Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tips On Quick Scoring A Buck
Bow hunters seem to have trouble field-scoring a big whitetail rack. It seems bucks are much easier to score once they are laying on the ground.
The reason for that is a buck can stand motionless for long periods of time without any movement, but most of the time, a buck is turning his lead left to right and back again with frequent up and down motions. The head seems in constant motion, and it can be quite tricky to score with complete accuracy.
Scoring a buck on the hoof requires good binoculars, especially for animals at a distance. Body size is often a key place to start. Small-bodied bucks with a decent rack can appear larger than what they really are. However, a small bodied buck is probably 1 1/2 years old, and his rack will probably be a small basket rack.
Bucks of 2 1/2 years may still have a fairly small body and a slightly larger rack, but the same rule applies for this age group as it does with the younger bucks. Check body size and antler size for a key to the average age of a buck.
It’s when bucks reach 3 1/, 4 1/2, 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 years of age that things start happening with a buck’s body and his antlers. These animals become more “blocky” looking, and the older the deer, the more this girth versus length of body become apparent. Big bucks look massive, and their necks are large and often fleck with gray hairs.
There are many ways of scoring bucks, and the beginning process can start by answering one question: How many points are “up?” Any quality pair of binoculars can inform the hunter of the number of “up” points excluding the brow points and antler tips. Most mature whitetail bucks have two brow points and two antler tips, which gives a field scorer four points to start out with.
Three points up on each side means the buck is an 10-pointer. There are the two brow points and three more on each side, and the antler tips on two sides equals 10 points.
Four up on each side means the animal is a 12-pointer. Of course, in the case of a nontypical rack, one should also count the “down” points or drop tines. There also are the possibility of double brow points, sticker points and a number of such bucks have been taken on my ranch.
Scorers should also count the inside spread, and estimating the widest point can be difficult until a person has looked at many racks. This distance can be over-estimated in the case of heavy beams.
Try to quickly estimate the length of each beam from the skull to the antler tip. Bucks with antler length of 24 inches can be pretty high scorers if all the other measurements match up accordingly. Again, estimating the antler length can be tricky until one develops an eye for quickly measuring mass.
Next is to estimate the length of the G-2s and G-3s and any others. G-2s (first antler tine up from the brow point) that measure 12 inches are excellent, and the G-3s are slightly shorter, but if a person can do mental mathematics as the deer walks by, it becomes somewhat easy to estimate the green score (before a 60-day drying period) and come to a fairly close estimate.
The next step is to measure antler circumference at four key areas: the base of each antler, midway between the base and the G-2, between G-2 and G-3, and between G-3 and G-4.
Of great importance is the appearance of mass, both height and width. Then we consider the overall number of points, and length of points. We also need to have some objects of reference to use as measuring tools.
For instance, a deer’s ears are about six inches in length from the base to the tip. An alert mature buck, with ears up, will be roughly 16 inches apart. These measurements can help a hunter do quick math on the length of beams and antlers points. There are other tools, such as the eye circumference and length of nose, that can help score a rack.
Boone & Crockett Club, 250 Station Drive, Missoula, MT 59801 has a wonderful spiral-bound book called “A Boone & Crockett Club Field Guide To Measuring & Judging Big Game.” The book is $24.95 plus shipping. Email them at < booneandcrockettclub.com > for ordering information.
Judging animals is an acquired talent. I do a mental count on bucks on my ranch almost every day, and I’m usually fairly close. It’s a good bit of fun judging them, and frankly, it’s much easier to judge a typical whitetail rack than a nontypical one.
It really matters little what the score is until you run into a real shooter. Get good at scoring young deer, and keep trying to score larger bucks, and when a Boone & Crockett buck steps out, you’ll know you are looking at something very special. â??â?? The Whitetail Wizard