California’s Blacktail Deer Rack Up Record-Setting Scores

Good hunting may not be the first thing people think of when they think of the Golden State, but California “boasts a black bear in the top 10 all-time and a desert sheep breaks into the top 20,” per the Boone and Crockett Club, an organization that sets and maintains big game trophy records. And the state is no slouch in producing impressively large Columbia blacktail deer. By large, we mean high-scoring antlers.

What garners a trophy for Columbia blacktail deer is not the size or weight of the animal, but rather the size and complexity of its antlers, which is determined through a scoring system. As an antlered animal, Columbia blacktail deer are scored in two categories. The typical category will see antlers follow a standard pattern, defined by symmetrical tines and evenly spaced points. Non-typical antlers deviate from the standard in quite unusual ways, often racking up very high scores.

Scores are determined by counting the number of points on the antlers and then measuring the width of the main beam spread of the antlers from tip to tip, the inside spread, the length of the main beam, the length of the points, and the circumference between points. These measurements are then calculated according to a formula provided by the Boone and Crocket Club. A score above 135 is considered an all-timer in the typical category and above 155 for non-typical.

In 1981, while hunting in Mendocino County, which is located along the coast about halfway between the San Francisco Bay Area and the California-Oregon border, Clem Coughlin bagged his record-setting Columbia blacktail deer. It scored 175-2/8. The right and left main beams measured 22-5/8 and 22-0/8, respectively, with the right beam having 6 points and the left 5. Coughlin’s deer bumped Frank G. Merz’s record of 170-6/8, which had been set just two years prior in 1979, to the No. 2 spot, that is, until 2007 when hunter Steven P. Boero bagged a 171-1/8 pushing Merz’s record to No. 3.

The world record for the typical Columbia blacktail deer, however, was set several decades before Coughlin entered the record books. In October 1953, Lester H. Miller harvested his Columbia blacktail deer in Lewis County, Washington. His typical buck scored 182-2/8. Miller first spotted this large and majestic blacktail deer in 1950, and for years, he stalked it—even in the off-season. He occasionally got a glimpse, but it always got away, until that fateful fall day when he followed muddy tracks and found the large buck in a clearing. With one shot through the shoulder, which pierced its heart, Miller entered the record books.

California’s non-typical Columbia blacktail deer record belongs to Newt Boren who, in 1955, bagged his buck in Trinity County, which is located in the northwestern part of the state. Scored at 197-4/8, the antlers had 11 points on the right and left beams, which measured 23-7/8 and 22-6/8, respectively. For comparison, the non-typical world record for Columbia blacktail deer scored 208-1/8; that deer was harvested in Polk County, Oregon, in 1962, although it wasn’t scored until a few years later.