Local hunters turned out to the Bower Kin Community Centre on Sunday to have antlers measured and scored by a Red Deer Fish and Game judge.
Among them was 12-year-old Josh Billett, of Red Deer, who came in with an impressive whitetail buck he bagged last November about 20 minutes into his first ever hunting trip with his own licence.
Josh, pal Jayden Sitko, and Josh’s father Jerry were driving just south of Red Deer when Jayden spotted a deer in a field where the Billetts have permission to shoot.
Jerry stopped the car and Josh got out his 30.06 rifle. The whitetail buck started running but Josh got it with one shot.
“He set the mark pretty high for a first deer,” said Jerry, who said he still can’t believe he hit it.
Red Deer Fish and Game Association president Kevin Wingert said this is the first time in three years that someone has been available locally to judge antlers because other judges have retired over the years.
Wingert took the course last year and was busy on Sunday painstakingly measuring antlers widths, lengths and thicknesses to come up with a Boone and Crockett score.
It can take anywhere from a couple of dozen measurements to 40 or 50, depending on the size of the antlers and the number of branches.
The one-day course involves learning how to judge antlers from a variety of animals and how to identify typical and non-typical examples and how to determine what is considered a point.
Those hitting a certain score — 170 for whitetail deer — are included in the U.S.-based Boone and Crockett Club’s record books. The club was founded in 1887 by one-time U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and is named after legendary outdoorsmen Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.
“That holy grail of 170 is hard to hit,” said Wingert. “154 5/8ths is the best I’ve got so far.” It didn’t look like any of the antlers he saw Sunday so far were going to hit the magic mark.
Steve Bauer, 60, who lives in the Poplar Ridge area just west of Red Deer, also came out with a set of antlers measured.
He shot the whitetail buck last November in the West Country between Rocky Mountain House and Nordegg.
Bauer, 60, has been hunting since he was 14 years old and usually gets a deer each year and he gets enough meat to last a year.
He enjoys going out into the woods, where he is sometimes joined by his son, who he taught to hunt when he was a teenager and is now 35 years old.
“Even if I don’t shoot anything it’s a lot of fun to go out there and see the game. Sometimes they can be really comical.”
Wingert is hoping to continue running the one-day scoring meets each year.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com