The Boone and Crockett Club is the world’s first and foremost champion of conservation. Founded by American giants like Teddy Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and other avid Sportsmen, we have been the pioneers of conservation since 1887. But the call to conserve isn’t answered alone. By joining...
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Alaska 1955 — Armed with a .30-06 that he took on every hunt, Grancel Fitz was on a quest to find the biggest Alaska brown bear that Kodiak, Alaska, had to offer. Even though Fitz was never a regular member of the Club, his contributions to refining the Club’s scoring system produced serious hunting karma because this bear was an absolute monster.
Celebrating the Centennial of the Boone and Crockett Club’s National Collection of Heads and Horns with the 31st Big Game Awards May 25, 2022 marked the centennial anniversary of the opening of a building housing the National Collection of Heads and Horns at the Bronx Zoo in 1922. Organized by...
Put your boots on because it’s time to head over to Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. On the Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch , we’re a tad voyeuristic when it comes to wildlife there. From elk to mule deer and badgers to bears, there are plenty of claws, teeth, antlers, and horns to catch on camera.
Read the entire story of Kullusy's hunt in the summer issue of Fair Chase magazine. Not a member? Join today and receive the Fair Chase 2022 Yearbook with his World's Record Rocky Mountain goat on the cover. A Special Judges Panel convened by the Boone and Crockett Club confirmed a new World’s...
Rocky Mountain goats are tough animals, and hunting them is no walk in the park. Their horns are incredibly hard to judge in the field. To make matters worse, hunters need a keen eye to discern nannies from billies. They live in some of the most inaccessible terrain of any North American big game animal. Even if you see a great billy, you must know that you can recover it after the shot. Every year, determined hunters venture into goat country with a coveted tag—and each one of them has the adventure of a lifetime.
If there ever was a country that could kill you with kindness, it’s Canada. And the hunting? Let’s just say it’s pretty incredible—and it has been for a long time. We dug through our Vintage Hunting Album to bring you some of our favorite vintage photos featuring some of Canada’s finest trophies from a bygone era. So, crack a Molson and enjoy the photo gallery, eh?
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today a coalition of conservation, sportsmen and forest management organizations and companies applauded the introduction of the Forest Conservation Easement Program (FCEP) Act of 2023. The bipartisan legislation will fill a critical gap and help keep private forestland intact...
Recognizing that the future of hunting and conservation rests with young hunters, the Boone and Crockett Club began noting the trophies taken by hunters aged 16 or younger in 2010. This slideshow celebrates five youth hunters who hold state records nationwide.
Excerpt from Wild Gourmet Recipe Courtesy Chef Michael Chiarello When I consider all the people, throughout centuries, who have used this method to cook, I feel like one small dot in a very long time line. This is a 30-log kind of a fire. To be safe have 3 dozen logs, each about 6 inches in...
Louisiana 1904 — For over a century, Ben Lilly’s Louisiana black bear has remained the state record, but it hardly compares to the stories behind the Lilly legend.
Listen Now > I hunted bear in the Galiuro Mountains for several years, but September 9, 1982, was to be a day that I will never forget. It began very much like all my previous hunts. After two days of calling without spotting any bears, and two unfruitful stands on the third day of the season, I set my call on the ground and began to light my pipe.
By PJ DelHomme Buffalo County, Wisconsin, has produced more Boone and Crockett Club record-book whitetails than anywhere else. It’s the number one county in the number one state, according to Club records. Why? At 78, Tom Indrebo has a memory like a steel trap—at least when it comes to bucks killed...
A Boone and Crockett Club member for 54 years, Lee Merriam Talbot was the primary author of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. That alone is a lifetime achievement, but there is so much more to the man who dedicated his life’s work to conservation—and humbly averted death numerous times.
A Dozen Spine-tingling Record-book Trophies Presented by Fiocchi Do you appreciate really big elk? Nasty non-typical mule deer your thing? Maybe you’re more a fan of sheep—Dall’s, desert, Stone’s? Honestly, it doesn’t matter, because we have a little bit of everything in this line-up from our most...
In the early 1900s, national parks were under constant threat from private industry, which hoped to capitalize on those unique landscapes. Two charismatic members of the Boone and Crockett Club worked the halls of Congress to ensure management of those wonders fell to a new agency that would prioritize their protection.
