New way to score antlers

[Apache7mm]

Cool drawing, I say those bucks are just shy of 100"

 

DAN

[trphyhntr]

If you ask me the whole score system kind of has ruined hunting. I remember 30 years ago it was either a 2 point,3 point, 4 point or it was a 18" tall lope or a 30" wide buck etc. Now its all about holding out for a 110" Coues, 400" bull or 90" lope. Seems life was much simpler back then.

be right back, people are disappointed with a 350" bull now thanks to the internet

[lancetkenyon]

 

If you ask me the whole score system kind of has ruined hunting. I remember 30 years ago it was either a 2 point,3 point, 4 point or it was a 18" tall lope or a 30" wide buck etc. Now its all about holding out for a 110" Coues, 400" bull or 90" lope. Seems life was much simpler back then.

be right back, people are disappointed with a 350" bull now thanks to the internet

 

Awesome!!! They can pass a 350" bull all day long, and I would come right behind those hunters and take the bull. I am not too proud for their "hand-me-downs".

[.270]

i hafta disagree that scoring animals has ruined hunting. while i'll agree it has taken away some of the man vs animal primal enjoyment that i think should be the root of it all, scoring animals, has if anything, done a lot for the sport as far as keeping a lotta folks interested. i'm not one of the guys that is real interested in scores, but knowing "the score" of an animal is a good way to keep a lotta folks interested. and if someone says an animal scores so much, i sorta know what size they're talking about. cavemen probly had some sorta way to brag about their success. they also probly measured weiners too. which in all actuallity is what a lotta scoring animals is about. like who has the jacked upedest truck, and the biggest gun, smartest dog, etc. but i never had to worry about that kinda stuff because i've always been smarter, taller, gooder lookin', stronger, tougher, and smarter and better lookin' than anybody else. Lark.

[murfys69law]

Just curious .270.....What would cave men do to whomever had the smallest wiener? Did that guy get stuck with all the fat cave-women?

[murfys69law]

i hafta disagree that scoring animals has ruined hunting. while i'll agree it has taken away some of the man vs animal primal enjoyment that i think should be the root of it all, scoring animals, has if anything, done a lot for the sport as far as keeping a lotta folks interested. i'm not one of the guys that is real interested in scores, but knowing "the score" of an animal is a good way to keep a lotta folks interested. and if someone says an animal scores so much, i sorta know what size they're talking about. cavemen probly had some sorta way to brag about their success. they also probly measured weiners too. which in all actuallity is what a lotta scoring animals is about. like who has the jacked upedest truck, and the biggest gun, smartest dog, etc. but i never had to worry about that kinda stuff because i've always been smarter, taller, gooder lookin', stronger, tougher, and smarter and better lookin' than anybody else. Lark.

Kinda redundant...wouldn't you say??

[5guyshunting]

 

i hafta disagree that scoring animals has ruined hunting. while i'll agree it has taken away some of the man vs animal primal enjoyment that i think should be the root of it all, scoring animals, has if anything, done a lot for the sport as far as keeping a lotta folks interested. i'm not one of the guys that is real interested in scores, but knowing "the score" of an animal is a good way to keep a lotta folks interested. and if someone says an animal scores so much, i sorta know what size they're talking about. cavemen probly had some sorta way to brag about their success. they also probly measured weiners too. which in all actuallity is what a lotta scoring animals is about. like who has the jacked upedest truck, and the biggest gun, smartest dog, etc. but i never had to worry about that kinda stuff because i've always been smarter, taller, gooder lookin', stronger, tougher, and smarter and better lookin' than anybody else. Lark.

 

Kinda redundant...wouldn't you say??

thats where "I've said it before and I'll say it again" comes into play.

[.270]

when you are as smart and good lookin' as me, just listin' it once ain't enough. sorta like this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_urvjCXg6c and scoring racks is a lot like weiner measurin' and a lotta other things. another way to brag. i'd rather just be humble and know that i'm better than anybody else. Lark.

[Becker]

I think it's funny that people think "scoring" has ruined hunting. Even in the post about the "good ol' days". It was a 3x3 or 4x4 or 30 inches wide. That's still a form of scoring. If it wasn't the hunters would simply say I got my deer would they not?

 

As far as spread goes......seems to be its always been something people look for. There's something special about seeing a 30plus inch wide mule deer. I would bet if you asked, most mule deer guys would shoot the 30 inch wide 170 over the 26 inch 178.

 

The other thing (since this was based more on deer) spread credit is measured inside the main beams. Just because the buck is 30 inches wide doesn't mean he gets 30 inches to the score. Probably going to be more like 24.

 

What would be your method on moose if spread seams seems like a bad measurement. A 70 inch moose is pretty dang impressive when compared to a 50 incher.

 

While I agree narrow deer get a little of the short end of the stick, there is something impressive, at least IMO, about an animal that has an extremely wide spread. Most people I know think the same thing. Why shouldn't they get some credit for that?

