LAST EDITED ON May-08-09 AT 08:50AM (MST)[p]Below is the lead from an article I wrote many years ago. The omitted part goes on to explain how to judge trophy white-tail. mule and Coues bucks on the hoof.
At the time I wrote it, I was a "middle-grounder" and I still am. Even though I have a few animals that will likely score high enough, I don't "do" record books. Thus I'm not concerned with the "what did it score" aspects. In fact, I rarely put a tape to even the big ones.
My reason for hunting is to enjoy the outdoors, garner some meat and perhaps kill a nice representative mature animal. The first part was especially important when my two sons were youngsters. They're both in their 40s now. We still often hunt together, and the objective hasn't changed.
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IS IT A TROPHY?
Competing for some warmth, two other guides and our six hunters from Ohio and Texas huddled closer to the dwindling campfire. While they continued to swap the usual litany of hunting tales on that eve of the 1976 Colorado deer season opener, I placed another log on the coals, then watched as the flames preyed on the hunk of wood.
The pine pitch warmed quickly and began smoking. With no breeze to alter their route, the smoke curls lingered a bit longer before fading away into the night sky. I looked up at the star-flecked blackness and smiled. The disappearing smoke trails had reminded me of the question my now 45-year-old son, Keith, had asked in 1967 when he was still an inquisitive 5-yr.old.
We had camped among the ponderosa pines in the White Mountains of northeast Arizona. Although it was mid-summer, the night temperature had fallen to the low 40s. Wrapped and hooded by his heavy coat, Keith had cozied up tight against my wife Ellen for extra warmth. He had intently focused on the fire and had remained quiet for 15 minutes. Suddenly he turned to me and asked, "Daddy, where does the smoke go." Knowing I would have no answer, my wife laughed,.
I was still smiling when one of our clients interrupted my musings. I heard only my name. "Sorry, I was day-dreaming. What did you say?"
The man from Texas repeated his question. "What do you think our chances of taking a good trophy are?"
I paused for a few seconds, thinking about the irony of his timing. Although the question was less far-fetched than Keith?s had been, I really had no definitive answer for the anxious hunter. At that point, I needed more input to know what
his definition of a trophy comprised.
Little has changed since that night in 1976. Today, the adage, "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder," still seems to fit. The problem is one of interpretation; a trophy to me might not be a trophy to the next guy.
At one time or another, many hunters will harbor the spirits and desires of a trophy hunter. Unfortunately, the reality of it all usually takes precedence over spirtits and desires.
Hunters supposedly kill about a million deer for each one that makes the Boone & Crockett (B&C) record book. So if my hunter wanted a B&C mule deer, his chances would be minimal at best and astronomical at worst. Yet knowing many older bucks lived in our hunting area, I could have comfortablly said he had a 50/50 chance at a nice representative head, especially given the results of past hunts in the same area. But again, my answer depended on his trophy parameters and not mine, which might greatly differ.
If we stay with the dictionary definition, any memento of the hunt would be a trophy. And many deer hunters do follow Mr. Webster's interpretation. Certainly any youngster who kills his first buck will cherish it as a trophy, regardless of antler or body size. Actually, even a spike or a doe, where legal, might qualify as a neophyte hunter?s trophy.
Then there's the middle-ground hunters. To them, any buck rates trophy status. They search for mature, above-average bucks but pay little attention to concise parameters and rarely fret over a lack of symmetry or the number of points per side. To them, B&C scores are merely a bonus; they merely want a set of antlers to hang on the wall. Many middle-ground hunters will also shoot any buck as the season winds down to the final day.
Then we have the other extreme --- those who feel only a buck that makes one of the various record books deserves trophy recognition. Of course, not every deer these committed nimrods shoot actually make the record minimums, but each one will usually be an outstanding trophy, nonetheless.
Those who limit their hunting to these monster bucks are the dedicated types who have paid their dues early on. Most have gained enough knowledge, experience and skills to find and outsmart big deer. More importantly, they have learned to be patient, often passing on bucks the average hunter would kill in a heartbeat. They realize once they pull the trigger the hunt is over. To do this, they all have one thing in common; they can spot a buck on the hoof, give it a quick going over and come to a fairly accurate evaluation of its trophy proportions, at least where they fit within their personal criteria. The ability to make this sort of judgment comes from practice and knowing what to look for.
Understandably, the limited time each of us spends in the woods every year makes it difficult to practice, especially if we see few deer. Yet there are other ways. Visiting a local taxidermist or somewhere else where mounted heads are on display and playing a little game of "guess how big" surely will help. The most helpful knowledge, however, is an awareness of the average body and antler measurements for the deer species you will hunt. Then if you know the antler measurements for trophy-class bucks, you have some basis for comparison.
A few years ago a friend from Ohio hunted mule deer with me on the North Kaibab in northern Arizona. It was his first visit to the West, so he had never seen a live mule deer. Like those in the middle area, he wanted a trophy but would settle for any buck later in the season. On the first morning, he killed a two-year-old with a spindly 2x3 rack. The inside spread was about 16 inches. The buck came up far short of the quality of trophies available on the North Kaibab. Jim, however, spent his time hunting whitetails on his Ohio farm, where few bucks rarely live over three years. To him, the 2X3 mulie looked like a monster..........
TONY MANDILE
How To Hunt Coues Deer
