Overjudging: Margin of Error

gznokes

Very Active Member
Messages
1,322
What do you consider an acceptable margin of error when field judging animals? What margin of error would you accept in an outfitters judging technique?

I was just asking myself this in the context of two experiences.

1. I field judged a bull I shot last year at 330 and it "ground scored" 310. I misjudged by 20 inches or about 7%.
2. On the recent score contest I judged buck #1 (the wide one) at 168 and buck #2 at 173. Combined I was over 3% of the actual scores.

If you are field judging and end up guessing "over" should it be like the showcase showdown on the Price is Right where the guess doesn't even count? I'd rather be a little under than a little over. I kick myself when I overjudge.

I remember reading about a guy who killed a 400 inch bull. supposedly he was known for never even using the words "400 inches" when describing what were obviously 400+ inch elk. He was unwilling to overjudge any animal.
 
20" on a 6 pt. bull is less than 2" per tine & main beam. Pretty easy to have that margin of error in the field.
 
Hunting is not a contest.

If you are happy with the animal, and like how it looks, shoot it. No one is keeping track of what your guess was, and what it actually scored. There are no points, there is no money, there are no prizes.

Its the opportunity to be in God's country and enjoy it!!

If you shoot the animal and it happens to score well enough and make it to the record books, AWESOME, but it is not the skill of the hunter that is recognized, but the majestic animal the hunter killed.

These score contets are fun, just to see how close you are, but in the end, they mean absolutely NOTHING!!!!

Later,

Marcial
 
Scores and scoring are important to many, but I don't really understand the fasciantion of it. If it is indeed a critical factor to your measure pf success, then by all means, practice. It's just like anything else ....the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.

Life is like riding bulls. You're never truly ready ..... it just gets to be your turn.
 
So the original question should be for people who are interested in score. I tend to prefer underjudgement more than overjudgement and it seems like there is "margin of error" that is reasonable. Ideally its probably less than 3%. If I could always be + or -
10" on an elk
5" on a muley
2" on an antelope
2" on a mtn goat
I'd be pretty happy with my skills

I won't rehash the "are you happy with it discussion" because that is the most important thing at the end of the day. I just get a kick out of scoring. It adds another dimension and challenge to the hunt.
 
Well, do what you want, I personnaly do not put myself into any kind of competition with other hunters. My outdoor experiences are my business.

If score is what you are into....

I live in a unit where many deer are shot and left, presumably because someone failed to "score" what they wanted.
 
To be within those margins you posted, you must be awfully good. To be within 2 points on a mountain goat you would have to be correct within 2/10 of an inch on all the maesurements. Less than 1/2" out on an elk on all measurements and you've blown it for your 10 point range.
 
I have seen excitement turn to disappointment after a final score is tallied. If you were excited when you walked up on a great buck or bull, don't let a tape measure ruin it for you.
 
I'm constantly misjudging animals. Had a buddy on a buck I thought was in the mid 160's. He killed it and it went 190. Bumped up a buck while stillhunting the timber. I put the rifle down and dug out the video camera and filmed him for about 20 mins. He was less than 50 yards from me the entire time. Had a weak G3 on the one side. Thought he was a low 170 buck. A buddy killed it a couple days later and it went 183. Same trip we glassed up a non-typical double dropper. My buddies thought for sure I'd want to go after him. I said, nope, not the buck I was looking for and I passed. Thought he would be 190 at the most. Turned out to be 202. I killed a 18 inch wide narrow buck a few years ago. Was a buck I had filmed for 2 years previous and I recognized him the moment I saw him. Didn't even think score, just knew he was a great character buck that I had a personal connection with. Looking at the buck on the ground I was thinking he would go in the low 180's as a NT. Turned out he went 199 and change.
 
I find that I too am not a great judge of what an animal might score. I don't think score when looking at a buck, rather whether he looks big enough for the area.

