Thursday, August 13, 2009
How did Virginia end up with two systems to score trophy deer?
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
A record 363 trophy bucks were entered in the annual Virginia Deer Classic at the ShowPlace in Richmond the past weekend. That dwarfed the previous year’s tally of 285 (See Cochran Field Reports).
You have to wonder how much of the increase can be credited to the fact that for the first time in the 27-year history of this event the scoring was done according to the national Boone and Crockett system rather than the traditional Virginia system (See “Virginia Deer Classic switches to Boone and Crockett scoring system,” July 23 Cochran column).
“The show was a tremendous success,” said Dennis Scott, the chief scorer for the Virginia Deer Hunters Association sponsored event. “The switch to the B & C scoring system was, in my opinion, received extremely well by most of the contestants. There were a few that preferred seeing the larger numbers that the Virginia scoring system gives, but the vast majority liked the B & C scoring.”
Next up is the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show, where the scoring will be done under the Virginia system. Western competition is set for Sept. 12 and 13 at the Rockingham County Fairground in Harrisonburg and the eastern and state competition Sept. 26 and 27 at Southampton County Fairground in Franklin. See www.vpsa.org.
Just how did Virginia end up with two measuring system to score trophy bucks?
Well, that story is long and old and unique to Virginia.
The roots of the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show date back to the fall of 1940 when the Virginia Peninsula Sportsman’s Association sponsored the first significant big game trophy show held in Virginia. The association has remained a major sponsor to this day, along with the Rockingham-Harrisonburg Chapter of the Izaak Walton League.
That first contest attracted 35 heads. The judge, Shag Rutter Jr., simply eyeballed the trophies, much like a beauty contest judge, and determined what he considered to be the winner.
Fortunately for Rutter, Tom Barclay, a Newport News jeweler, had entered a dominant 18-point buck that already had gained fame from a 1938 Virginia Wildlife Magazine article. No one questioned Rutter’s winning pick.
The Virginia Wildlife article had been written by George B. Johnson of Newport News, a noted big game hunter with work published in Outdoor Life and Field & Stream.
Johnson figured that if the new contest were to grow and gain credibility, it would need a scoring system that was more accurate than “beauty in the eye of the beholder.” Relying on his engineering skills, he began working on a measuring system, researching techniques all the way back to an English taxidermist, named Rowland Ward, who published a ranking system for deer in 1892.
The Boone & Crockett Club picked up the English system in 1932 for its first recorded book devoted to North American big game. Johnson saw the English system as an improvement over just eyeballing heads, but he thought it was rather primitive since it was based on measuring the outside length of the longest tines. He wanted something that would embrace the varied and intricate configurations of a deer’s antlers.
The Virginia Peninsula Sportsmen’s Association asked Johnson to come up with the most precise scoring system possible in time for its 1946 contest. World War II was over, the deer herd was expanding, it was going to be a big year.
Johnson put the final touches on a system he had been devising for 14 years, and the Virginia scoring method was born. The Virginia Game and Fish Commission endorsed the contest as the official state championship. To this day, Johnson’s scoring system determines who gets into the state record book.
In the mid-'40s, Boone & Crockett still was using the archaic English system, which was better suited for measuring goats than deer. In 1950, it advanced its current scoring system after gleaning tips from Johnson’s work.
That leaves many Virginians saying, with pride, that the Virginia system is the fist modern one in the country.
While through the years there have been modest efforts to have the Virginia system switch to the national Boone & Crockett scoring method, that request seldom has been taken serious by supporters of the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show. I don’t see it happening after nearly 70 years of scoring under the Virginia system. Some Virginia supporters say, “If a change is to be made, why not switch to the Virginia system?” Well, B & C isn’t about to do that.
The two systems haven’t created some apples-vs.-oranges confusion, especially now that trophy buck hunting has become such a serious national pursuit. For example, if you have your buck scored by the Virginia System and want to compare it to one pictured in Outdoor Life that was scored B & C, then you have a problem.
But you just don’t throw out seven decades of record keeping and tradition. Virginia is left with two measuring systems and two major contests, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
