Maybe you’ve harvested a nice whitetail buck and want to know how it would score. Sure, it’s not a new Boone and Crockett Club or Pope and Young record, but being able to tell your friends and fellow hunters how it scored, and being able to track the approximate sizes and ages of deer you’ve hung tags on, can be a fulfilling part of your experience. Here we explain how to score a whitetail at home. 

The History of Scoring Deer

Scoring and cataloging big game antlers was born from the Boone and Crockett Club, a non-profit organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell in 1888. When founded, the Club’s mission was to “promote useful and proper legislation toward the enlargement and better government of the Yellowstone National Park.” 

In 1902 the first Boone and Crockett Club Records Committee was established, with newly sworn President Theodore Roosevelt as one of its three members. By 1906, the organization published its first book of records, aptly named Big Game Measurements. 

The Club’s motivation for publishing a book of records was preservation. At the time, the future of wildlife was still uncertain after decades of market hunting. Fearing mass extinctions, members thought future generations would not be able to see animals as grand as what they could document at that time, so they began collecting, measuring, and cataloging the best taxidermy of every specimen they could find, putting them on display in the Bronx Zoo. This lasted from 1906-1922. 

In 1947 the Boone and Crockett Club hosted its first Big Game Competition. It became apparent that the arbitrary scoring system that was in place wasn’t going to be adequate for this level of documentation and competition. They were not, at that point, measuring every antler as we do today. 

In 1949 the Club put together another special committee charged with standardizing a scoring system, thus launching the Boone and Crockett Club’s official records-keeping program we know today. The program recognizes 30 categories of game, including animals as far apart as polar bears and jaguars. 

For antlered animals like deer and elk, scoring is based on mass, symmetry, and tine length. To aid with continuity between animals, tines (i.e., antler points) are assigned a letter and number system, such as H1, G3, E, etc. 

Now, many hunters know there are typical and non-typical antler sets. Typical antlers are uniform, generally featuring the same number and lengths of tines on both antlers. Non-typical antlers may have drop-tines, extra tines on one or both sides, or tines that fork in places they shouldn’t. The Club’s documentation of game animals is traditionally focused on typical specimens because they believed those animals were the best examples of what a deer or elk should look like in a healthy environment.

5 Steps To Score a Whitetail

If you’re ready to score your deer, there are five simple steps to follow. Grab a flexible measuring tape, pencil, and paper, and check out the Boone and Crockett Club’s online whitetail deer calculator. 

If you plan on submitting your score to the Club because you think you have a record, official scores must wait 60 days before being measured to account for shrinkage due to moisture loss.

Step 1: Measure Main Beam Lengths

Using flexible tape, measure each antler’s main beam from the burr (where the antler meets the pedicle) to the tip. For the most accurate measurement, be sure to follow the center of the outside curve. You want to imagine the main beam has no tines so you would follow the natural curvature that would occur had there been no tines. Write down the main beam measurement for each antler. 

Step 2: Measure Tine Lengths

Measure each tine’s length from its base on the main beam to the tip. Start where the tine meets the main beam (don’t measure any part of the main beam). For whitetail, a tine has to be at least one inch long, and length must exceed width by one inch or more. Write down each tine length. 

Special Note on the G1: 

Take the center of the front or the center of the back. You cannot measure from the top edge or bottom edge of the G1, so put the tape where the tine meets the main beam.

Step 3: Measure Main Beam Circumferences Between Tines

For whitetails, there are always four circumference measurements, no matter whether it’s a spike or has six or more tines. The measurements you need to record include:

• Between the burr and the G1.
• Between G1 and G2.
• Between G2 and G3.
• Between G3 and G4.

For each circumference, you always find and measure the smallest place. If a measurement falls on the 1/16th, round up. If it’s below 1/16, round down. An abnormal can never be the separator for a measurement. But an attempt at a point can be used as a separator (for eye guards). Your H4 circumference (i.e., between the last tine and the tip of the main beam) is taken at the midpoint. 

Fun fact: The letters G and H have no meaning. That’s just the letters that happened to be next when Boone and Crockett was building out the scoring system. 

Step 4: Measure the Inside Spread

Measure the greatest inside spread between the main beams, from the center of the beam to the center of the beam, perpendicular to the axis of the skull. Write down the measurement.

Step 5: Add and Subtract for Your Gross and Net Scores

Add all measurements for both antlers for the gross score. 

To get your net score, which is what Boone & Crockett considers the official score, take your gross score and begin deducting points for abnormalities and asymmetries. An asymmetry, for example, would be if the G2 on one antler is 4 inches and 3.5 inches on the other; that’s a half-inch deduction from the gross score for asymmetry. 

There might be a couple of other “gotchas” to note while measuring, like how you can only ever have one G1 on each side—any others are recorded as abnormal. But for the purposes of DIY scoring a deer, understanding the basics will get you close.

Once you account for your gross and net score and have plugged your information in the online calculator, or did the math on paper, you should have your final deer score. 

Additional DIY Deer Scoring Resources

For more, you can access our full conversation with Boone and Crockett.

Some Context: Minimum Scores for Boone and Crockett

Think you have a big one? Here are some baselines against which you can compare your buck. 

To be considered a trophy, a whitetail deer typically needs a Boone and Crockett score of at least 160 points for typical antlers and 185 points for non-typical antlers. For Pope and Young (archery hunts), the minimum score is 125 points for typical antlers and 155 points for non-typical antlers.

For elk, a bull elk must score at least 360 points for typical antlers to be considered a trophy by Boone and Crockett standards for all-time record books. For non-typical elk, the minimum score is 385 points. The Pope and Young Club sets the bar lower for archery harvests, requiring a typical elk to score 260 points and a non-typical elk to score 300 points.

A Final Note on Scores

Scoring deer is fun, and it can go beyond the purpose of bragging rights. The information can also be useful if managing a herd on your property or the area you hunt, allowing you to document overall health and growth patterns over time.