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LANSING, MI — Michigan bowhunter Mike Bowser is no stranger to controversy. When the Detroit-area trophy hunter arrowed his latest monster whitetail last fall—an incredible six-year old 12-point with a jaw dropping 34-inch spread—skeptics insisted the incredible rack had to be a hoax and that Bowser was a fraud.

The skull and antlers of the now infamous “Bowser Buck” have since been verified as authentic by impartial experts from the Safari Club International, Boone and Crockett, and the Pope and Young Club. Bowser seemed vindicated with a rack, scoring 218¼, almost five points larger than Milo Hanson’s Saskatchewan monster.

In a move potentially worth millions, Bowser—a Hoyt pro-staff member and paid consultant for hunting products manufacturers too numerous to mention—was set to go ahead with licensing the sale of replica antlers, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and “Bowser Buck” memorabilia.

But Bowser ran into trouble again this month when he tried to trademark for himself the seemingly innocuous title of “Supreme Maha Master Whitetail Hunter” and “The Bowser Buck: The Undisputed World Record Whitetail By Any Measure.”

Following the lead of legendary Chuck “The World’s Most Successful Bowhunter” Adams, Bowser trademarked the name “The World’s Ultimate Whitetail Bowhunter” in 1997.
Like Adams, Bowser wants to use the self-proclaimed title for product endorsements and promotional material for his annual speaking tour at hunting shows and whitetail exhibits throughout the country.

But is the “Bowser Buck” really the “undisputed” world record “by any measure”?

“Right now, I have the top spot in every record book except one,” says Bowser.

At issue is the scoring method used by the newest big game record club for bowhunters. Early in 2006, officials from the Lansing-based trophy organization Hunters Ultra-Extreme, or Club HU-E as it is more commonly known, announced in a press release that the Bowser Buck was not #1 in their book.
Said HU-E president Rolland Chambers, “Our members are the most serious hunters in the world…the kind of bowhunters who judge a true trophy not merely by the size of the rack but by the story behind the hunt and the methods by which the animal was taken.”

Right now, the number one spot in the HU-E record book happens to be a six point taken by Chambers himself.

While the buck’s rack in the accompanying picture appears slightly larger than average, the listing says Chambers “harvested” the deer wearing handmade moccasins and a loincloth. In the picture, Chambers is smiling through a dark mask he points out is not commercial face paint but rather smeared on mud. He was shooting a flinthead and a sinew-backed hickory selfbow of his own design.

“They’re not bowhunters. They’re a bunch of traditional zealots,” insists Bowser. “A bunch of rich white guys running around playing Indian. It’s a real freak show down there, but unfortunately traditional bowhunting is growing in popularity and now controls over ten percent of the bowhunting market.”

Bowser claims that HU-E’s scoring system—which in a phone interview he repeatedly referred to as “seriously whacked”—is unrealistic, biased, and stands to cost him millions.

Under HU-E club rules, the cumulative score of a big game animal—in this case a typical whitetail buck—is taking by adding the total number of inches from the antlers’ main beams, spread, each individual tine length, etc. Just like the now standard Boone and Crocket Club scoring system, points are then deducted for any lack of symmetry or non-typical points—of which the Bowser rack has none.

But unlike other clubs, HU-E also makes deductions for a litany of factors—from equipment choices to overall hunting method—most modern hunters like Bowser have denounced as superfluous.

The concept is not new. Up until recently, the Pope & Young Club refused to acknowledge trophies entered into their record book by hunters who were using a bow of more than 50 percent let-off. They have since up the minimum let-off requirement to 65-percent.

Another club, the Colorado-based Compton Traditional Bowhunters of which HU-E president Chambers was once a low-level member, formed their own criteria for recording big game animals with a system that included “equipment and method-of-hunting point awards.”

It works like this: Under Compton’s system, hunters who use self-made wood arrows, longbows, ground blinds instead of treestands, and refuse the services of a guide are eligible for more points and potentially higher standing after they pay $25 to enter an animal into the archive.

According to Chambers, Club HU-E takes this concept to the next level by deducting points for things the HU-E board views as “not corresponding to HU-E’s stringent standards of fair chase.”

“Mr. Bowser has gone public stating that he killed that buck on private ground over bait and with a modern compound bow with eighty-five percent let-off. Right there he loses fifteen points under our system,” says Chambers.

But there’s more. Under HU-E’s rules, if Bowser had used wood arrows and a cut-on-contact broadhead (i.e. a Bear Razorhead or Zwickey Eskimo), he would not have been subjected to any further deductions.

But Bowser is product representative known for shooting only Easton “Axis” shafts and Rocky Mountain “Assassin” mechanical broadheads, which spring open and cut on contact. That’s another 10-point deduction, combined. Factoring in that Bowser was quoted and pictured with his 12-point buck in numerous magazine advertisements for Big Jon tree stands and his own signature camouflage Scent-Loc suit and, according to Chambers, “Bowser’s buck starts dropping points like brown needles off a dead old Christmas tree.”

“Our system of measure is about respecting the animal by rewarding hunters who practice fair chase, not those who rely on technology to do the work for them,” says Chambers.

“We’re also a private club and we can make our own rules. If Mr. Bowser doesn’t like the rules he’s at liberty not to try to enter his deer in our archive.”

“That’s a bunch of baloney,” says Bowser. “I’m doing this to honor the animal. I’m doing this for every hunter out there whose every dreamed of taking a world-class animal and then seeing their accomplishment recognized in its rightful place in the record book.”