Thursday, August 10, 2006
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: The good and the bad of keeping score on tropy deer
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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What about the people who score your deer at the major big game contests in Virginia? Are they trophy hunters?
Well, yes and no, depending on what you call a trophy.
Matt Knox, deer biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, is a frequent scorer at the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show held each September. He has one buck hanging on his wall.
“The only deer I have ever mounted was the small 5-point South Georgia buck that was my first deer,” he said. “I have not intentionally shot an antlered buck in nearly 20 years.”
Dean Miller is chief scorer for the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show, sponsored by the Virginia Deer Hunters Association.
“Back in the '60s, I killed a nice 6-pointer at my hunt club in Sussex and had knowledge of a contest put on by the Virginia Peninsula Sportsmen’s Association down in Williamsburg,” he said. “I entered the mount and was lucky enough to place second in my class.”
This pricked Miller’s interest in trophy deer, not so much as a hunter, but as a scorer. He has scored several thousand racks, including the state records of recent years.
Knox began scoring deer 20 years ago and has been an official national Boon & Crockett scorer half that time.
“I would guess I have scored at least 1,000 deer heads in that time,” he said.
The part of the trophy shows that Knox enjoys is visiting with other hunters, and seeing the fruits of wildlife management pay off in quality deer.
As for the competition, deer hunting is not about antler measurements, or beating the other guy, or winning prizes, or being in the news, he said. It is about tradition, respect, reverence for the quarry and sharing with friends, family members and fellow hunters.
“The score simply tells you how big the antlers were; it does not tell you the quality of the hunt or the quality of the hunter,” he said.
In reality, “every entry brought to the show is a trophy,” said Miller. “You can see the pride in their eyes,” especially the Youth Class entries. The rack is the important thing, not the prizes awarded the winners.
Yet both Miller and Knox will tell you that some people get so caught up in the competitive side of a show that they forfeit joy, attempt to cheat and even give the scorers a hard time.
“I have personally seen hunters slump their shoulders and hold their head low because their buck, which they thought was the biggest 8-point killed with a muzzleloader, finished second. It is very sad,” said Knox.
Many of the problems occur when a hunter doesn’t understand the Virginia scoring system, which favors a basket-shaped rack over a wide-reaching rack. Then there is the guy who had a buddy score his rack and that score was higher than the one posted by the certified judge. He wants to know why.
Some contestants arrive at the show with what they think is a 24-point buck, but the judge says it is 16 points. The hunter came with the false assumption that any point you can hang a ring on scores, but that’s just a common old wives’ tale. Points must measure 1 inch to score.
In rare cases, there are examples of outright fraud. Someone will buy a jumbo rack out of Texas, for example, mount it on a Virginia cape and attempts to pass it off as a Virginia buck.
“Money can buy you a gigantic deer head today,” said Knox. “Luckily, it cannot buy you credibility.”
“It goes without saying, I’m fully aware of all such things, but if I didn’t enjoy the whole thing, then you would not see me behind the scoring booth doing my thing,” said Miller. “Over the last 22 years, I’ve met so many folks that truly care about the great whitetail resources we have in the Commonwealth and these contacts are as much an enjoyment to me as doing the scoring.”
Where they're scoring
>The 2006 Virginia Outdoor Show runs Friday through Sunday (Aug. 11-13) at the Showplace in Mechanicsville. Information on sportsmanshow.com.
>The 2006 Virginia Big Game Trophy Show will have an Eastern Regional Championship in Franklin, Sept. 9 & 10 and a Western Regional Championship and State competition in Harrisonburg Sept 23 & 24. Information on vpsa.org.
>Check this week’s Cochran Field Reports for how the major shows will handle crossbows.
