Bestul: I Like ‘Em Goofy!

Every year someone shoots a buck that earns the comment “that rack is way bigger than its score.” Which means, of course, that the Boone & Crockett scoring system doesn’t seem to give the buck adequate credit for the antlers it grew.

Well the buck pictured below is the poster child for such inequity.

This monster nontypical is alive, well, and living….Well, somewhere neither you nor I can hunt. It is a wild, free-ranging buck that I’m hoping will be tagged by a very good friend of mine who sent me this photo. Like so many hunters (me included) wonder whenconfronted by such a monstrous rack, my buddy asked “What do you think he’ll score?”

Well I hadn’t a clue, as my experience with bucks of this magnitude runs pretty thin. So I put the question to another friend, who happens to be a veteran scorer. And his answer caught me by surprise. Apparently, because this behemoth appears to lack a main beam on its right side, it would be considered a “freak”–and therefore unscoreable–under the B&C system. Obviously, B&C has a nontypical category for whitetails, but even these bucks must sport a pair of main beams and a typical “frame” before a measurer can tackle them.

So I got right back to my friend with a reply to his scoring question. “He won’t score worth diddly,” I said. “Maybe you should pass on him this fall and see if he grows that beam next year.”

I know, I know….He didn’t think it was an option, either.