The Boone and Crockett Club and Pope and Young Club have just released a definitive 250-page scoring manual that will serve as the guide to the processes and procedures to correctly assign a Boone and Crockett or Pope and Young score to any Fair Chase® big game trophy.
The manual, How to Score North American Big Game, is an effort to simplify and streamline the big game scoring process. Members of both Clubs’ records committees spent years collaborating and refining the manual.
“Because Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young both have missions to maintain records of big game animals for use by wildlife managers and hunters alike, it just made sense that we work together to produce one, definitive scoring manual,” said Justin Spring, director of Big Game Records of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Measuring the antlers, horns and heads of big game animals and publishing those measurements began more than a century ago by members of the Boone and Crockett Club. These records originally were developed as a means of recording data on species thought to be going extinct from habitat loss and unregulated harvest. Today, Boone and Crockett Club records remain a way to gauge the success of conservation and wildlife management programs. In addition to its prestigious history and tradition, Boone and Crockett scoring is strongly associated with the highest tenets of fair chase and hunting ethics.
While the Boone and Crockett Club accepts entries taken with any legal weapon, the Pope and Young Club was founded in 1961 to maintain the records of animals taken with only bow and arrow.
“Since the Pope and Young Club began documenting archery taken animals over 60 years ago, we have always utilized the Boone and Crockett scoring system,” noted Roy Grace, records chairman of the Pope and Young Club. “While there are subtle differences between our two Clubs regarding minimum entry requirements, velvet entries, and others, our measuring procedures are nearly identical. This joint manual is long overdue and was a ‘work in progress’ for several years. Joint measurers will no longer have to refer to two separate manuals when measuring for either club. I’m fairly certain that the founder of the Pope and Young Club, Glenn St. Charles, would be proud to see what our two organizations have finally accomplished!”
The new scoring manuals are available at in B&C’s webstore for $45. In addition, scoring instructions and worksheets for specific categories are available as downloadable PDFs for $10 each.