My partner and I watched a buck on the last day of the season for half an hour and were just blown away when we walked up to him. We both counted all his points (6 on each side) and guessed him to be around 26 inches wide. He was bedded facing us but down in a small timbered basin about 250 yards away. We had no shot and just had to wait him out so we had plenty of time to look him over. He finally stood up and turned broadside and my partner took him with one shot. When we walked up to him we realized just what a monster he was. He was just over 30 inches wide and had a 216 main frame grossing 232. I still can't figure out how we miss judged him.

Moose
 
To me, score of any kind or inches is only a side note. A good buck is a good buck and i know what one looks like and i think i know how to kill him. That said, i never have seen or killed a true monster buck. My buck last year would have a tuff time scoring 160, i knew what he was, but i like him as much as several others i have easy scoring 10-20+ inches more.

As an outfitter or guide though, i could see where being a good judge of an animals score could be very important. On your little better than average LIVE buck, a guy might/should be able to come within 10-15". I suggest always estimating an animals rack on the conservative side, especially if your client is that way, SCORE!!!, inclined.

I have passed up many hundreds of bucks in my day, including two sure 30 inchers yet can't say that i regret doing so on a single one. They just didn't have "the look" that i was after in great buck country...score or inches never came into play in my decision.

Joey
 
Seeing big bucks and bulls really gets me excited! I was super excited about the smaller animals I killed when I first started hunting but like many guys I progressed to mainly trophy hunting because it is such a fun challenge! I get to do it! I don't closely follow sports that I don't play, and I don't really care to much about athletes accomplishments that I'm not intereted in accomplishing also. Watching the super bowl is fun every year, but seeing guys post big bucks and bulls that I want to kill is really fun!

As far as margins of error, I don't want any. I realize I will always be off a little, but my goal is to be right on! I practice all the time and score contests on here and watching videos helps. Nothing is as good as field judging them and taping them after you kill them to get really good!

I think the score contest #10 right here on the Mule Deer Forum is a great example of how good people are. We had to score 2 bucks and give an overall score, and many people were very close!! I guessed 178 on the wider buck, and 169 on the taller buck. I overjudged both, but not by so much that I was dissapointed. The wider buck was 166, and the taller buck was 164...my overall guess was 347, and the correct overall score was 331...so I was off by 16 inches...I'm fine with that. I do realize that a 166 buck is a long way from a 178 buck!

I didn't study the pictures for longer then 5 minutes and I was pretty close. Depending on the tag I had I might pass both bucks even with my overjudged score...If I had an OTC tag in some states I would maybe shoot the wider buck.

As I kill more bucks and hopefully bigger bucks, I will get better at judging them, and will become more and more selective.
 
Well it depends on the situation, is it a buck/bull you've been watching for a while or do you have 30 seconds to judge him? If I have been watching a buck for a while I want to be as close as possible +/- 1? and I would be happy, +/-5? on an elk. Now if I have no time at all to judge but can tell it's a keeper I wouldn't worry about judging exact score, I don't know about you guys but when I see a buck I can usually throw him in a class 160, 170, 190, etc? If I have to second guess myself I have found most of the time I'm trying to make him bigger than he is. When I see a big buck/bull I normally get that ?holy #$@%? feeling and know he's huge.

If you're not confident in your scoring abilities and score means a lot to you, I would suggest picking the brains of people you know are good or put the tape to some antlers yourself. If you don't know how to score you should try to hangout with an official scorer and pick their brain. I'm good friends with some reputable scorers and I would try to hangout anytime they were scoring something big. We would always do the ?whats he score? contest to see who could guess the closest before the tape we pulled. This has helped me out a lot. Ask what they use to judge tine length, width and mass, i.e. some use the distance between the tip of the nose to the eye (~12-13?) to judge tine length on elk.

I'm not saying I don't make any mistakes but with more experience the closer I get. Last year on my buddies deer hunt we found a buck that we named ?Big Al? we watched him scouting for a couple weekends and came up with some scores, out of 3 guessing we were all between 190-200, my guess was 194-195 gross. When we killed him I was the closest to his actual gross of 194.
 
