LAST EDITED ON Sep-02-06 AT 08:25AM (MST)[p]Here's the lead and a bit more from an article I wrote on this topic several years ago. -TONY
IS IT A TROPHY?
The fire had grown smaller now, explaining the slight chill I felt. Two other guides and our six hunters from Ohio and New Jersey competed for some of the warmth and swapped the usual litany of hunting tales. The Colorado deer season would open the next day.
I placed another log on the coals, then watched as the flames preyed upon the hunk of pine. The pitch warmed quickly and began smoking. With no breeze to alter their route, the thin curls lingered a bit longer before fading away into the night sky. Looking up at the star-flecked blackness, I smiled. The disappearing smoke trails had made me think about a question my now 35-year-old son, Keith, had asked when he was still an inquisitive 5-yr.old.
We had camped in the White Mountains of Arizona. Although it was mid-summer, the night temperature had slid toward the low 40s. Keith, wrapped in his heaviest coat, had cozied up to my wife for extra warmth. He intently focused on the fire and hadn't said a thing in 15 minutes. Then, out of nowhere, he turned to me and asked, "Daddy, where does the smoke go." My wife laughed, knowing I was stuck for an answer.
I was still smiling when the anxious hunter's question interrupted my musings.
"Tony, what do you think our chances of taking a good trophy are?"
I heard only my name. "Sorry, I was day-dreaming. What did you say?"
He repeated the question, and I thought of the irony. It wasn't as far-fetched as my son's had been, but in my mind his question had no definitive answer. I simply didn't know what HE considered a trophy.
At one time or another, most of us have harbored the spirit of a trophy hunter. The problem is one of interpretation; a trophy to me might not be a trophy to the next guy. It's the perfect example where the time-worn adage, "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder," seems to fit.
Estimates show hunters kill about a million deer for every one that makes the Boone & Crockett (B&C) listings. If my hunter wanted a B&C mule deer, the odds obviously would be nearly astronomical. In contrast, knowing we had lots of excellent, older bucks in our area and the results of our earlier hunts, I could easily tell him he had a 50/50 chance at a nice, representative head. My answer simply depended on his parameters, which surely could cover a wide range.
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. In fact, even a spike or a doe, where legal, likely would qualify to a neophyte hunter.
And then there's the middle ground --- the place most hunters undoubtedly fit. To them, any mature, above-average buck rates trophy status. When these hunters are in the field, they look for decent bucks but pay little attention to concise parameters. They rarely worry about how many B&C points it scores. Nor do they fret over a lack of symmetry or the number of points per side. All they want is a set of antlers that look big, basically ones they can proudly hang on the wall of their den. Not surprisingly, the majority of these hunters also will shoot any buck that comes along as the season winds down to its final days.
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 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. They 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.
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