well you know like any uh trophy animal out west here
there's always some misconception what it takes to make
basically a trophy and of course it's in the eye of the beholder
and when it comes to antelope it seems like the benchmark is 16 inches
and that isn't really true because when you come to score
boone and crockett an antelope has a lot of things that you need to look at
other than height basically the first thing i look for is mass
the second thing i look for is mass and the third thing i look for is length of
prong and height of horn so let's look at this buck and what i've
done here is i've taped off the measurements
that are used to determine the total score
of an antelope and you have the circumference measurements the first one
is right at the base the second one is usually somewhere
below the prong the third one is right above the prong
and the fourth circumference is up in here
somewhere so you have these four circumference measurements so
logically you're looking for a buck that is really heavy like this the
other measurement of course is the length of horn all the
way up on the outside clear to the tip and the last
measurement that you get to add to the total score is the prong length
you start on the back part of the horn and you move right around and right up
the edge of the prong just like that now
you're looking for a buck like this that has six
inch plus prongs also that's heavy and also that's tall i want to let you
know that you measure each horn like this you measure this one
and then you measure the opposite side you add the two together
and it needs to be 82 net to go boone and crockett
you know we talked about how the booner crockett scoring system works when
you're when you're scoring a antelope now let's
talk about field judging out there in the field
and the first thing i want to make straight here is that
when it comes to field judging if you're looking at an antelope that's like 84
up to 88 89 90 you're not really having to field judging
because those type of bucks look like they got
baseball bats on the top of their head and it's just a matter of once you
harvest the animal to be able to measure it but where field
judging comes very important in which why you need to know it is trying to
separate those 75 inch up to 83 and maybe 84
inch boone and crockett antelope now as you know i told you the 82
net is boone and crockett those bottom antelope in the scoring system
are really tough to judge so those are the antelope that we're going to talk
about how to field judge them and what to look
for and one of the tips i want to say before
you're going to start this be sure that you have a good
good spotting scope because you'll need that to sort out half
inches in these bucks when it comes time to field judge
in my book i have a section on course on field judging and one
section of that field judging is the four by seven rule
and the four by seven rule refers to having seven inch bases
seven inches on the second circumference seven inch prongs
and a total of seven inches for the upper two circumferences
about a four and a three inch now at about 15 inches of horn length and
double that score bingo you have an 86 gross antelope
so you look for bases you look for circumference under the digger
you look for the length of the digger you look for a really heavy above here
for those two circumferences now let me give you a few tips that you
need to know when you are looking at a buck
bucks will sometimes have hay hooks what's a hay hook
this buck has some similar kind of a hay hook right here
in other words his horns hook back instead of going like this
so when you look at this buck straight on you don't see
two inches of that height there unless he turns these heads
sideways like this and then you can see it
so that is typically what we call a hay hook buck and you got to be real careful
and get that side view you to see how big he is
also remember if this buck is you're looking at the buck from the side
and he hooks way in like this from the side you're not going to see that hook
you're only going to see about that much of him and you're going to say oh he's
only 13 inches but then he turns straight on
and you can see he really hooks in and he's got another two inches of hook
there and suddenly he is 15 and a half or 16
inches now i get a lot of people ask me well
how do you know horn length and there everybody has their little
system but my my way of doing it as i talk about in
my book is i always make sure these bucks have
their prong above their ears and then i make sure
they have at least an ear and a half or two ear links above
the prong so that the buck is at least 15 and a half
inches tall very few bucks in the boone and crockett
record book are 14 inches or less basically that
seems like about 15 and a half inches and they have this
mass that puts them in the book or taller
when you look at a buck just one dimensional which would be a
side or a front of you you can't get everything you need you
can't see how heavy he is you can't see if these prongs curl in or
curl out and that will make a difference so when
you're looking at antelope judging you must look at him
from both the side and the front here's
another tip after the rut or during the rut those bucks will bust
off parts of their prongs and they're and maybe even as much as a
half inch of their tip i have passed up potentially
boone and crockett bucks because they busted off maybe a little bit of one
prong which is a deduction for the other side
and will kick him out of the books this is a good example why you should
look from the side and the front from the side he looked
like his prongs were really short but when he turned
you notice that these prongs flare out and you have six inch prongs
so it is really a must that you look both front
and side when you judge a trophy antelope
because they measure the prong from the back side of the horn
clear around you could have a buck like this
that is really heavy up here eight inches if you had measure he's pronged
from here to here that prong is less than four inches long
but he has almost seven inch prongs and the reason
is he's so heavy here and they measure from the back remember
they measure from the back of the horn clear around for the length of the prong
so a a massive buck like this can be
deceiving when you're trying to judge those prongs
you know i've taken several animals including this one that's got
one-inch ivory tips make sure you look with your spotting scope
and see if you can't pick up those ivory tips because that'll add another inch
sometimes to the total horn length of that buck
you know most antelope horn circumferences or bases particularly
are oval-shaped but you got to watch it because
i have taken antelope that have round horns
instead of oval and they're real deceiving of their mass
their mass can be seven and a half but being round
they don't look as heavy as an oval shaped horn
the way you can tell is not only looking at the side but look at him from the
front and see if he's oval or round shaped
horned these two bucks are a prime example of
how you can judge mass from the front you know when
you field judge an antelope one thing that is not your friend and
that's heat waves those heat waves will take and bend
bend everything and make a buck look bigger and he really is
so my advice is i never ever feel judge a buck only in the mornings and
the evenings after the heat waves have gone down i'm
going to be able to evaluate that buck's horns
with no heat weight distortion you know after after
talking about the boone crockett system and
and sometimes folks it isn't all about the score
sometimes you'll see a buck that just trips your trigger and you say i gotta
have that buck and you throw out the measuring and
field scoring system and go after him and guess what i've done that myself
hopefully this little field judging system i have will help you
sort through the hundreds of bucks that you see out there to find a quality
trophy that you'll be proud to take home and all remember fair chase is the only
way to hunt and take trophy big game