EliGrimmett

Nope. Haha. I shot at some big ones though.

I've drawn archery tags in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2006, and 2017.

A rancher in New Mexico told us that. He seemed pretty knowledgeable and watched where the antelope congregated on dry years vs wet years. There are other theories that I talked about with David E. Brown awhile back. He thought that their horns possibly grew longer in the hotter areas to help dissipate heat. The bottom line seemed to be that maybe they can grow larger in dry and hot years. Ultimately, I think if you ran a regression the average variation from a dry year to a wet year wouldn't be much - maybe an inch or so of growth. Meyer's world record was killed on the driest year ever in AZ. Gallo's 99-2/8 SCI buck was killed on one of the driest years ever in NM. More than anything the dry and hot years just seem to hurt the fawn survival rate. To answer your question - the number of "Booner" antelope should be close enough to normal that you won't notice a difference unless you scout every year and have something to compare it to.

100 tags was too many. Unit 10 is a major trophy unit. That means most hunters are trying to kill big bucks or hiring guides to help them do it. Because of that most of the bucks taken are the best bucks out there. That happened for 2 years in a row in 2015 and 2016. The consequences started to show up last year. The great thing about antelope is that they can rebound quickly because they peak so early. If the 2 year olds survived last season Unit 10 could rebound as early as this year.

According to my records I show 8 bucks taken last year in Unit 10 over 80 inches out of 170 tags and only 1 over 85 (maybe 2). For comparison, in 2016 I show 32 bucks over 80 inches and 7 over 85. That's a huge difference in quality from one year to the next even if I missed a few bucks. And 2015 was similar to 2016. In 2015 we guided to 4 bucks in Unit 10: 90.500 84.500 87.750 86.250 In 2016 we guided to 3 bucks in Unit 10: 87.000 93.000 92.250 What the numbers don't show is that 3 of the bucks we killed in 2015 were our backup bucks! It's tough to outmaneuver a crowd of 100 people on that rifle hunt and if you don't have a lot of great backup bucks your hunt could turn south pretty quickly. Last year the backup bucks were much smaller overall than previous years so we chose to wait another year with our hunter.

Depends how you look at it. One way is to use the Top 10 or 50 or 100 of each species registered in B&C. Top 100 cut off for B&C: Pronghorn - 89-4/8 Elk Typical - 390-3/8 Deer Typical - 199-5/8

BOWUNTR is right. It would depend on the size of the knots and bumps and how theyre affecting the measurement. Generally if the tape would lay flat against the horn along the entire circumference it wouldnt need to be moved. It looks like the one above the prong on yours would be fine to measure over but its tough to tell from just the pics.

Here's a couple from Unit 9.

Post some other field photos of him please. I'd love to see them. Never mind, I found them on FB. If it's 15 6/8 I would think it might still be at least 83. Do you happen to remember the green measurements for it? I had him 6 ⅜" prong, 6 ⅜", 6 ⅝", 4, 2 ½" for mass, but I had him a little longer on the length. Either way it's an awesome looking buck! Congrats to your buddy.

I thought 86-87 when I saw him.

I'm guessing this is the same buck? I'm curious, how big did he end up going? Congrats.

It's him. When I took the photo I was on the fenceline on the north end of O'Haco's - the buck was actually just east of O'Haco's at the time. This was probably the longest buck we saw in our scouting of 4A (or at least close.) Congrats again on an awesome looking buck.

Cool pic of your buck. It was almost dark. Congrats!

Congrats on your buck! Great heart shape to him!

I'd trade you the auction elk tag for that antelope tag! Most people think I'm kind of strange though.