Exactly How it's Supposed to Work!

Garland Sawyer was the lucky hunter who tagged this awesome buck!

This field judging quiz had a great turn out with 71 hunters getting involved. Thanks to everyone who submitted a guess.

The official Boone & Crockett score is 83 6/8.

The average of the 71 guesses is exactly 83 6/8! 

This is what I was hoping to achieve when I first attempted these guessing games. The wisdom of the crowd proved to be correct.

Although the overall score was exact the individual guesses were all over the place. There were scores ranging from 67 inches to 107 inches! Lengths from 12 inches to 21 inches. In fact, after looking at how wild some of the guesses were, I'm really surprised that the average of the scores was so exact.

As for the grades there were only 3 A's and 11 B's out of the 71 guesses. Again, this makes it even more remarkable that the average ended up being what it was supposed to be. 

On all the individual measurements here's the breakdown:

• 69% within an inch on length
• 49% within half an inch on prong
• 61% within half an inch on base
• 62% within half an inch on 1st Quarter
• 61% within half an inch on 2nd Quarter
• 70% within half an inch on 3rd Quarter

​It's interesting that the guesses were the most inconsistent with the prong measurement as I generally think it's one of the easiest to guess right. 

FIELD JUDGING TIP - PRONGS:
Think of the prong as 2 measurements - behind the prong and off the horn. 

​Step 1: 
For the behind the prong measurement: 

1. Guess 2, 2 ¼",  2 ½", or 2 ¾" for the behind the prong measurement. If it's super heavy guess 2 ¾". If it's thin guess 2. If it's in the middle guess 2 ¼" or 2 ½".

Step 2: 
For the off the horn measurement use the buck's 2" eye as a reference:

1. Compare the eye to the prong that branches off the main horn.
2. If that looks equal to the eye then it's 2". If it's twice the length of the eye then it's 4", etc. Most will be somewhere in the middle.

Step 3:
For the total length of the prong add these two steps together.

If you want more In-Depth Field Judging advice look at our DVD "Size is Everything". Tons of info on how to do it in the field and lots of giant bucks to drool over.

If you guys liked the grading and the set up this time let me know either on a comment on this blog or on Facebook. If you have anything specific you'd like me to cover also let me know that. Thanks for playing along and stay tuned - I'm planning on having a lot more Field Judging Quizzes in the near future.