If you look at mere numbers, the 7-year-run would rank up there with Babe Ruth in the 1920s, Wilt Chamberlain in the 1960s and Tom Brady in the 2000s. And like all those individuals, it started with one breakthrough season.
Yes, I’m talking about THAT infamous Michigan whitetail, as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Rompola Buck story from northern Michigan. If you don’t recall, or weren’t around at that time, Rompola was a longtime director of records for Commemorative Bucks of Michigan, the state’s top antler-scoring organization. He gained national notoriety in 1998 when he claimed to have killed a buck that would have easily toppled the Milo Hansen Buck from Saskatchewan.
However, as quickly as news spread about his supposed 216-5/8-inch 12-pointer with a 38-inch outside spread, skepticism spread like wildfire. However, Rompola refused to enter the deer with any scoring organization, including the one in which he had served as scoring chairman. The buck soon disappeared … allegedly burning up in a fire.
Digest These Numbers
But the saga took another turn about 10 years later when an article by Richard P. Smith re-emphasized comments by Rompola supporters that the Grand Traverse County resident was some kind of deer hunting superhero. The article stated that Rompola had killed at least four more bucks in the years that followed — making it 5 total — that also sported 25-plus-inch inside spreads (with a total of three exceeding 27 inches). It included suspicious photos lifted from Rompola’s soon-to-be-defunct website.
Much has been written about this topic over the years, and several prominent antler scorers have gone on record to say they believe the Rompola buck was not real. See the links below for some of those articles, podcasts and videos.
This blog post simply looks at the unlikely scenario of five bucks being taken by one hunter, much less by one hunter in a region not known for even 170-inch-caliber typicals. More notably, it examines the inside spread measurements of some of the most famous typical whitetails of all time.
For reference, of the tens of thousands of white-tailed bucks entered in all of the record books across North America in the previous 70 years, only a handful had inside spreads 25 inches wide or wider. In fact, if you look at 10 of the highest-scoring typicals of all time, only one — the Hansen Buck — had an inside spread greater than 25 inches.
Here’s that list:
Inside Spreads of 10 All-Time Great Typicals
Buck Spread* Score Year Location
Milo Hansen Buck 27” 213-5/8 1993 Saskatchewan
Larry Gibson Buck 24” 206-2/8 1971 Missouri
John Breen Buck 24” 202-0/8 1918 Minnesota
Brad Jerman Buck 24” 201-1/8 2004 Ohio
Mel Johnson Buck 23” 204-4/8 1965 Illinois
The General 23” 210-3/8 1959 Nebraska
Johnny King Buck 21” 213-6/8 2006 Wisconsin
Hubert Collins Buck 21” 203-3/8 2003 Saskatchewan
Dustin Huff Buck 21” 211-4/8 2021 Indiana
James Jordan Buck 20” 206-1/8 1914 Wisconsin
Robert Smith Buck 20” 204-2/8 2000 Kentucky
Wayne Stewart Buck 15” 201-3/8 1961 Minnesota
*Fractions not included. Inside spreads rounded to the nearest inch
For more perspective, the greatest outside spread on the Hansen Buck rack was 29 inches. The Rompola Buck was said to have an outside spread of 38 inches. Furthermore, Michigan’s #1 bowkill of all time is a 12-pointer killed by Robert Sopsich in 2012. That deer scored 182-1/8 inches and had an inside spread of just over 19 inches.
Summary
It’s the stuff of which legends are made. Five world-class bucks in seven years. From a relatively small swampy area just outside an airport in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. All killed by a bowhunter. And apparently no one else had ever seen or gotten trail camera photos of any of the deer when they were alive.
To further compound the situation, the Rompola Buck’s rack — and all of the other 25-inch inside spread racks supposedly lost in a fire years ago, so no one will never know for sure if Rompola was a superhero deer hunter. Some say he was a recluse who did not want attention and didn’t care about record-class bucks. Others will point out the fact that he served as antler-scoring chairman of Michigan’s big-buck club for decades and had previously entered numerous bucks in the record books.
What do you think? Is it possible that one hunter killed 5 bucks in a 7-year period (including three that exceed 27 inches) from a county that had previously never yielded one buck with a 25-inch inside spread or a net B&C typical?
MORE:
SECRET PANEL INCLUDED ROMPOLA’S BUDDIES