Field Judging Elk

[ADMIN]

There are several ways to field judge elk; one is to "air judge" - the wing-it approach based on experience and knowledge, and this surely has its place at times. The other is to actually break him down and measure him up by estimating point and beam length, mass, and inside spread. I gained the most consistency and accuracy with my field judging by actually scoring lots of antlers, and with each one, I gained more confidence. I love to field judge bulls and then score them on the ground to see how close my field judging was to the real thing. Oftentimes I score a bull in my head before asking the hunter what it actually scored, but nothing beats getting out a tape and measuring lots of bone. My guesses have been wrong many times, but it's amazing how close you can get from the field estimates to the actual measurements with a little practice.Read More...

This is a thread for discussion of the article, Field Judging Elk, By Jay Scott. Here you can ask questions or make comments about the article.

 

[BigBboy25]

This is a good article, but I think it would be more useful if you showed examples of bulls in the 280-330 class. Those toads are great, but if I see a 370-390 bull, I won't take the time to field judge it, I'll be pulling out my rangefinder and dialing my scope. If a bull is that big, I'll just shoot.