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15-05-2025
- Yahoo
The 5 Most Controversial Trophy Bucks in Recent History
As the whitetail deer hunting industry has grown through the decades, so too have the controversies. Record bucks get poached and then shared on social media as legitimate trophies. Hunters shoot high-fence deer and enter them into free-range big buck contests. And even the relatively boring world of deer scoring can get upended over differences in opinion. What follows is a short list of the most controversial bucks and the biggest hunting scandals in recent history. What all of these cases have in common is a truly gigantic deer, and then, sadly, lots of discord within the hunting community. This 49-point buck was said to have been killed free-range in Wisconsin during the muzzleloader season. With a net score of 306, it would have become the state record nontypical. The giant buck was displayed at the 2025 Open Season Deer and Turkey Expo in Wisconsin Dells in March and, not long after, the controversy began. Critics argued the buck had been a pen-raised deer that was being passed off as a wild buck. As evidence they pointed to the mount's bleach-white antlers and unbroken tines. As of our most recent reporting on this story in April, neither the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club nor the hunter (who was identified on the score sheet as Richard Waters) have publicly addressed the criticism. Waters reportedly signed an affidavit with WBBC saying the buck was a free-range whitetail, and that he shot it with a muzzleloader near Harrisville in Marquette County. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources opened an investigation into the buck, a DNR spokesperson told Outdoor Life last month. Read the full story here. A Virginia man received a sentence of six months in jail and lost hunting privileges for 24 years after he poached a famous buck out of an urban cemetery. The buck — known as 'The Hollywood Buck' for its habit of hanging around the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond — was a giant nontypical. It had been videoed and photographed countless times by locals and professional photographers. After poaching the deer, Jason Waters submitted photos to a popular Facebook hunting page called Star City Whitetails, claiming he'd killed the deer in Prince Edward County, which is about 70 miles from the Hollywood Cemetery. When Star City published the photos, the post blew up almost immediately. Dozens of people identified the deer as the Hollywood buck by its unmistakable antlers. Social media sleuths also discovered Walters had poached at least two other deer from the cemetery. After a thorough investigation, he was arrested and charged with trespassing, failing to check and tag a deer, at least one earn a buck violation, illegal possession of wildlife, and littering. Read the full story here. In December one of the boldest and most outrageous poaching cases came to a close. CJ Alexander of Willmington, Ohio, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and fined a total of $43,000 dollars after he poached an absolutely giant buck in 2023. Alexander's charges included: one felony count each of theft by deception and tampering with evidence, and 12 misdemeanors related to hunting violations, falsification, jacklighting, and the sale of wildlife parts. Back in December 2023 Alexander claimed he had killed a 200-plus-inch buck (which would have been one of the biggest typicals ever taken in Ohio) with a borrowed crossbow while hunting his sister's 9-acre property in Clinton County. But soon rumors swirled that another hunter had the buck on trail camera, on the same day that Alexander claims he killed it — and the camera was located several miles away. And even after a formal investigation began, Alexander stuck with his story, responding to criticism on social media, and even accused DNR officers of attempting to frame him. Public court records obtained by Outdoor Life's news editor Dac Collins detail how investigators used cell phone records to unravel Alexander's offenses. Text messages and GPS location data prove that Alexander targeted and killed the 18-point buck on private land where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt. He recovered the illegally harvested deer with an accomplice and staged photos on his sister's property so he could profit off the deer and mislead investigators. 'I'm gonna get offered stupid money for this deer head babe … Like buying house type money … This deer is gonna make us money,' Alexander texted his fiance Carissa Weisenberger on Oct. 17, 2023, before killing the deer. Read the full story here. In 2006, Wisconsin deer hunter Johnny King shot what some folks believe is the true world-record typical whitetail. King was posted up on a family deer drive when the massive buck was pushed his way. He shot the buck with his .30-30, using open sights. In fact, he shot several times, and so did his cousin, and they ended up putting a slug through the buck's rack (which was eventually repaired). When they recovered the deer, they found it was a massive 6X6 with an inside spread over 21 inches. Initially a Boone and Crockett scorer grossed the rack in the 220s and gave it a net typical score of more than 215 points, which means it would have surpassed Milo Hanson's current world record typical buck scoring 213⅝ inches. The measurer warned King, however, that the buck's broken rack would need to be panel scored by the B&C for record consideration. The buck was eventually panel-scored, and while the broken rack was not an issue, the B&C panel decided the deer should be scored as a 5X5 with abnormal G3s. After much controversy