Conservation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Achieving grand conservation milestones takes networking, collaboration, patience, and partnerships. Boone and Crockett Club members know that. For this reason, many Club members have been on the ground floor in the formative days of numerous conservation and environmental organizations that still exist today. While this isn’t an exhaustive list of the groups that the Club has helped to get off the ground, it does provide some insight into the far-reaching influence that past and current members have on the community dedicated to the wildlife and wild places we cherish.
Bison are symbols of the American West, and market hunting nearly wiped them from the planet. The story of their near-extinction and then of their restoration thanks to members of the Boone and Crockett Club is the story of the first animal reintroduction in North America.
Members of the Boone and Crockett Club worked relentlessly not just to save pronghorn from extinction, but also to preserve the land on which they roam where they still flourish to this day.
There were about two million acres of old-growth redwoods in Northern California before Europeans arrived en masse to the area. Today, only about 110,000 acres of old-growth redwood forest remains. If it weren’t for Boone and Crockett Club members, there wouldn’t be any redwoods left at all.
More than a century ago, members of the Boone and Crockett Club spearheaded efforts to set aside areas of land and water where conservation of our fish and wildlife is the number one priority. This is how it all began.
George Bird Grinnell, co-founder of the Boone and Crockett Club, worked for decades to protect a chunk of northwest Montana we now call Glacier National Park.
Members of the Boone and Crockett Club were key players in laying the groundwork for both conservation of game species and generating the funds to pay for it—a system that we still use today.
After establishing the foundation for America's National Wildlife Refuge System, members of the Boone and Crockett Club continued to build upon their successful wildlife restoration efforts that still exist today. Challenges in managing these special places take collaborative solutions—and that’s where the Club excels.
How one member of the Boone and Crockett Club (almost) single-handedly established Denali National Park.
By PJ DelHomme A list of those involved in the early years of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) reads like a who’s who of the Boone and Crockett Club. Even though the AMNH opened its doors in 1869—18 years before the Club was founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell —the...
Sheep, Bears, Caribou, Whitetails—There’s a Giant for Every Hunter Could you pick only one species to hunt for the rest of your life? We can’t either, so we waded through our recent big game entries to give you a big taste of everything. North America is a hunter’s paradise, and the assortment of...
More than anyone, George Bird Grinnell influenced, directed, and solidified the conservation movement during its early years. He also orchestrated the activity of many other conservation leaders, some of whom will be topics of future biographies. His avoidance of self-promotion, and his desire to often work “behind the scenes,” has left him largely unheralded today.
In 2022, both the Boone and Crockett Club’s National Collection of Heads and Horns and one of B&C’s great partners, Federal Premium Ammunition, celebrated their centennial anniversaries. The building that housed the National Collection was dedicated in May 1922 and marked a critical time in turning the tide toward wildlife conservation. Federal Cartridge Company was incorporated in April 1922, and when the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act passed in 1937, Federal became one of the primary companies paying the excise tax that helped restore our native wildlife populations. Conservation became a success story over the next 100 years, and the Club and our members and partners were at the center of the discussion.
After a pair of moose lock their antlers and fight to the death in Idaho, a hunter and his daughter attempt to recover the racks and have a day they will never forget. Oh, and one of the bulls is the fourth largest recorded for Idaho and number 16 of All-time.
Winter 2022 Edition From the Desert to the Tundra, We’ve Got It All If you need some last-minute motivation to get out in the woods and fill your tag, we’ve got it right here. There’s a record-breaking Pennsylvania black bear, some wild trophies from the muskeg and tundra of the frozen north, and a...
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.
Fall 2022 Edition Giant Bison, Bears, Whitetails…and Everything in Between With some hunting seasons underway and others right around the corner, your head should be in the game by now. If not, then let us help with some of the top trophies of the 31st and upcoming 32nd Awards periods. If this...
Summer 2022 Edition With the 31st Big Game Awards right around the corner, the anticipation of seeing so many conservation success stories under one roof is electric. What follows is just a sample of some of the great trophies the Boone and Crockett Club will celebrate in Springfield Missouri, July...
Winter 2021 Edition - Whether your hunts are in the rearview or you’re layering up for one more try, we have a number of new record entries to keep hunting on your mind. Check out a new Montana state record black bear, a behemoth bighorn ram from North Dakota, and an Appalachian sleeper-state producing some incredible whitetails.
