its up to the hunter because every year my trophies to me get bigger and bigger. But when I was young a nice 6pt was a trophy now a trophy to me is like a nice wide tall 12pt.

Well put Doast. Too many whip out a tape measure as soon as the animal hits the ground.
Boone & Crockett or Pope And Young will be happy to send you some guide lines or look on your computer under either name.

Pends on the person. Buckhunter said it. As long as it's not a fawn it's a shooter. Any time we can get a deer i'd call it a trophy.

any deer i bust my a** for is a trophy.

My son killed a 5 pointer. A fork horn with a little kicker. I got it mounted for him. Its the best trophy I will ever have in my home. He killed his first two deer last season. The other was a spike.

I'm going with james... the harder I work for it, the more of a trophy it seems to be.. But I consider any deer a trophy.. just so much to respect about such a great animal. some day I'll have a 190" whitetail or better though.. some day..

Depends on the location, the hunt and the hunter. Around here a Monster buck is any buck over 130 inches. Poachers and road hunters kill the big boys before season ever gets started. I'll would not be suprised if 50% of Arkansas record bucks have been paoched, either road hunted, spotlighted, shot out of season, ect. Poaching in Arkansas is so prevalent 130 is going to be the best trophy most Ar hunters will ever get. I consider 130 a monster here in Arkansas, a 150 for South Texas and 175 or better for our big buck states like Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnisota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan and Ohio.

Conventional wisdom has it that an eight-point buck is the start of trophy class whitetail specimens, but I have seen some eight-pointers that had racks not much bigger than their ears. So, the point-count should not be the governing factor
On the other hand, if you call every deer you shoot a trophy, the word ceases to have any meaning.

I have some very small racked buck's that I hold in as high or higher regard than some bucks I have on the wall that score in the 150's . It's all about the hunt and what you went through to put the meat in the freezer Its the hunt that matters not the rack on the animal . they are all trophy's no matter how large or small .

If I'm shooting bucks, I don't pull the trigger unless it is going on the wall.

I think a trophy is any animal that i really had to work hard and think out of the box to harvest...i could sit over a feeder in a fenced in area and shoot big bucks all day long...but a smart and free doe that gave me the slip a few times would be a better trophy than those big bucks.

Technically, if you take the head home with you and keep it, even as a skull mount, and it is preserved as a memento, it is automatically a trophy by definition. Check the dictionary.
But that is not the trophy hunter's definition of a trophy by a long shot. Milo Hanson's buck is a case in point.