BOWFANATIC

I haven' t read the article yet , but I find it hard to believe that this well known writer for a hunting magazine would stick his neck on the chopping block like this if he didn' t truly believe the authenticity of Rompolas buck.

I' ve been a fence sitter on this one for a long time , leaning towards the nay sayers , but I think I' d have to give this writer the benefit of the doubt and start leaning towards Rompolas side.

BenfromVa

OK, OK I posted this a few years ago when the " great Debate came up then when it was " timely"

DO YOU know what an octodecillion is? It' s the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 57 zeroes. The reason I know is because of Mitch Rompola and his claim of killing a world-record deer in Grand Traverse County.


North American Hunter magazine did a story on Rompola that includes a mathematical analysis of his claims of killing a batch of record-book whitetails in Grand Traverse County over 31 years.


those deer were listed in a column a few months ago and noted that he seemed to be impossibly successful in killing record-book deer in an area where no one else was able to get more than one.


I didn' t go to a statistician to see if we could figure out just how wild those claims were.North American Hunter did!!!!
Asking Dr. Steven Wise of James Madison University to calculate the odds of Rompola' s claims. The estimates actually are conservative, because they count only deer that Rompola entered in the records of Commemorative Bucks of Michigan, Pope & Young or Boone and Crockett. It didn' t include a bunch more (Rompola gave different figures in different interviews) he says he never entered.


Here are Wise' s calculations:





The odds of anyone taking CBM-quality bucks from Grand Traverse County in seven consecutive years are one in 100 trillion, or one in 100,000,000,000,000.




The odds of taking 11 CBM bucks from Grand Traverse in 31 years are one in 7.04 quadrillion, or one in 7,040,000,000,000,000.




The odds of taking four B&C bucks in Grand Traverse County in 17 years are one in 28.2 quintillion, or one in 28,200,000,000,000,000,000.




The odds of killing nine P&Y bucks in Grand Traverse in nine years are 1 in 16.7 quattuordecillion, or 1 in 16,700,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000.




And the odds of killing 13 P&Y deer in Grand Traverse in 31 years is one in 15.6 octodecillion.

That' s one in 15,600,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,-000,000.


If you want to put those numbers in perspective, the magazine did some research and found that:





The odds that an airplane will land on you sometime this year are one in 25,000,000.




The odds that you' ll get on a plane with a bomb aboard are one in 100,000,000.




The odds that you' ll be hit by lightning tomorrow are one in 250,000,000.

Now I want you to look at the number of zeroes that follow the three instances above, then compare them to the number of zeroes in the odds of Rompola' s chances of achieving his hunting records.


Each additional zero multiplies the unlikelihood of the event happening by a factor of 10. And Rompola claims to have killed not just 13 record deer there but about 20, which would add so many zeroes to the odds that I' d doubt we could fit them on this page.


Does that make you wonder? And not just about the world-record deer, but about a lot of Rompola' s claims.



I' ll tell you straight out that I could never accept Rompola' s " world-record" deer without scrutiny that includes an X ray to prove that the rack hasn' t been faked. That decision was based largely on numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in Rompola' s own story that are only reinforced by North American Hunter' s analysis.


For example, Rompola has told friends he had his deer X-rayed to prove it wasn' t a fake, although he won' t produce the X ray.


The best reply to that came from Dr. E. Kevin Harmon, a dentist and deer hunter from Lafayette, La., who wrote: " In other words, he wanted to prove to himself that he hadn' t accidentally shot a fabricated rack that happened to walk by his stand.

Harmon continued sarcastically: " Personally, I always X-ray every buck I take for the same reason. I don' t want to be known as an unethical hunter who shoots fabricated racks in the wild, and if I' m ever asked to show any of the X rays, I always say no."

But there are people who still insist on saying they believe Rompola because they " feel" he did it. Is it any wonder that con men can sell the Brooklyn Bridge or " psychics" are hustling those 1-900 numbers on late-night TV?



As far as I' m concerned, there is no world-record Rompola deer. Milo Hanson' s 213 5/8 buck, shot in 1993, will be the world' s top whitetail until someone submits a bigger rack to Boone & Crockett or Pope & Young for any kind of verification they demand.

don loch

Wow .... you said a mouthful!! ( by the way Nub, I am not critiziseing or judging benfromVa)

nub

Well Ben, I' d have to say NAH mag is as talented with cooking up numbers as the WI. DNR is with their SAK formula.

muliebuck

Whether the deer is real or not I don' t care. If it' s real it' s his buisness, if fake he' s a lying sob. BUT I can see how facts get screwed up. I am pretty sure the magazine never claimed all his P&Y bucks came from Grand Traverse Co. It said only a few of them did. Check it out but I' m pretty sure it didn' t say 13.

RICHIE3

Here is a question for all of you,

If this guy is so " private" minded and keeps to himself, why then, about the time all of this garbage settles down, does he do an interview to get things stirred back up again???


You would tend to believe that if he was so hell bent on keeping it out of the record books and the limelight for such a long period of time, he would have no problem telling a writer for a magazine " No Comment" on an article about his " deer" and wished to be left alone.....................................




Unle$$ $ome other form of enticement was $lipped under hi$ door......................



It' $ all about the money boy$ and girl$...................He i$ getting hi$, along with the magazine getting their$.............



As long as we keep throwing the all-mighty dollar at magazines that run stories like this, they will always be around..................

Belle Island

benfromva, I agree, I think this deer is a fake. But, I' m not sure those numbers can be trusted. For instance, I know a guy who has killed about 7 P&Y deer in 10yrs on a heavily hunted public refuge. For most people, the odds of that happening are impossible. However, this guy is an amazing hunter. Every morning of the season he hikes way back into the refuge, sets his stands an hour before daylight and hunts until dark. I think the numbers used in NAH are calculated based on deer harvested by the average hunter. Most of the guys I know who consistently kill P&Y bucks, they are everything but average. My point is, a really good hunter who puts the time in could easily kill 13 P&Y deer in 31 years, especially in Michigan.

BenfromVa

Nub, Belle
I am not saying one way or another that he killed it or did not.
I have questions about the so called private life, if he is so private why did he enter other bucks?
Why has he bragged about book buck that would make it but did not enter those that were slightly smallerbut still made book?
Why when given the oppertunity to PUT UP or SHUT UP by Milo Hanson he shut up.
Why did he originally claim and shout that he had killed the WORLD RECORD?
Why does a braggard suddenly become so private?
He would be someone who knew that a cliam like that would require proof( he has already entered several bucks in his lifetime)

Why when given the oppertunity to make money for doing nothing did he still turn it down?(if its all about the money?)
I know he was offered up to $20,000 just to have the skull ex-rayed. He refused.

Here is a pic of Fabricated antlers, can you tell with out examining them ?



There are not MITCH' s antlers, there someone elses, Here is another



This is all crazy. I have no idea if he killed a worl record or not. I have my own opinions though.


Here is a link to a copy of the agreement Mitch signed if you care to read it.

http://www.rodharrison.com/bucks/rompolacontract.htm

davidmil

Was it PT Barnum that said, " There' s one born every minute" .

I guarANTEE this man ISN' T telling the whole truth![:-]

BrianDamage

I don' t know whether or not he killed the buck or not. Don' t really care to tell you the truth.

According to that article, the only place he registered any of his bucks with is " Commemorative Bucks of Michigan" . He has not registered ANY deer with any national record keeping organizations.

Maybe somebody will beat the Hanson buck someday and get Rompola out of the agreement and he will allow the antlers to be examined. " till then, I guess we' ll never know.