Actually I thought they may be longer but it really is impossible to tell from one frontal pic. They sweep back from the bases a bit before they curve back around and the measurement is taken around the outside. I'm sure they are longer than 21" unless that's a really small deer and it's throwing my whole scale off. It'll boil down to how long the section is after they turn back forward before they curve in towards his muzzle. If that section is short, they may be 22-24", very long and and they may be 25-28". The only thing I can tell for sure from the one frontal shot is that the right side main is longer than the left. I have a couple of bucks here this year like that, they look incredible until they look up or down and then you can see one side is way shorter in MB length. The 2013 OMG deer I posted last year has a 30" main beam on the right side and a 26" Main beam on the other. I have him on the wall next to two others with 28", 27" main beams that are shaped vastly different and no one would guess that any except the OMG deer has mains that long until I take them down and tape them. My brother in law thought I was crazy when I told him the one buck wit ha 14" inside spread had 28" main beams until we took it off the wall and laid a tape on him. Their shape can be incredibly deceptive. I can be off too though, I thought the 9 point bow kill last year had 25" mains and he was two inches under with 23" instead. But again, I'm basing all my guesstimates off of our local deer here and I have a feel for ear width average as well as eye width and use that to get a feel for comparison antler measurements. If that deer is smaller than our average size mature buck then all bets are off. QDMA has a good video on scoring and aging bucks on the hoof.
I just ran him through the Buckscore program for chits and giggles. He measured out at 144 on it but I then ran my OMG buck through it and he grossed 155, his actual gross score is 184 and change so from what I can tell the buck score program is full of chit to start with...$24 down the drain. If it was off by 29" on mine then that doesn't bode well for it. It's the angles I think. My OMG deer's tines angle back in my pic so I'm sure it's losing inches on every tine and I also don't think it can allow for foreshortening in the main beam measurements. It's an interesting program, I wonder if it wouldn't be more accurate from a side view? I may try a different angle on OMG later to see if I can get the program to actually work within the projected 3% +/- error range.
Repeating-- In case you didn't comprehend it the first time. If yer boots are wet you need to step a little closer to the john.. that seems pretty obvious to me...
Covey-- when I shot my best buck I would have swore he was 140 maybe at best-- He ended up at 160 and change. Its so hard to tell sometimes because no two sets of horns are alike and with out close study its just a guess at best
Yeah same here, back several years ago my best buck was a 135" 8 point that is wide like this one. One evening I was hunting and had a nice one walk in behind me. I thought he was about the same score as the one I already had but he was big and mature. His 8 point frame looked narrow and shallow but he had good tine length. When he stopped with his head behind a tree, I couldn't resist slamming one through him. He dropped in sight and I got to him before dark. I picked his head up and was shocked at what he actually was. It was the opposite of ground shrinkage. I didn't even score him though, I caped him out and delivered him to the taxidermist and he measured him out of curiosity and when I picked him up finished, the guy said hey that one makes book. I said huh...what's he score He said he's easily big enough to go in P&Y, I'll enter him if you want. SO I paid the fee and he entered it as a 148 5/8 8 point. He looks smaller than my older one but outscores him because of tine length and mass and his mains are way longer than I thought they'd be. They bow out and curve sharply back in which is deceiving because they don't go out over his face towards his nose very far which like the QDMA video they teach to judge main beam length to look how far they come out towards their nose...that's not necessarily correct.
His left antler is maybe 18 long & like everyone else says no tine length and no mass after the velvet comes of
Thanks for all the input! I really hope he hits the ground this fall so we can get him scored and see how big he really is.
