A new record?
TRAVERSE CITY -- It took three years of intensive hunting before he got close enough for a shot, and the first time he tried he missed and thought he had ruined his chances forever.
But patience, field craft and determination paid off for Mitch Rompola, who used a bow and arrow to kill what is thought to be the world-record typical whitetail deer.
Records are based on antler size. Numerous measurements are taken of the rack, and deductions are made for imperfections. The result is a Boone & Crockett score for deer shot by a gun, or a Pope & Young score for one shot by a bow.
Rompola's 12-pointer, which had a dressed weight of 263 pounds, is thought to outscore any other deer killed by any method, including automobiles.
Its antler spread is 38 inches, and he estimates it was 6 years old.
Rompola, 50, refuses to say where he killed the deer last Friday -- two days before the start of the firearms deer season -- other than it was in northern Michigan. But hunting buddies think it was in southern Grand Traverse County, where he has killed several trophy deer, including the previous state record bow-and-arrow buck in 1985.
A typical deer is one whose antlers are symmetrical and well-shaped. Non-typical deer often have more antler points, but they are irregular in form. The typical racks are more highly prized.
"I don't think I'm the world's greatest hunter," said Rompola, who doesn't hunt over bait. "But I've studied whitetail deer a lot more than just hunting them.
"Probably, if I'm an expert at anything, it's how the deer utilize the habitat. I can look at a piece of property and pretty much figure out where the deer are going to bed and feed and how they will move around."
Rompola, a former official measurer for the Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young organizations that certify official records, won't divulge the green score of the antlers (the measurement before they have dried for the required 60 days). But he said that even if he lopped off two five-inch tines projecting on the inside of the rack, "it would still be way bigger than the Hanson buck."
The Hanson deer, which holds the current world record, had a Boone & Crockett score of 213 when it was killed in Saskatchewan in 1995.
Rompola first saw his massive buck in 1996 and
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