March 2006 2 / OutdoorIllinois March 2006 OutdoorIllinois / 3
The purpose for scoring North American big game is
deeply rooted in history and biology.
organization in North America. In 1902,
Roosevelt was one of three individuals
appointed to a special committee
charged with devising a scoring system
to record and preserve biological infor-mation
of native North American big
game animals believed to be going
extinct. It wasn’t until 1950 that the
club’s current, copyrighted scoring sys-tem
was formally adopted.
“The purpose of setting up a scoring
system wasn’t to give sportsmen a sys-tem
for earning bragging rights,”
explained Jack Reneau, the Boone and
Crockett Club director of big game
records. “Through the information col-lected
by measuring antlers, horns and
skulls, a record was amassed of biologi-cal,
harvest and location data.”
The club continues its tradition of
promoting fair chase and the sport of
hunting, and to invest in the future
through a variety of education projects.
Story By Kathy Andrews
and Tracy Shafer
Whether it came after
months in the tree
stand, learning the
habits of one partic-ular
whitetail, or just
being in the right place at the right time,
the sportsman does earn bragging rights
for bagging a trophy deer.
But it almost wasn’t so.
By the late 1800s, unchecked habitat
destruction and harvest of North Ameri-can
big game drew the attention of a
number of influential men—legislators,
magazine editors, military officers, law-men,
artists, sculptors and scientists—
who shared a passion for hunting and
the outdoors, and feared for the future of
species such as bison, deer, elk, sheep
and pronghorn.
On December 12, 1887, 12 gentle-men—
including Theodore Roosevelt—
founded the Boone and Crockett Club,
what is now the oldest conservation
In the late 1980s, the club purchased
the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial
Ranch in Montana and established an
education center there in 2001. Kinder-garten
through high school students and
teachers of all ages visit the center to
learn about the importance of sustaining
healthy ecosystems. Additionally, a
grants-in-aid program helps underwrite
critical wildlife management research by
graduate students.
Through the scoring process and
research projects, biologists have a
record of the successes of conservation
and how wildlife management activities
are working.
“Each year,” Reneau concluded, “more
than 1,500 Boone and Crockett entries
are received—evidence of the need for
the wildlife management principles envi-sioned
more than 120 years ago.”
The following records are for deer
submitted during 2004.
Firearm Typical
John Sondag 185 0/8 2004 Mason
J.C. Linson 180 4/8 2004 Wabash
Robert Crouse 173 4/8 2002 Knox
Bobby Goss 173 0/8 2003 Hamilton
Donald W. Hansen Jr. 171 7/8 1994 Jo Daviess
Edward Heath 171 7/8 2000 Montgomery
Aaron Moore 171 1/8 2004 Montgomery
Ann Degenhardt Sanders 171 1/8 1983 Randolph
Tim Likens 170 1/8 2004 Douglas
Daniel Rhodes 169 0/8 2004 Madison
Duane Hopkins 168 7/8 2003 Moultrie
William Burris 168 0/8 2004 Sangamon
Karen Ritter 167 7/8 1994 Clay
Jacob Glick 167 0/8 2004 Cass
J.L. Hargis 166 1/8 2001 Randolph
Dan Lasanka 165 5/8 2004 Menard
Clay Lyon 163 7/8 2004 Sangamon
Kent Snyders 163 6/8 2004 Calhoun
Brandi Anderson 163 4/8 2004 Wayne
More than
Bragging Rights
The Boone and Crockett Club was
named for famed explorers and
hunters Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.
Training to become an official Boone
and Crockett scorer requires 3.5 days of
hands-on practice learning to score the
38 categories of native North American
big game recognized by the club.
Think you have a trophy? Contact
the Boone and Crockett Club at (406)
542-1888 or visit www.booneandcrock
ettclub.com to obtain an official scoring
sheet. If after completing your initial
score the animal appears to qualify, the
club will provide contact information for
the closest official measurer.
One of the measurements official
scorers for the Boone and Crockett
Club take is the circumference at the
smallest place between the burr (point
of attachment to the skull) and the
first point. A flexible, steel tape is
used for all measurements.
In addition to measuring the length
of the main beam (pictured), scorers
measure the circumference between
each of the antler points and the
length of the points. A point is a pro-jection
that is at least 1 inch long and
longer than it is wide.
