North Carolina Sportsman: How to Measure / Score a Typical Whitetail Deer

Trophy vs Experience

Is it the experience, or the trophy? 

This weekend I spent the better part of the days waiting on huge antlers to cross the curtain at the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh.  Saturday kicked in with, now this is hear-say, a record attendance for one day.  Friday and Sunday were not bad, but Saturday forced show goers to walk shoulder to shoulder at times.

While the number of heads to be scored seemed slower than past years, the quality was certainly there.  A scorer at a trophy show such as the Dixie Deer Classic is given some basic training, and usually paired with another experienced scorer during his first event.  Typical racks rarely present a problem.  Cut and dry measurements are taken in which the main issues are usually mistakes in adding fractions or judgments on whether something is a point or not and whether the measurement on the ruler should be rounded up or down an 8^th of an inch.

Steven Patterson, Bill Howard, Cole Carr, and Amanda Carr
scoring at the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh, NC.
Photo by Ryan Miller

For non-typical racks, things can be a little trickier.  Often, the ones with a lot of ‘junk’ are left to the brave souls willing to attempt what amounts to a tedious, and time consuming ordeal.  Properly trained scorers usually make the right calls on these interesting and challenging antlers.  Then, there are some that require judgment calls that can affect the overall scores greatly.  Without getting to deep in the science, maybe even art, of scoring tough antlers, scorers take it very seriously and often recruit help from other trained scorers for their opinions as well.  Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young trained scorers take on the difficult, and potential record book mounts with passion that is often equal to the same passion the hunter exudes on his trophy quest.  Accuracy is first and foremost the top priority in order to properly honor the game animal.

Now to answer the question from the beginning of this column.  Sunday, a hunter was dissatisfied with the score received on his deer.  In order to assure proper measurements were taken, not only did another scorer volunteer to re-score the trophy, but a panel of scorers worked together on the deer.  The deer was mounted in a beautiful half body pose.  The rack, still in velvet as the deer was taken early in the season, had what appeared to be a split in the main beam of the right antler.  This is where the judgment call came into play.  If one part of the split was taken as the main beam over the other, it could sway the official score by a rather large sum.  My opinion was also the opinion of other more experienced scorers, and resulted in a lower score.  The hunter was visibly disappointed.

But my response was it was a beautiful deer, an outstanding example of taxidermy, and a trophy that could and should be valued for a lifetime.  Couple that with the actual experience of not only seeing such a wonderful animal in the wild, but successful in the harvesting of that animal, and there should be no disappointment what so ever.  If we only hunt for the trophy, the experience means less.  However, if we hunt for the experience, then the trophy means much more.

How Bowhunting All Began

On August 29 of 1911, a man came out of the foothills of California.  Starving and without any family, he was seeking help from people he had never met and spent his lifetime away from.  An Indian from the Yahi tribe, he immediately gained national attention as the last Stone Age human.  In his tribal tradition, he could not speak his name, so he was given the name ‘Ishi’, meaning man in his native tongue.

Ishi was brought to the University of California Berkeley where anthropologists studied him.  They could not communicate at first, bringing in tribesmen from several known Indian tribes.  Finally, a student of dead languages was able to speak a word for pine when pointing at a pine table, and Ishi lit up with excitement.

Dr. Saxton Pope befriended Ishi and learned much of the Indian ways.  One thing that gathered Pope’s attention was Ishi’s use of obsidian and Juniper wood to make bows and arrows.  Archery was considered a European field sport and was not thought of as a hunting technique.  Pope was amazed with Ishi’s accuracy as well as his Stone Age type production of the hunting implements.

Be sure to check the bowhunting blog Give 'Em The Shaft!

Chief Compton grew up with Indians in the Midwest and moved to California in 1900.  He was a polished bowhunter before Ishi came out or the woods.  Compton soon joined Pope and Ishi, furthering his knowledge on bowhunting.  Compton later introduced a well known rifleman named Art Young to Pope, Ishi, and the bow.

Art Young soon became close to Ishi as well.  Together they would hunt small animals as well as deer in California.  Ishi taught his friends how to use scent control, wind direction, and natural cover to close the distance on animals in order to take them with the bow.  Young, along with Pope and Compton made it a mission to prove archery was a viable form of hunting.  After each big game animal taken with a bow, there would be challenges of the next animal that could never be taken.  Art Young became the front man to prove them wrong.  Young made many trips to places such as Alaska, the Arctic, and Africa, taking game ranging from Kodiak and polar bears to lions.