[johnnie blaze]

their is absolutely no difference between a tall, no spread, 100"er and a wide, no height, 100"er. EXCEPT...personality.

[ElkDan]

Dude, this is the internet!!! you can measure yer animals anyway you want and post whatever score you want to... did I ever tell you about my 500" spike bull.... so what if I took 150 mass measurements!

[Antlerdog]

I liked the old days hiking through the hills with a model 94 30-30. We shot big deer judging them while they were running away! Now I have a long range rifle / high end optics.

If you averaged the inside spread of all the coupes deer in the record books you will have a good idea what you need to be looking for. I would say 13 - 14 inches is normal.

Normally when the measuring system is poo pooed because of inside spread, it is because of an animal that would possibly book if it had an average inside spread. The measuring system is well established. Just my opinion

[OpticNerd]

Becker, I certainly agree that wide bucks are sure awesome to look at as long as the buck is looking directly at you or away from you. Some of the widest bucks I've seen looked nice and big until they turn their head. Same goes for the very tall narrow bucks they can look huge at certain angles and then as soon as they look directly at you they shrink on ya. I still think the width of a buck or bull should fall under personal preference and not into the score of the rack. As far as moose goes I don't know anything about scoring moose.

 

 

their is absolutely no difference between a tall, no spread, 100"er and a wide, no height, 100"er. EXCEPT...personality.

 

Gonna have to disagree with you on that one Mr. Blaze and here's why. Let say you have two bucks both of which score 120 inches. Buck #1 has 20 inch main beams, 30 inches of mass and is 20 inches wide. Buck #2 also has 20 inch main beams, 30 inches of mass but is only 10 inches wide instead of 20. So that would give Buck #1 30 inches of tine length to reach a total of 120 while Buck #2 will have 40 inches of tine length to achieve a score of 120 inches giving Buck #2 10 more inches of bone over buck #1.

 

Imagine if you will your hiking up through a saddle when out of the corner of your eye you spot bone sticking up out of the grass. Your hearts racing as you run up to see what you've found. As you get closer you can see that it's a matching set and it just happens to be the antlers from Buck #1. As claim your prize you immediately start running the numbers in your head. 20" beams, 5" G1s, 5" G2s, 5" G3s and 30 inches of mass. Heck yea that's a sweet buck bro! But your days not done yet because as soon as you look up there is another set only 10 yards away and as luck would have it this set belongs to Buck#2. As you pick up the sheds you notice they feel just a bit heavier than the set from Buck #1. Once again your heart racing as you go through the numbers in your head. To your surprise all the measurements are coming up the same; 20" beams, 30" of mass, 5" G3s, 5" G2s...., but what's this! As you come to the G1s you about soil your draws because staring you in the face are two of the damnedest looking 10" eye guards you've ever seen. After 5 minutes of admiring both sets on the ground next to each other you pick up one antler from Buck #1 and then an antler from Buck #2. You hold them up side by side and with it's 10" eye guard buck #2 definitely appears to be the bigger of the two bucks. You also confirm that buck #2 is just a bit heavier than Buck #1 due to the extra bone in the 10" G1. So as you can see there actually can be a difference other than personality between a tall buck and a wide buck that score the same.

[azslim]

scores are for games, I'm more concerned with how it tastes when I cook it up

[billrquimby]

Water displacement is one of the steps by which the CIC of Europe measures antlered game, and if that's what turns you on, more power to you. Most of the Americans I know who have had their trophies measured in Europe have not been happy with the system.

 

Safari Club International's founder, C.J. McElroy, disliked the way Boone & Crockett measured "air" (spread) and deducted points for non-conformity, so he dropped spread and deductions when he created SCI's original system for measuring deer. To give credit for mass, he added the circumference of each antler at its thickest point above the burr.

 

His system was discarded after the club fired him, and SCI's present system was adopted at the request of an officer who thought hunters should "speak the same language." Basically, it is Boone & Crockett's without deductions. Width is added to the lengths of the main beams and every tine over one inch long, as well as the circumferences of the widest points between each tine.

 

As for measuring systems ruining hunting, I prefer to believe it is hunters who measure the value of their trophies in inches who need to rethink why they go hunting. They remind me of the Iranian prince whose biography I wrote. He was so obsessed with the size of an animal, he blamed his booking agents, outfitters and guides for his failure to take No. 1 animals. He walked away from an elephant he'd shot because his guide said it had 100-pound tusks, and they weighed five or six pounds less than that.

 

Some of my best trophies were collected on hunts that were memorable for reasons other than the size of the antlers or skulls I took home. A case in point is the female mountain lion I killed after 57 days on horseback following hounds all over the Chiricahuas, Baboquivaris, Sierra Anchas, Santa Ritas and Catalinas. Its skull doesnt' qualify for SCI or B&C, but it's No. 1 in my book.

 

Bill Quimby