First of all, you have to start with how wide is he. It is actually kind of hard to know exactly. I have always heard that an average deer will be about 18" from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other. If you take that as the starting point, a deer has to have six inches of horn past each ear to reach the magical 30" mark. Although it is hard to tell, it doesn't appear that this deer has quite that much bone beyond the tip of his ears. So, using the 18" standard, he appears to have 4-5 inches beyond his ears on each side putting him somewhere in the 26-28 inch range. But the 18" thing is always a little iffy. If you look at this deer's body, he's a big bodied deer. If he happened to be a little wider from ear to ear, it could change things significantly. The reality is sight scoring bucks like this is not an exact science, because it is very easy to be off a couple of inches on both sides, and that can turn a 26-27" buck into a thirty incher. The buck also appears to be growing a little nub on the right G3 which could be interesting depending upon how much growth he has left.
In the end, if a guy is a hard core score fanatic, this is one of those deer you may pass up because you're not sure he will meet some arbitrary minimum score. And that's fine. If a guy is dead set on getting a thirty incher or a 200 incher, he may have to pass on a deer like this, because he is border line.
I personally spent many years hunting with the arbitrary score limits, and I found that I was losing the enjoyment of hunting. Personally, I think if you look at a deer, and he is appealing to you, you should take him. In the end, you are the only one that matters, and if you're happy with a buck what else matters. I look at a buck like this, and the first thing that stands out for me is the big ol' body. Big mature bucks have that appearance where if they didn't have antlers growing out of their head, you might think they were a horse, because of the big long bodies on them. That's appealing to me. Mass is also appealing to me. I have a deer hanging on my wall that my dad shot years ago. He only score about 185, but he has more mass than any other deer I have ever put my hands on. In my opinion, B&C doesn't give mass enough credit.
This deer has that boxy mature deer look. When I look at him, he just appeals to me, so yes, I would put him down if I had a gun in hand and it was open season. And who knows, he might just surprise us when we got him on the ground and put the tape to him. Big ol' bodied bucks like that have a tendency to do that. One thing's for sure, if we don't put him on the ground, we'll never know. He's the type of buck that may not get a whole lot bigger.
Chasing 200 inchers has a tendency to lead to long dry spells unless you can buy the right tags each year. I think a guy who can take a buck like that home will end up enjoying hunting a lot more than the guy who passes him up looking for something better and comes home empty handed year after year. Because, in the end, if you're not enjoying it, you're wasting your time time- in my opinion.
Wildman
"Hoss you convinced me what day are we packing up and leaving this Mormon hell hole for California?"- coondog 5/13/15