Numbers. Why?

[mtmuley]

I heard a story once…sometimes the height of a beer can can save a bulls life
View attachment 383305

It sure can. Missed this yesterday. mtmuley

 

[shrapnel]

I’ve killed a lot of stuff, but only looked for inches on 3. When I drew a sheep, moose and goat, I was looking for inches. You may never get more than one chance at those.

When I got any other animals I mounted, I liked the animal for its value as a trophy, regardless of the inches. I have 5 record book animals and over 15 mounts, so record book heads weren’t the goal, but when I did get one, you could only tell by inches.

I have no more room for mounts, I doubt I would mount another animal, but I still look at inches, it helps understand size in comparison to another critter…

 

[Hunter0925]

I do and don't care about inches. Basically, I never lived in a big buck area but measuring something semi let me know I was killing the best of what was afforded to me.
Now, I live in the west and am trying to learn so measuring gives me an idea of things past and present. I won't put anything in a book nor do I care but it is for my own knowledge about what I'm looking at/for.

 

[Wildabeest]

My dad was a B&C and P&Y scorer. As a kid growing up in rural Appalachia, I got to see some pretty cool stuff come thru our living room.

 

[Akcabin]

I guess that makes the important numbers 21 and 18.

Yeah. More like 50+". 3 brow tines or spike fork

 

[nwihunter]

I am primarily a whitetail hunter and have never measured any of my bucks. I also have taken my fair share of small bucks earlier on in my 40 plus years of deer hunting. Anymore I pretty much won’t pull the trigger on a buck unless it’s at least as big or bigger than my biggest whitetail. Not because I’m hung up on antler size, it’s just not much of a challenge to shoot a 2 year old whitetail in my area and I’d be just as happy with shooting a doe over a small buck. And my season would be over pretty quickly. I get to watch a lot of younger bucks walk by and still get to fill my freezer this way.

 

[Frequently Banned Troll]

Wth did your buddy do to be 40” off? I only had a stiff steel tape and an extension cord to tape a bull once. Needless to say after getting done, the mass measurements really benefitted the score. I don’t think the length was terrible but if I remember I was like 20-25” high or so

He clearly did not measure it , and I’m guessing that for him, saying “a little under 380” sounded way cooler given that crowd of impressed onlookers, than just saying something more in touch with reality. Of course - he “doesn’t really care about those sorts of things.”

 

[TrapperJ]

I've only scored like 2 of my deer which was my great grandfather's and one is like 94.7 and ones 37.2 I think I do need score mine but if you ask me numbers dont matter what matters is was it a good hunt? How could it improve? Are you happy with you're buck? Also rifle numbers with ballistics and all that I don't understand if you ask me its a bunch of numbers that might be right or wrong I just wanna hunt and fill the freezer and put a nice buck on the wall

 

[dgc1963]

Ive been lucky to have harvested some nice animals esp for my home state Pa , but don't care about score I always say if he's handsome I'm sending an arrow .Now that being said letters seem to be very important C, D double D just saying

 

[OleRedbeard]

If I said inches didn't matter I would be lying to myself. I pass up smaller critters every year in hopes of something bigger. Sometimes the dice roll in my favor sometimes they don't on that end but, I still love every second of it. Whether I go home empty handed or not. All the little things that make hunting more than just pulling a trigger. The people I share my hunting with. The memories I have made over all the decades I have been able to trudge around the mountains. That's the true measuring tape for me anymore.
I would be happy with killing a few for meat the rest of my life if it meant I could relive the hunting seasons I had with my kids when they were kids.
I would pack a rifle with no rounds just to feel the weight if it meant I could follow my dad into the woods just one more time or sit around deer camp with the old crew who have long since departed this world just to hear them laughing and talking.
None of that is to say I don't enjoy going after big critters. I do. I always will. But that's not the sole measuring tape I use anymore.

 

[Rzrbck918]

I primarily hunt whitetails and I only care about score with regard to archery hunting. Then to some degree it represents hunt skill in my mind because I know how hard it is to get within 40 yards of a old/mature buck in the woods and draw without being seen or scented.

 

[KingOfTagSoup]

I wonder if others have noticed the trend that I've started to see where it doesn't seem like the average hunter cares quite as much anymore about scores as they do about opportunities. I've shifted this way myself. Don't get me wrong, I think big antlers are cool and if you put a big buck next to a smaller buck I'm gonna shoot at the bigger one. However, I personally find nothing quite as satisfying as placing a plate of steaks in my family's table that I harvested. Similarly, when it comes to management practices, I value the number of animals out there. I would 10 times out of 10 rather see an abundance of "average" animals than only see one that's a giant. I would rather shoot an "average" animal and put meat on the table than eat my tag because I didn't find one that "had the character I'm looking for". And I would rather have the opportunity to hunt more often for "average" animals than hunt once every 20 years in a "trophy unit".

 

[Pucky Freak]

Birds aren’t real.

 

[Nick87]

I am primarily a whitetail hunter and have never measured any of my bucks. I also have taken my fair share of small bucks earlier on in my 40 plus years of deer hunting. Anymore I pretty much won’t pull the trigger on a buck unless it’s at least as big or bigger than my biggest whitetail. Not because I’m hung up on antler size, it’s just not much of a challenge to shoot a 2 year old whitetail in my area and I’d be just as happy with shooting a doe over a small buck. And my season would be over pretty quickly. I get to watch a lot of younger bucks walk by and still get to fill my freezer this way.

Same here.

 

[geetar]

The buck I'm the most proud of isn't my biggest but he's the oldest. It means the most because of the circumstances not the size.

 

[SixPoint]

Since I first learned to score in my early teens I’ve been obsessed with scoring antlers. I can remember scoring every critter my dad and grandfather had ever shot and being fascinated by it. The first few elk and one deer I killed that made pope and young I entered but then I lost interest early on as I didn’t feel the bar was set very high for P&Y. I’ve shot numerous bulls with my bow that are P&Y but definitely nowhere near B&C and never entered them. I imagine if I ever am lucky enough to have one qualify for B&C I would enter it. I put a tape on every animal I kill as it puts things in perspective and I find it so interesting. It’s fun to tease out exceptional portions of a rack. They may not have an overall high score but they may carry outstanding mass, or have really long main beams, or an above average point. Each one is so unique in their own way and to me this helps quantify and appreciate it. Where I get turned off is when folks don’t appreciate a critter if it doesn’t have a certain score. To each their own, and it’s really in the eyes of the beholder.