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How to Grade a Trophy Buck

Trophy bucks are those male deer that have lived longest and become older and wiser than the successive generations of deer in the area. Ideally to take a trophy you want a deer that other hunters haven't been able to find and fell, and so you can show you had the skill or the extremely good fortune to take the trophy. The easiest way for you to show that you got a trophy buck though, is to count the antlers on its head.

Instructions

- 1
  Count the number of points on the deer's antlers. Each season bucks grow their antlers and then shed them for the winter. And each year the horns develop more branches and spikes, called points. So the older the deer is, the more points it will have.
- 2
  Add all of the points together from both antlers. This gives you the total "point" value of a buck. It doesn't have to be even, as you could have 5 points on one antler and 4 on the other, giving you a 9-point buck.
- 3
  Compare the points you have against other trophy bucks to see how you fared. A young buck who is just coming into adulthood will have maybe 4 or 5 points. Older bucks that make good trophies will have 9 or 10 points. Ten points is generally considered to be a good trophy buck, and anything above that is a bonus.

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