More to the Score – 16 Heart-Stopping Entries – Volume 6

Spring 2022 Edition

What’s better than record-book antlers, horns, and skulls? The stories behind them, of course.

This slideshow certainly has plenty of big bone at which to gawk. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll find so much more. There’s the coal miner from Virginia who drove to Newfoundland with two chest freezers to hunt woodland caribou. There is the hunter who killed the world’s record musk ox, and then he packed it out on his back. And did you hear the one about the Rocky Mountain goat in South Dakota? We’ve got them all right here.

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You wouldn’t know it by looking at this photo, but when Virginian Jeff Hubbard woke up to hunt this woodland caribou in late October, the wind was screaming at 80 mph, blowing the snow sideways. He was the only hunter to leave camp that day. “I had a warm fire, biscuits and gravy, and hot coffee in camp. And I’m asking myself why I was going to go out in this,” he says. The guide said the bulls would be moving, and he was right. Hubbard belly-crawled 220 yards, but when he got into range, the snow from his frozen beard had melted onto his scope, filling the ocular lens with water. He frantically wiped it clean and made a great shot on this Newfoundland woodland caribou, which is the ninth largest in the records. Wearing his grandfather’s wool hat from 1958 and his dad’s flannel shirt, Hubbard was elated. “It’s one of those trips my dad and grandfather always wanted to do, but they never got a chance to go,” he says. After the shot, the sun came out for literally 10 minutes—just long enough to snap this great field photo.

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Are you willing to take a guess at how many abnormal points (junk as some might call it) account for this buck’s score? Go ahead, we’ll wait... The answer is 63-5/8 points, according to the score sheet in Big Game Records LIVE. William Heinselman killed this outstanding non-typical mule deer on the Navajo Indian Reservation back in September 2020. He was shooting a 28 Nosler with a 180-grain bullet on that sunny, 70-degree day. To see the entire score chart, click on the button below.

B&C SCORE: 263-4/8 Points
LOCATION: Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: William E. Heinselman

Holy webbing! You could eat a steak dinner off of those main beams. This mid-November typical whitetail had circumference measurements of five, six and seven inches, according to the score sheet in Big Game Records LIVE. In the woods of eastern Alberta, Paul Villeneuve was taking his .30-06 for a walk when this absolute monster walked in front of him at a mere 30 yards. It’s likely this buck’s webbing was a genetic trait passed down from generations. And thanks to those genes, this buck is now the fifth typical buck overall from Alberta. The province hasn’t seen a record-book typical whitetail that big in nearly 30 years.

B&C SCORE: 192-6/8 Points
LOCATION: Seibert Lake, Alberta
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Paul M. Villeneuve

This bull likely will be crowned the largest hunter-killed tule elk in the Boone and Crockett records at an upcoming judges panel, which is part of the 31st Big Game Awards. The bull was taken by Cory Smith on a sunny, 60-degree day in Mendocino County, California, in late August 2020. California is the only state where all three elk species (Rocky Mountain, Roosevelt’s, and tule) reside. There are currently around 5,700 tule elk throughout the state.

B&C SCORE: 369-1/8 Points
LOCATION: Mendocino County, California
YEAR TAKEN: 2021
HUNTER: Cory J. Smith

5 of 16 — NORTHWEST TERRITORIES MUSK OX
You may have seen our recent story about this new world’s record, but if not, it’s definitely worth a read. Long story short, bush pilot Alex Therrien and his buddies were checking in on an outfitter’s cabin when they spotted a herd of musk ox from the air. The next day, Therrien filled his tag. Then he and his buddies had to haul hundreds of pounds of meat back to the air strip, which turned out to be too short for the take-off given their added weight. To see how the story ends—and how they thwarted hungry bears—check out the rest of the story.

B&C SCORE: 130-4/8 Points
LOCATION: Aylmer Lake, Northwest Territories
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Alex M. Therrien

With an open-sighted .45-70 shooting a 405-grain bullet, Sawyer Barrington shot this bruin in eastern North Carolina. This bear is the third largest bear from the Tarheel State, and it sits at 64th overall, according to Big Game Records LIVE. According to the records, North Carolina is the eighth best state in which to take a record-book black bear. To see which state takes the number one spot—and it’s by a very large margin—subscribe to Big Game Records LIVE.

B&C SCORE: 22-7/16 Points
LOCATION: Beaufort County, North Carolina
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Sawyer L. Barrington

In a state that produced the infamous Spider Bull, anyone who kills a non-typical bull in Utah that lands at the number five spot carries some serious street cred. Daniel Cowley and his hunting partners chased this bull for three seasons, and he even passed up shots in 2018 when drought conditions hindered solid antler growth. Despite having eight encounters with this bull during bow season in 2019, Cowley traded his bow for a rifle and took it on opening day. “Scouting for and focusing on this bull got both of my kids hooked on preseason trips to the mountains,” says Cowley. “And they have been with me ever since.”

