"I think it all depends on how you were raised counting points."
You may be right Kirby. Here where I live in Central Idaho the traditional western count was always used up until recently.
"With whitetails, the eyeguards are often a very substantial part of the overall trophy quality of a buck. You can easily gain 15" of score on eye guards alone.
As such, why would you not count anything that would contribute to such a degree to the trophy quality of the animal."
I don't think western count was ever considered to be a way to judge a trophy animal, merely a technique for indentification. Four point and five point deer, as has been noted, come in all sizes. B+C, P+A, or Buckmasters are a better means of scoring an animal.
"Just another side note and not meaning this in any disrespectful way, but just because a gunwriter says something does not mean its written in stone, or even correct for that matter [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]."
None taken. But it wasn't just Jack O'Connor who used tradition western count in the past for identification. When I was young the literature I read and the pictures that accompanied it used a traditional western count also. Also, over the years I've run into people who have met, read, and liked or disliked Jack but haven't met anyone who said he wasn't knowledgable and didn't know what he was talking about.;)
"Everyone has their way of doing things, to say one way is the correct way and all others is wrong is a pretty bold statement in my book.
Again, its just what people grow up using and what they are used to."
I'll agree with that. One of my co-workers stated that his uncle goes by traditional western count and his father by the 1/2 eastern method. My contention is that one of these methods is the "true/historic" traditional western count and the other is what it has evolved into for many over the years. Does that make either system wrong or bad---no, just ambiguous.
"Personally, if a tine is a scorable tine(+1" on the B&C system), I count it in my count as do most Montana hunters in my area of central Montana."
Perhaps we can call it "Central Montana count" to eliminate the ambiguity?
Pat S.
Linear Mode
