Everything is bigger in Texas, they say. In hunting terms, this means record-setting big game like whitetail deer crisscross the state, enticing hunters to take their shot. Two species of deer call the Lone Star State home: mule deer and whitetail deer. The latter’s strong stature, graceful gait, and iconic white tail make it instantly recognizable.
What is also recognizable and sought after is a prize buck. The meat can feed a family for a year or more, the story of the hunt will entertain for generations, and the antlers may even earn a spot in the Boone and Crockett Club record books.
One way deer are scored is by the Boone and Crockett system, which takes into account four different antler measurements and the symmetry of the antlers.
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The Boone and Crockett Club sets guidelines and maintains records for big game trophy hunting. The size or weight of a whitetail deer isn’t what gets a hunter into the record books. Hunters must have their buck’s antlers scored (measured) according to the Boone and Crockett system, which is based on various measurements of the buck’s antlers.
Each deer’s antlers are unique; therefore, the size and shape can vary dramatically. A typical deer has symmetrical antlers, meaning that the number and placement of points are fairly even on both sides. Each point tends to be smooth and tapers to, well, a point.
Non-typical deer are entirely different. While they may have typically shaped points, these might be distributed asymmetrically between each antler with points turning in every which direction: upward, downward, and inward or growing in strange clusters. They might be oddly conical, have blunt tips, or be exceptionally thick. Although the distinction may sometimes be arbitrary, you’d know a non-typical deer if you saw one.
The scorer measures the various elements of the antlers: the inside spread and lengths of the main beams, the points themselves, and the circumferences or thicknesses at varying points. The resulting total accounts for the buck’s gross score. Deductions are then made for asymmetry and abnormal points depending on whether the hunter is scoring the deer as typical or non-typical. A typical score above 170 is in all-time record territory while a non-typical score of 195 or more qualifies as an all-timer.
For 58 years, Texas’ highest-scoring, therefore biggest, typical whitetail belonged to the McCulloch buck, which gross-scored 211-3/8 inches and net-scored 196-4/8. Its hunter, Tom McCulloch, shot the record buck while hunting in Maverick County in South Texas in December 1963.
The record fell on November 1, 2021, when Alberto Bailleres harvested his 197-2/8 scored buck in Zavala County, also in South Texas. “Not one of its mass measurements reaches the 5-inch mark, and the inside spread is only 18 1/8 inches. What elevates this record whitetail deer so high, though, is the presence of G6s on each side and a G7 on the right,” writes Josh Honeycutt in Field & Stream.
While the typical record finally fell after nearly six decades, the non-typical record has yet to be broken after more than 130 years. Harvested in 1892 by an unnamed hunter in McCulloch County, where the geographic center of the state lies, the record-setting buck scored 284-3/8. That score is up there with some of the highest-scoring bucks ever recorded on the continent!
According to the Boone and Crockett Club, Texas’ no. 2 buck belongs to a set of antlers picked up in 1925. It scored an even 272. But things are looking up for hunters of the 2020s, as the no. 3 spot belongs to hunter Robert H. Buker Jr. who harvested his record-setting buck in 2020 with a score of 268-3/8. Can the 1892 record fall within the decade? Time will tell.
