I may not pay very close attention to Royal weddings. But when it comes to big deer killed by hunters, few things usually slip by me.
I’m not sure how it took so long for me to learn about the absolutely magnificent deer killed by Wisconsin hunter Johnny King in 2006. While the deer itself is noteworthy, the story behind it rivals something you would read in a mystery novel.
The King buck. Image borrowed from DeerandDeerHunting.com
In fact, it’s one of those stories that leaves you scratching your noggin and wondering, “huh?”
The story is featured in a recently released exclusive from Deer & Deer Hunting and outlines the journey King has been through. It would probably be less noteworthy if the deer wouldn’t surely contend for the world record, currently held by Canada’s Milo Hanson.
Amidst shooting the deer, King also put a shot from his .30-30 into one of the buck’s main beams. It subsequently broke the main beam – a clean break that allowed for the deer to be scored as a full-framed deer. Without making a long story even longer, King tried to have the deer scored by a panel in 2007 (after driving 1,200 miles) to have Boone & Crockett executive secretary Jack Reneau decide the deer’s G3s actually were abnormal points because he felt they grew off the G2s. It was one man’s opinion.
King was left to have it scored that way (not by the panel because the abnormal points no longer met the criteria to need the panel score), having another official scorer run the official tape on the buck to a net non-typical score in the 180s.
The deer is at least 30 inches bigger than that. And B&C allows only one – the first submitted – score to be official (to keep hunters from “shopping” for a better score).
Since that time, almost every person who has scored a deer agrees that the buck did not get a fair shake and should be officially scored as a typical. Enter Reneau, who I’ve never met but can only assume refuses to relent to his original opinion and has made keeping this deer out of the books his personal quest. He refuses to let a panel review the deer, going as far as squashing two attempts for a panel to meet and discuss / score the deer.
I remember my parents teaching me that sometimes right or wrong is something you just feel in your stomach. I think my belly has an opinion here.
How hard would it be to provide an unbiased panel to officially put forth a recommendation and score on this deer? And then call it a day?
It’s almost as if Milo Hanson were the one making the decision. I just don’t get it.
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It should be mentioned that AHuntersTales.com friend Brent Reneau is not beleived to be related to the B&C executive mentioned!
A Hunter's Tales - Hunting Blog 
June 11th, 2011 at 12:24 am
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