Wisconsin Man’s Effort to Register a 49-Point, High-Fence Deer as a State Record Backfires

Turning heads at a hunting expo this past spring was a 306-inch non-typical buck that was claimed to have been shot by a Wisconsin man by the name of Richard Waters. The 62-year-old hunter from Markesan claimed the incredible buck had been a free-range whitetail and attempted to enter it into the record books which is where his story began to go sideways.

At first sight of the tremendous 49-point antlers, the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club scorers immediately had their doubts about the authenticity of Waters’ story. The size of the rack, the number of points and the fact that it was scoring about 50 inches higher than the current 253-inch record instilled doubt in just about everyone who saw it.

As ripples of doubt began to circulate through the local hunting community, Wisconsin’s DNR was soon tipped off to the too-good-to-be-true story of the legendary buck. An investigation soon followed pitting the Buck and Bear Club, who stated that they complied within their own bylaws and in good faith of Waters’ story, in the middle of a scandal. 

According to reports, the WBBC went out to see Waters and have a look at the specimen and immediately noted the white color of the antlers and the pristine condition they were in despite apparently being shot late in the season.  

Despite the 62-year-old’s questionable rack, Waters seemed trustworthy, was willing to sign the Club’s affidavit and even had corroboration from a landowner to back up his claims. Even though they were kind of letting it slide, scorers from the WBBC went ahead and reported the deer to the DNR as they still suspected that something was amiss. 

The investigation later revealed an almost unbelievable web of lies spun by the 62-year-old man. Tracing the antlers, DNR wardens were eventually led to an Amish deer farm known as Yoder Whitetails where they were soon able to match the deer’s antlers with photographs of a deer that once lived on the property. According to the farmer, the antlers in question belonged to a deer that died on the property after being gored by another buck. Game wardens went on to reveal that the antlers were sold to a local taxidermist who later sold the skull and antlers to Waters for $600.

Well, as the story goes Waters hung the antlers up in his shop for a couple of years before dreaming up the record-shattering scheme. According to game wardens, as far as they can tell, Waters simply decided to pull them down one day and make all of this stuff up.

Waters even went as far as even attempting to pay a photographer to Photoshop the antlers onto a dead deer corpse to make his story even more believable.

“Waters was fixated on [her] photo-shopping a picture of the antlers, and placing them on a different photo of a dead deer lying on the ground,” reads the report. “Ultimately, [she] did not, stating it is difficult to take a photo of a photo and alter it, it doesn’t look right. Waters did not seem to understand/care, but rather continued to ask for a photo-shopped picture.” 

With a mountain of evidence against him, Waters soon turned to the investigating game wardens in remorse and admitted to fabricating the entire story. For his admission of guilt, Waters initially received an obstruction charge for lying to game wardens, which was later dropped as part of his plea deal.

While Waters didn’t technically break any wildlife laws by illegally killing the deer (a killing would have had to take place), he did lie to state officials and lead them on a wild goose chase. On June 12th, Waters signed a “no contest” plea and was found guilty of failing to keep records, failing to keep accurate records, or otherwise providing incorrect information and was hit with a $544 fine, had to forfeit his prized antlers to the DNR and has had his hunting and fishing privileges revoked for one year.