and petitioning, the rack was eventually panel-scored again — and again B&C considered it a typical 5X5, scoring it at only 180 typical points. In 2012 the B&C issued a press release on the Johnny King Buck stating, 'The panel determined the third tine on the right antler arises from the inside edge of the top of the main beam, and also arises partially from the base of an adjoining point, thus establishing it as an abnormal point. With this confirmation, two of the rack's tines must be classified as abnormal points resulting in an entry score well below the current World's Record.' Another B&C article states: 'On the King buck, the right G2 has been ruled normal, the projection on the anterior edge of the G2 is not a G3 and does not have a common base point; it is an abnormal point because its base comes out of the webbing where the G2 point meets the main beam. As a result, the tine on the opposite side that roughly correlates is thus an unmatched non-symmetry point and is therefore an abnormal point. This moves the total of the lengths of both these tines to the difference column, dropping its typical Boone and Crockett Score to 180 points. With this change, it makes more sense to enter this deer as a non-typical at a score of roughly 217 points.' But still many within the whitetail world (including Deer & Deer Hunting contributor Duncan Dobie) think the King Buck is the rightful world record. They argue that B&C adopted the 'common base' scoring methodology only after the King buck was killed, but then applied those rules to its rack years later. Read Dobie's column, 'The Real Reasons Why the King Buck Isn't #1.' The single most controversial and mysterious whitetail story of all time is that of the Mitch Rompola Buck. As the story goes, in 1998 the experienced deer hunter shot an enormous typical whitetail buck in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, that reportedly scored 216⅝ inches net. That score would have put it ahead of the Hanson buck in the record books. According to veteran outdoor writer Richard P. Smith, who has covered the Rompola buck from the very beginning, the rack had an inside spread of an astounding 30⅜ inches. Both main beam antlers were more than 32 inches in length. Even the largest trophy whitetail antlers typically end up with main beam measurements less than 30 inches. For reference, the Hanson buck had main-beam measurements of 28⅜ and 28⅛. In fact, the rack was so wide, with antlers stretching outward instead of upward, that people believed it to be a fraud. Plus many people simply believed that Northern Michigan could not grow a wild deer with a rack that size. The fact that Rompola never officially submitted the buck's score to the Boone & Crockett club only adds fuel to the controversy. Detractors claim this is proof that the trophy rack isn't legit. It's important to note that the Rompola buck was scored by a panel of three 'Commemorative Bucks of Michigan' measurers, one of whom was a B&C scorer as well. None of them found anything suspicious about the rack, according to Smith. But still, when Rompola started doing radio and magazine interviews he was met with all kinds of criticism and backlash, claiming his deer was a fake. So, if it was real, why didn't he just submit it to the B&C and be done with it? 'He knew what he accomplished and that was good enough for him,' Smith wrote in an Outdoor Life article about the Rompola buck. 'What had been a highlight of his hunting career was turning into a soap opera, with Rompola painted as the villain by those who never saw the deer or the antlers and didn't know much, if anything, about it. Rompola didn't feel he had to prove anything to anybody. He got tired of dealing with false claims and negative comments about the deer and his own character, and said, 'The hell with it!'' Eventually, Rompola signed a legal agreement with representatives of Milo Hanson's existing world-record which stated that Rompola would not enter the deer into the records and would not claim that his deer was a world record — since doing so would devalue the Hanson buck. Just like with all things about the Rompola buck, there are two ways for skeptics to interpret this fact. Maybe Rompola signed the agreement with Hanson because he knew his deer was a fraud. Or maybe Hanson's representatives went through the trouble to create a legal agreement because they believed Rompola's buck was legit. And since Rompola had no intention of entering it as a record anyway, there was no reason not to sign the agreement. Since then Rompola and that incredibly wide rack have all but vanished from the public eye.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Yahoo
This 49-Point Buck Was Promoted as a New State Record. Critics Say It Was Pen Raised
The authenticity of a massive 49-point buck that was recently panel-scored by the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club has been called into question by wildlife authorities and the hunting community. The buck, which reportedly has a net score exceeding 306 inches, was displayed at the Open Season Deer and Turkey Expo in Wisconsin Dells on March 29, where it was promoted as the pending 'non-typical state-record gun (muzzleloader)' buck. If these claims are correct, the deer would shatter the existing 253-inch record and make it the largest nontypical ever taken in the state. But critics argue the buck is clearly a pen-raised deer that is being passed off as a free-range animal, pointing — in part — to the mount's bleach-white antlers and unbroken tines. Neither the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club nor the hunter have publicly addressed the criticism, which has fueled speculation. Now