B&C SCORE: 419-4/8 Points
LOCATION: San Juan County, Utah
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Daniel P. Cowley

There isn’t much going on in St. Anthony Newfoundland Caribou Management Area 76, except for perhaps swatting mosquitoes and hunting woodland caribou. In fact, Newfoundland is the only place in the world where non-resident hunters can chase woodland caribou. In early September 2019, non-resident Gerard O’Hare put his 40-yard pin on this woodland caribou and sent an arrow into the record books.

B&C SCORE: 323-5/8 Points
LOCATION: Great Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland
YEAR TAKEN: 2019
HUNTER: Gerard E. O’Hare

You typically don’t see Rocky Mountain goat and South Dakota in the same records write-up, but we’re glad you saw it here first. This Rocky Mountain goat was taken by Gregory Schweiss in South Dakota with his .30-06 at only 30 yards. According to Big Game Records LIVE, there are only six goats in the records from South Dakota, and Schweiss killed number five. While not native to the state, this isolated goat population has been around the Black Hills ever since six goats from Alberta were trucked in as part of a zoo exhibit. They escaped their enclosures in the 1920s and the population grew to an estimated 350. More goats were transplanted by biologists, and now there are enough for a once-in-a-lifetime hunt for South Dakota residents.

Two black bears that are ranked in the state’s top five came out of New Hampshire in 2020. Pictured here is Paul Bishop’s bear that sits at the number two spot. While in his stand, Bishop watched as this big bear pushed a couple of smaller bears out of the area. One shot at 13 yards from his .45-70 is all that was needed. Bishop says the typical New Hampshire bear weighs between 150-200 pounds, but this bear weighed more than 500 pounds—field dressed. It was 7 ½ years old.

B&C SCORE: 20-14/16 Points
LOCATION: Grafton County, New Hampshire
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Paul J. Bishop

That’s right folks, two record-book elk came out of California in 2021. This time it’s a Roosevelt’s from Humboldt County. With a .30-06 shooting a 180-grain Hornady, Lawrence Ward took this bull in early September. This bull ranks at number three in the state and number nine for all time Roosevelt’s. Humboldt County marks the southernmost boundary for this species. Keep heading south, and you’ll soon run into tule elk country.

B&C SCORE: 386-5/8 Points
LOCATION: Humboldt County, California
YEAR TAKEN: 2021
HUNTER: Lawrence G. Ward, Jr.

You have to admire anyone who kills anything with a longbow. And then to kill a Columbian blacktail this big? Our hats off to you, Tavis Rogers. He was hunting in the middle of November in Jackson County, Oregon when he shot this great non-typical. A DNA test confirmed it was a blacktail, and it sits at the number eight spot for non-typical blacktails in Oregon. Rogers' buck is also expected to be part of B&C's 31st Big Game Awards Program this summer.

B&C SCORE: 172-1/8 Points
LOCATION: Jackson County, Oregon
YEAR TAKEN: 2020
HUNTER: Tavis D. Rogers

Bowhunter Thomas Muza started his 2021 off with a twang—of the bowstring. Muza traveled from the frozen confines of his Wisconsin home in January 2021 and headed south to Sonora, Mexico. There, in the 90-degree heat (it was 20 degrees back home in Wisconsin that day, and yes, we checked) Muza slipped a 100-grain broadhead into this awesome desert sheep. Numerous desert sheep joined the ranks of the record books in 2020, but this ram takes top billing for 2021. Subscribe to Big Game Records LIVE to get the most up-to-date entry data.

B&C SCORE: 185-6/8 Points
LOCATION: Sonora, Mexico
YEAR TAKEN: 2021
HUNTER: Thomas L. Muza

In the spring of 2021, William Jenkins hauled his .375 H&H Magnum all the way from Louisiana to Belkofski Bay, Alaska. There, he drew a bead on this soggy Alaska brown bear with his .375 H&H Magnum, and the 300-grain Swift A-frame found its mark. The range of the Alaska brown bear, according to the Boone and Crockett Club’s official scoring manual, roughly runs from Juneau in the east to the Bering Sea in the west. The northern boundary runs about one-third of the way up from the coast, abutting the 62nd parallel and the Alaska Range.

The Importance of Records in Big Game Management

When you enter your trophy into the Boone and Crockett system, you aren’t just honoring the animal and its habitat. You are participating in a data collection system that started in the 1920s and was refined by Club members in 1950. Today, there are nearly 60,000 trophy records. By establishing a records database more than 70 years ago, the Boone and Crockett Club established a scientific baseline from which researchers can use to study wildlife management. If you’re still on the fence about entering your trophy, we encourage you to read Why Should I Bother to Enter My Trophy. To the best of our ability, we ensure that the trophies entered into the records were taken in accordance with the tenets of fair chase ethics. Despite what some may think, the Boone and Crockett records are not about a name or a score in a book—because in the end, there’s so much more to the score.

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More to the Score – 16 Heart-Stopping Entries – Volume 6

Spring 2022 Edition

What’s better than record-book antlers, horns, and skulls? The stories behind them, of course.

Want to see the score charts too?

The Importance of Records in Big Game Management

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