Scoring a 380 Bull
I had the opportunity to score a very pretty elk last Thursday night. My friend and neighbor Chad Olson had been after this elk and was able to get some very good footage of this bull. Chad had a rifle tag and his brother Brandon had a archery tag for the Manti unit here in Utah. They had a chance during the archery hunt, but unfortunately he was not able to find the bull again. Wednesday night the 21st of September, Bonnie Nielson of Ephraim, Utah came into town with a great bull. It didn’t take long before we knew this was the same bull.
I had the chance to look at the footage of this bull a couple of weeks ago. We were trying to field judge the best we could on what this bull would score. He was very pretty with good fronts and very long main beams. After looking at the footage I was hoping he would reach the 390 gross mark.
When I got the phone call on Thursday about this bull being in town, I was anxious to have an opportunity to score it and see how I did on my field judging. The main draw back to the bull was that he broke his right third point, losing about five inches. I was guessing he had 60 inch main beams when looking at the footage. After scoring the bull the right beam was 60 2/8 inches long. But the surprise was the left beam was a little shorter and came in at 56 6/8 inches. With the broken third point I ended up gross scoring the bull at 380 B&C. If the third point would have been intact (like he was on the video), he would have scored 385 gross. I was off about five inches. Where I went wrong with my field judging is I had accounted for both main beams pushing 60 inches. This is where I lost four inches and the bull would have grossed 389 - pretty close to my guess of 390.
That is why I enjoy having the chance to field judge a bull I get to score later because you learn more and more and where you went wrong. Maybe next time I can get a little closer!
Here are some pics of the antlers the night I scored it:
This pic shows the great main beam that reaches out to 60 inches
and the broken third point.
What a great bull! Look at the great beam length on both sides.
Great fronts and beams - this bull has it all.
1 comment September 26th, 2005