In the early 1900s, when America’s conservation movement was in its infancy, Boone and Crockett Club members used media to spread the word about destruction of the country’s wildlife and wild places. In turn, the public pressured lawmakers to support legislation safeguarding those resources.
Lead Ammunition Top of Mind in D.C. — For most hunters, the metallurgical composition of ammunition only comes to mind when buying a box of cartridges or two at the sporting goods store. Most folks find their preferred caliber, peruse the specs, and buy the most cost-effective round for their budget.
Wildlife artist Carl Rungius traveled extensively across Canada and the American West, sketching and painting the big game he encountered. His work showed city folks on the East Coast what they would lose if they didn’t take seriously a new concept called conservation.
Montana 1958 — With a .270 Winchester Model 70, this dairy farm worker cut a big set of elk tracks in October. He followed that bull for at least a dozen miles using his wits and old-school hunting wisdom. At the end of the trail was the second-largest elk in the world.
Relenting to mounting pressure, Club officials allow the elusive chupacabra (Spanish for goat sucker) into the big game records. April 1, 2023 — Since 1995, advocates of a blood-sucking, hairless, reptilian-like animal have worked to recognize the creature as a trophy big game animal. They finally...
Maine 1910 No, that’s not a moose. But at first glance, that’s likely what Maine Guide Hill Gould thought when this buck came crashing out of the alders one fall evening in 1910. When he killed it, Gould had no way of knowing that it would become the state’s biggest whitetail buck for more than a...
By Mike McTee, Researcher, MPG Ranch - Aldo Leopold wrote that “a conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.” As hunters today, we are signing our names with bullets.
Stylish Stalkers — There was a time when hunters would don a tie and tuck in their shirt to chase big game—and they would look darn good doing it. For that reason, we sifted through the archives to find some of the best-dressed hunters from the good old days. If you like this slideshow, more of these timeless photos can be found in our Vintage Hunting Album , which makes a great gift or book to keep up at the cabin.
From Toddlers to Tines—The only thing better than sharing the spoils of the hunt with your kids is having them hunt themselves. Passing down the fun of the hunt is a time-honored tradition for many families—and as you can see from this slideshow, it’s been going on for quite a while.
Smile, You're Hunting — Too many hunting photos show a hunter, for whatever reason, looking downright mad about filling a tag. Why not smile after a successful hunt? You don’t want your great-grandkids thinking you were a complete jerk. As a friendly reminder to have a good time out there this hunting season, we compiled these vintage photos of hunters who look truly happy. We hope you’re glad to be out there, too. Say cheese.
With an estimated 34 million whitetail deer running around the U.S. today, it’s hard to imagine that their numbers were down to around 500,000 in the early 1900s. With proper management, numbers rebounded, and hunting seasons followed. Many hunters were happy to snap a few field photos along the...
If you ask any hunter who spends time hunting in the West, almost all could tell you about the seasonal big game movement patterns they see in the field. We have long recognized that mule deer, elk, and pronghorn take advantage of the vast landscape to seek the best forage and habitat conditions to help them survive the harsh environment. Anecdotally, we have known for years that big game migrate, but the advent of new, real-time GPS tracking collars along with a modeling technique to predict preferred pathways has shed new light on the needs of our western big game animals.
March is an action-packed month for college basketball fans, a time for the buzzer-beaters and underdog comebacks. You know it as March Madness, and to get into the spirit of this most exciting time, we’re putting a Boone and Crockett spin on the bracket system with our own big buck bracket action.
By Jon Gassett , B&C Professional Member In 2020, the Boone and Crockett Club, in partnership with the Wildlife Management Institute, initiated a comprehensive study of the illegal take of big game in the United States. The goals of this effort are to better understand the difference between...
The Boone and Crockett Club and Wildlife Management Institute’s Poach & Pay Program recently completed analysis of early data from surveys of landowners, hunters, and conservation officers in an effort to understand the “Dark Figure” of poaching. Initial research under the Poach & Pay project in 2016 examined and reviewed state restitution systems for illegal take of big game species and found that the judicial systems were the primary obstacle for successfully convicting and punishing poachers.
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"The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will."
-Theodore Roosevelt
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