>I'm constantly misjudging animals. Had a
>buddy on a buck I
>thought was in the mid
>160's. He killed it and
>it went 190. Bumped up
>a buck while stillhunting the
>timber. I put the rifle
>down and dug out the
>video camera and filmed him
>for about 20 mins. He
>was less than 50 yards
>from me the entire time.
>Had a weak G3 on
>the one side. Thought he
>was a low 170 buck.
>A buddy killed it a
>couple days later and it
>went 183. Same trip we
>glassed up a non-typical double
>dropper. My buddies thought for
>sure I'd want to go
>after him. I said, nope,
>not the buck I was
>looking for and I passed.
>Thought he would be 190
>at the most. Turned out
>to be 202. I killed
>a 18 inch wide narrow
>buck a few years ago.
>Was a buck I had
>filmed for 2 years previous
>and I recognized him the
>moment I saw him. Didn't
>even think score, just knew
>he was a great character
>buck that I had a
>personal connection with. Looking at
>the buck on the ground
>I was thinking he would
>go in the low 180's
>as a NT. Turned out
>he went 199 and change.
>
I would love to see the 18" wide 199 buck. Could you post a picture? Thanks
 
And that, right there, is another reason I don't care about it.

There is so much inconsistancy in what actually IS an "inch" anymore, it starts to look like a bunch of teenage boys bragging about their "junk"...!
 
LAST EDITED ON Jul-08-10 AT 03:48PM (MST)[p]wow. thats funny stuff right there. i think that the book entries havebeen burned into our brains as to what a mature deer is. shoul i hold out for a 300 in monster buck or just be happy with a monster matre deer? i think scoring is good when you set a goal and try to acheive that. thats one of the reasons that the elk hunting is so good in some LE units. if people were satisfied each and every time with a qality animal, we would never have monster 450's taken or even 380's in my opinion.

i also agree that you should be happy with the animal that you take and its not all about how much the anima scores.. but i would like to liken tis situation to dating...


am i shallow if i dont like to date girls that are over weight and unattractive to me? how do you think your wife would like it if she rolled over one night and asked you if you thought she was attractive and you said "nope, sorry, i married you for your personality"....

the score and your level of happiness with an animal are both of equal importnace to me. if yu disagree, thats ok. please dont yell at me for this post.
 
Castnshoot,
Here ya go.
NOV17031a.jpg


NOV17032a.jpg
 
Judging is just fun to try and several people are really good at it, I like field judging but I can agree sometimes when he looks big I don't care about judging it all depends on the situation, Sometimes you have time to judge animals other times you don't. GOOD HUNTIN
 
I love big racks, if it looks good I shoot, that is pretty much my scoring system. If it trips my trigger it is game on.


"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".
 
I try and not get all caught up in score cause I don't care what is scores if I shoot it. I know ill shoot it when I see a shooter.

But i so have a system and to me its mostly a dink, a buck, or a good buck. I will use three point and under as dink caliber, two year old 4 point as buck, and anything worth going after as a good buck.

Now if I throw out a number it is usually close on a live animal if I have watched it for a while. Pictures can sometimes throw me off 10-12" but they are also usually close.

elk I have no Idea and they all look big, antelope same thing its just a swag!


4a7d1f93337c7fd7.jpg

Nets are for fish!!
 
I am usually over about 20" on elk and I know it, so I account for it when field judging.
On deer I am usually over about 5-10" and I know it.

On bigger deer I am usually closer......I tend to be more conservative.
 
If I'm with a newer hunter I always guess low. I love to walk up on a buck and have it be bigger than I thought it would be. I'm ok with a margin of error in 6% under, or 3% over range. If you think you have a 180 buck and you end up with a 189 its even better.
 

Click-a-Pic ... Details & Bigger Photos
Back
Top Bottom