How can you call a guy a dishonest fraud that has over a dozen bucks on the wall with a bow that will top 160"?
He's a fraud if he's not actually killing them where he says he is or even killing them with a bow. He's also a fraud if some or all of the racks are synthetic fakes or cobbled together from sheds remounted onto a dead deer head.
I could care less who you know or stories you could tell because to say that they have interacted .
LOL! Yeah to heck with people that actually know him and have interacted with him. Lets base what we think of the man on internet urban legends that have zero basis in reality. Many of which are legends that he himself started.
because the guy is almost a total recluse who doesn't interact with much of anything but deer in the woods up there.
This is the most laughable myth about him. He has loooong been a seeker of the spotlight. Went around speaking at hunting expos. Submitting stories to hunting magazines. Always making lots of wild boasts. For example he claims to have killed the Missouri state record buck with a field tip when he was 14 years old. Of course no one can back that story up and no official record of such a deer exists. He had his own website called RompolaWhitetails.com or something like that. With the deer in question he had lined up multiple sponsors, scent company, bow company, etc, who were going to pay to use the buck in their advertising. He was going around to hunting expos and selling pictures of the deer and telling everyone that it was the new world record. Yep, quite the recluse huh? In fact here's a photo of him where he was caught in full spotlight dodge mode. Pay no attention to those trophies he's holding. Just because he's posing with them in hand for a photo doesn't mean he cares about them. LOL!
Oh, are you aware that he started telling people he was pursuing the now infamous would be world record buck 2 years before he supposedly killed it? He was even showing people photos at hunting expos and various events that were supposedly photos of the deer when it was still alive. Of course every photo just showed the head and neck jutting out of some bushes. In other words it was a shoulder mount strategically placed to hide the lack of a body in each photo. Oh, and the buck had the exact identical same rack in those photos as it did two years later when he supposedly killed it. Cause as we know racks of that size stay exact the same size across 3 different growing seasons.
But it gets better? Back in 1993 he approached a guy I know at a banquet in Traverse City, Mi (cause you know those total recluses don't miss a banquet) he claimed back then to be on the trail of yet another world record buck. A claim he would repeat again in years to come with the infamous would be world record and in exactly the same way. As he would also do again with the next supposed world record he showed my friend a photo of the deer supposedly alive. My friend says it was a very poorly done full body mount of a deer. Remember Rompola is a half @$$ed taxidermist and does a lot of his own mounts. Problem is that he isn't that great of a taxidermist and much of his work looks pretty bad. So did this. My friend said it was glaringly obvious that it was not a live deer. Glaringly! The mount not only looked bad but the horns were different. One side was a normal color and the other was a faded white kind of like you would see with a shed antler that had been faded by the sun. When my friend pointed these facts out he said Mitch quickly shut up about the deer and slipped away.
But what about Mitch himself? Is he the kind of guy that might try something dishonest? Well when he was working for the post office he stole thousands of dollars worth of food stamps out of the mail. A crime that would have landed him in prison for years if not for the intervention of a family friend with powerful influence in the legal community. He was also arrested later on for using a small hidden camera to film up women's dresses at a mall. Yep, what a swell guy.
has over a dozen bucks on the wall with a bow that will top 160"?
Yeah and that's a problem too. The area he hunts around Traverse City, MI is not known for big bucks. Poor genetics, poor food sources and very high hunting pressure. I don't care how good a hunter you are you can only kill what's out there. Your skill level doesn't make the deer grow bigger in your area. And I don't for a minute concede that he's actually a great hunter. A statistician computed the odds of Rompola killing that many B&C caliber bucks in the Traverse City area as astronomical. It's the kind of place where a 170 class deer is as rare as a unicorn.
but most of them are probably just envious of the guy's accomplishments in the field.
Oh lord, not the you're just jealous defense. LOL! Then why aren't I and all of Rompola's critics bitter and envious of all the other people who have killed world record animals? Hmm? Why don't I hate Milo Hanson or Mel Johnson? Why are people only jealous of Mitch? That is laughable. If I can get you to jettison only one defense of this fraud, for Gods sake let it be that baseless one.
Rompola has a standing offer of 20,000 dollars just to let the rack be X-Rayed. He refuses. The only excuse offered by his defenders for his refusal is the "he's just a recluse that doesn't care about money or fame" line of BS. The only problem is that the mans actions throughout his life do not support this claim. He has very much sought to be in the spotlight of the hunting community and reap the fame and fortune it would bring. Strip away that defense (as the actual evidence of his life does) and you are left with no honest reason the man would not let this rack be examined thoroughly. I mean think of it. Proving all your worst critics wrong and collecting 20,000 dollars in the same deal. Only a man with something to hide would pass a deal like that.