the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has opened an investigation into the buck, a DNR spokesperson told Outdoor Life Wednesday. Because it's an active investigation, the agency declined to provide any details around the case. Outdoor Life tried contacting the hunter, who is identified on the score sheet as Richard Waters, but did not receive a response. Waters has not said anything publicly about the deer nor spoken on the record with any media outlets. The chairman of the WBBC told OL in an emailed statement that the organization 'is presently not commenting' on the situation. Waters, who attended the Expo according to several attendees who spoke on background to OL, reportedly claimed that he had killed the buck under fair chase conditions in December with a muzzleloader. The deer was panel-scored at the Expo by official measurers with the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club, according to multiple sources who were present at the show. But that score would have to be verified by the Boone & Crockett Club to become a legitimate record. Neither B&C nor the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club accepts animals that are raised in pens or killed behind high fences. One of those sources, Dan Cole, is a freelance outdoor writer who traveled from Minnesota to attend the Expo and write an article about what he'd heard was a pending record buck. 'I was shown a picture [of the buck] by a person prior to the show, about a month and a half ago, and we both knew it was most likely a game-farm deer,' says Cole. 'I just held out hope that it was going to be wild.' Cole says WBBC scorers told him they first measured Waters' buck a few months ago. The fact that the buck was going to be panel-scored at the Expo in April made him think the deer might be legitimate, after all. He traveled to the show to find out. 'When they first brought out the shoulder mount, I walked up and put my hand on the burring area near the bases, and all those points were razor sharp — if you'd have grabbed them tight enough, you could've drawn blood. That, to me, was an indication of a deer that died right out of velvet,' Cole tells Outdoor Life. Deer shed their velvet in late August and early September — months ahead of Wisconsin's gun season. 'Well, at the time, I said, 'Hey this deer is right out of velvet.' And that measurer's face just went completely pale.' Read Next: The Real Story Behind the Casey Brooks Bull, the Pending World Record Elk Cole, who was previously an official scorer with Minnesota clubs for more than 30 years, tells OL that the extremely sharp tines are one red flag. He also notes that none of the 49 points were chipped or broken, or even showed signs of rubbing. This would be unusual for a wild deer of this size that had survived the rut and was tagged during the late season. 'The big talk at the show was that Buck and Bear was going to let Boone & Crockett make the final decision,' Cole says. 'But then I also heard just recently that that score sheet never actually left their file and never went to Boone & Crockett.' B&C's deputy director of big-game records confirmed with OL Wednesday that they have not received a score sheet on the deer. Aside from the shoulder mount that was shown at the Wisconsin Dells Expo, there are few pictures circulating of the pending record deer not taken on the show floor. There are no known trail cam photos or pictures of the buck before it was killed, and the closest thing to a post-hunt photo is so blurred and shadowy that the hunter appears to be sitting on a shoulder mount and not an actual deer. The buck's antlers are also chalk-colored, or 'napkin white,' as Cole puts it. This is common among pen-raised deer, as they don't usually have access to the trees and shrubs that wild deer rub their antlers on. The only other time you see antlers that white, Cole explains, is when a buck has just shed its velvet, which suggests there's no way Waters killed the buck in December. Wisconsin's 2024 muzzleloader season ran from December 2 to 11. 'I went around the display board and [looked at] every deer, and there wasn't one of them that had white antlers like that,' Cole says. 'It really doesn't matter what [the hunter's] story is. It isn't the truth. Because this deer died in late August, early September.' Deer & Deer Hunting posted an article Tuesday showing the Waters buck alongside a photo of a pen-raised buck that allegedly came from a Wisconsin deer farm and died several years ago. The similarities between the two bucks are striking, D&DH noted, but the source of the photo is unverified. D&DH has also reported that Waters signed an affidavit with WBBC saying the buck was a free-range whitetail, and that he shot it with a muzzleloader near Harrisville in Marquette County. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Deer & Deer Hunting (@deeranddeerhunting) 'When you sign a score sheet, you are stating that one, the deer was taken by means of fair chase and two, that the deer was killed in the wild … If someone lied there, I don't know if that's fraud or what the charges would be,' says Cole, who notes that Waters left the show before he could interview him. 'But I do know that the Buck and Bear Club isn't going to escape this without getting a big black eye on social media.' Cole adds that there was some disruption in the measuring room at one point during the show on March 29. He says he heard multiple comments about how some of the WBBC measurers were not on board with scoring the deer and didn't even want it at the Expo. As is common in other record-keeping organizations, official measurers can refuse to score a buck if they don't think it was taken legitimately, or for any other reason.
