Gary Berger, one of the actual people that had their hands on that rack scoring it for 1.5 hours, he recently came out and once again said the buck is real, and he was very adamant about it.
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I have one question.. How long did it take you to type this response? LOL
 
boyne bowhunter said:
When I was growing up my dad worked for the FAA as a equipment crew chief at that airport. I spent a lot of time at the airport in those days (1970's) riding in a truck around the "public off limit areas" and I can say there was only a small portion of the fenced airport property that wasn't open field at that time, let alone 20 years later. That was probably a 100 acre chunk that was directly across the road from Mitch's place (now the terminal and a major big box store). That would have been the only fenced airport land in the area and that wasn't exactly a high fence area. A lot of deer were car killed along that stretch of road as the deer crossed through there (I think the deer crossing signs still exist today). Its possible a deer could live its whole life there but I don't think it's that likely.

There is a large section of airport and conservancy property directly south of the airport along with some private on the same side of the road as Mitch. That private property would cut Mitch's direct access to the "public" land. That airport property though is not fenced and the deer would be essentially wild and free roaming. It would be a classic "overlooked" spot but still human populated enough, even in the 90's that I find it unlikely that any deer this big could go unnoticed for any length of time if it was wandering free in that area. Eventually it would walk out in front of someone's automobile at some time or another. The presence of bucks that size would be impossible to keep secret in a hunting community like Grand Traverse Co.
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I spent a lot of time on that theory and now I’m officially over it after your post, so now what? LMAO I’m starting to think it would be easier to be on the bondo horns side of this debate, those guys just get to say it’s fake and never have to explain themself!
 
Topdog said:
I spent a lot of time on that theory and now I’m officially over it after your post, so now what? LMAO I’m starting to think it would be easier to be on the bondo horns side of this debate, those guys just get to say it’s fake and never have to explain themself!
Click to expand...
Prolly would have been just as easy to throw the horns in an xray machine and gave everyone a shot of STFU…..but that didn’t happen either for some reason.
 
Topdog said:
I spent a lot of time on that theory and now I’m officially over it after your post, so now what? LMAO I’m starting to think it would be easier to be on the bondo horns side of this debate, those guys just get to say it’s fake and never have to explain themself!
Click to expand...
I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. I've had similar thoughts for years. Now to be fully honest, I didn't live in Traverse when that buck was shot (I was an hour north in Boyne by then) but my mom still lived there and I made the trip up and down South Airport Road at least every third week. I never saw a large buck there. :tearsofjoy:

Now there is a large development of apartments due east of Mitch's that wasn't there when I lived there. It was all wet swamp that would have made up an even larger chunk of "overlooked" wetlands. I'm not sure anymore when they developed into the apartment complex it is now but I think it was at least started in the 1998 time frame.
 
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