At a seminar where Young was showing a film called ‘Alaskan Adventures’ featuring Young on spot and stalk hunting, a young man from Michigan watched in awe.  Six years after meeting Young, Fred Bear took his first deer with a bow.  Later Bear would go on to create one of the largest and most influential archery business producing mass production longbows, recurves, and eventually compound bows.

The second weekend of September brings the archery phase of deer season in North Carolina.  A sport and hunting technique that was thought of as not being able to take a big game animal, was responsible for over 13,600 deer in North Carolina alone in 2010.  It all started with an Indian thought to be savage at first, yet was humble and wise.   An Indian who no one ever knew his name, though he created sincere and deep friendships with those he met.  An Indian who created a long legacy of followers in his teachings.  An Indian who exited the woods in California 100 years ago come August 29, 2011.

Bill Howard writes a weekly outdoors column for the Wilson Times and Yancey County News. He is a Hunter Education and International Bowhunter Education instructor, lifetime member of the North Carolina Bowhunters Association, Bowhunter Certification Referral Service Chairman, member and official measurer of Pope and Young, and a regular contributor to North Carolina Bowhunter Magazine.

Pope and Young - It's official!

Pope and Young School

 This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend the Pope and Young Measurers Seminar in Knoxville, Tennessee.  The Pope and Young club keeps and maintains bowhunting records of North American big game animals, amongst other education and conservation activities and programs.



Bill holding a Pope and Young Big Horn Sheep
 amongst an abundance of antlers.



First of all, when I say I was fortunate, it really was a great pleasure and privilege to attend.  Twenty four of us were invited, and we had attendees from as far west as Washington state and south as Florida.  North Carolina occupied four of the seats.  After going through the training and passing a comprehensive test, North Carolina will likely have 23 current Pope and Young measurers.

Ever since my grandfather brought home his first North American big game animal I showed tremendous interest in the different species not only in North America but from around the world.  Papa mounted that first animal in a full body mount.  A beautiful faux stone base held the majestic beast.  The Dall’s Ram, a solid white thin horned species of sheep, was taken in Alaska.  I remember not long after he brought the mount home, I was at his house and looked over every detail of the animal.  I studied the curvature and ridges in the horns, the color of the glass eyes, the flare of the nostrils, and the shape of the hooves.  One day I wanted to see how the fur looked in different patterns.  In other words, I took a hair brush and fluffed it up really good.  If Papa had not been successful in fixing the fur back to the way it was supposed to be, I likely would have been his second big game animal taken!

Click here for another story on measuring big game.

Several years ago I became an official measurer with the North Carolina Bowhunters Association.  Training was hands on, and started with the Dixie Deer Classic.  It gave me a chance to touch and see and study many deer, as well as other small game here in North Carolina.  Mack Moore, a fellow bowhunter, brought an abundance of skulls to me a couple of years ago to measure.  Included in his takes for that year was a North Carolina state record beaver.

By becoming a Pope and Young scorer, I knew it would afford me opportunities to see some of those strange beasts that you only see once in a while on television.  Muskoxen, big horn sheep, various species of caribou, and even the massive moose antler spread could be held in my hands for me to wander, dream of, and appreciate.  Going through the class granted me the chance.  We studied and measured all the North American big game species legal to bowhunting.  I remarked to one person I was paired with who was attending from Kentucky that one of my dream hunts was to take a muskox.  I have been fascinated with both the muskox and the bison since I was a child.  During one break, I located the largest specimen and made a mental note that I would have to measure it.

One of the two instructors was Glenn Hisey.  He wrote the manual on measuring caribou, and the consensus was caribou is probably the biggest pain to measure and get right the first time.  The caribou requires the most different types of measurements and no two are alike.  We spent an extensive amount of time studying whitetail, both typical and non-typical (one in which the antlers do not grow in a normal way).  Whitetail is by far the most popular big game animal in North America.  For instance, at the Dixie Deer Classic this past March, over 700 antlers were measured.

Once we got to the muskox though, I was anxious and excited.  That is until we were taught how to get the required measurements.  The big guy that I wanted to take on, well it was the one I got.  Let’s just say that muskox is not one of my dream hunts any more.  Not because of the difficulty of the hunt, because if I were to take one that had a chance at record book, that some poor soul would have to endure the challenge of measuring it.  That could easily be as difficult as the hunt.