Antler party

[Okanagan]

One of my sons is hosting an antler measuring party at his garage this evening.  We did this last year and it was so much fun it may become an annual thing, though it is extremely unlikely that we will keep having a record book critter to officially measure.  Sons, grandsons and cousins who hunt and maybe a family friend or two will share pizza and stories and look at antlers from spikes to big ones, all while an official record book scorer carefully measures this year's big ones.

Incredibly, last year we had two record book elk to measure and this year we have the same, though one may not quite hold up after the 60 days drying time since we first measured it.  One of the cousins has a monster mule deer he got this Fall to score as well.  We bring in racks from years past that may not have ever been scored but we are curious about or that has a story to go with it.  My big antlers are all down there with my sons, and we drag out one of them sometimes.  All of the men present have an appreciation for game and for antlers, especially antlers with character, no matter how high or low they may officially score.   I.e. my younger son has a rack that is the most universally admired, though it is only a huge fork horn frame with a lot of junk on it, a mule deer/blacktail hybrid he backpacked six miles in snow.   

Some of the most fun will be stories from grandsons about a spike they got this year coupled with stories from record book holders about spikes and goofy hunts they had in years past.   A couple of the cousins are superb hunters and have at least a half dozen record book animals between them all taken without guides. Plenty of razzing, good time.  Book critters or not, getting together in mid-winter to rehash the seasons hunts is fun and something we should keep doing. 

[riverboss]

That sounds like a lot of fun! Take some pics for us so we can join in the party.


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[coyote101]

That sounds like a great time.  Have fun and enjoy the time with friends and family. 

Pat

[HaMeR]

Sounds a lot like the LBL to me!! I'm sure it'll be a great time for all!!

[Dave]

Sounds like a great way to get friends and family together.  Take some pics of the racks - I'd like to see that big fork framed rack.  Have fun

[FinsnFur]

Yah that sounded like a good ol family gathering for war stories

[pitw]

There are folk who would love to see one record book horn at a measuring party and you folk blow that wayaway.  Sure is good of the younguns to keep you involved.

[Okanagan]

Got back from a week in grandkid country and will post some pics from the antler party.  Fun time of course.  Eleven sons, grandsons, cousins and some of their grandsons from Alaska showed up.  The best story of the evening was a young teen's tale of his first moose last Fall when he walked out from their coastal house looking for a deer and found a fork horn bull moose.  One of my grandsons didn't have much time to hunt due to high school sports but he drew a couple of antlerless permits and added a cow elk and blacktail doe to the proceedings.  Primo elk summer sausage.

A good surprise was that my son's Roosevelt elk scored much higher than we expected.  We had erred a bit on the cautious side in our amateur scoring. 



In the photo above, Code holds his archery Roosevelt bull on the left, a  cousin with a nice Rocky Mountain elk is in the middle and son David with his Roosevelt bull on the right, all three taken last Fall.  Roosevelts have smaller antlers normally than Rocky Mountains and don't have to be nearly as big as Rockies to make their respective record books.  The pic shows two book bulls. 

The scorer used a thin flexible metal tape measure for some parts of the antlers and a thin flexible steel cable for following contours as he measured main beams, etc.

 



One of the cousins hunted out of state for mule deer last Fall and got two.  The wide one below is about 32 inches.   



A few grab shots below of antlers in the garage. 

[centerfire_223]

WOW, those are some nice racks. 

[HaMeR]

Dang!! Nice trophies guys!! Thanks for sharing!!

[Okanagan]

Dave, I didn't see your comment about the big fork horn till I got back but by chance I did take a pic of the bases of it.  The man who did the scoring had extra interest in it and commented that it was a really old buck.  It's skull plate is considerably larger than other bucks from that area and it is surely a cross breed between coastal blacktail and inland mule deer.  It came from near the divide between dry eastern WA and the wet coastal side of the Cascades.  It is actually a 2x3 but always seemed like a fork in my memory.  It has gnarly bases with spikes up to an inch long sticking out in several directions around the bases and eyeguard area though they do not show up well in this photo.   

[riverboss]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing with us.

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[Dave]

Great write up and pics!  Those are some serious trophies!  Congrats to them all. 

[Okanagan]

One pic I meant to post in the first batch and just noticed it again.  Hope this isn't milking this topic too much.    The second tines are each 16 inches long on that rack on the right.



The scorer said that this bull on the right in the photo has the right points in the right places to score higher than its frame suggests.  Roosevelts count everything above the 4th point with no deductions since crowning with points going in any direction is more typical than the classic 5th and 6th points of Rocky Mountain elk.   I think that they got the Roosevelt elk rule correct on this one, though some scoring rules make me roll my eyes.

Code's bull on the left in the photo is so even that it has only 2 1/2 inches of deductions, amazing.     It scores very high for a mere 5x5 and I think that it ranks in the top four among Pope & Young true 5x5 point Roosies.

[FinsnFur]

Milking it too much? LOL! Your not milking it enough Clyde
Wow, those are some real beauts. The coloring, shape and everything.