Big Game Contest? Yes or No?

[Hiawatha]

Hey guys it has been a few years now since we ran the big game contest. I was thinking about getting it rolling again this year and i have no problems with taking it on and organizing it, splitting up teams and keeping it updated. As spring bear is coming up soon i thought we should maybe start talking about this now. I was thinking of running dressed weight as a score for all animals which would include bear, sheep, elk, moose, muleys and antelope as this forum basically covers all big game except deer. So i was just wondering if you guys would be interested in doing something like this again?

[Howler]

The problem with judging by dress weight is getting any scales packed in to an elk, sheep, or moose since most of them are shot and quartered to be packed out! I'd guess a lot of mulie are quartered too, to be packed out!
Not sure how you could judge them all otherwise though!

[Hiawatha]

Good point Howler. I had a problem with the old system as we took the boned out weight and i do not bone out any of my meat. However i would imagine that i am the minority here so we could keep with the method that is most convenient for the majority. We could have those like me estimate the weight of the bone when we weigh the dressed animal. We could also do away with weight completley and go to the b/c scoring system however some of us take cows so i think we pretty much have to stick with weight. Keep the suggestions coming.

[younggun308]

Wait a minute, Turkeys are considered big game, so are we going to count those too? I personally, don't think it's a bad idea. Since that the only other animal I hunt other than deer. I might try bear sometime,though, but not this year.

[HunterOpel]

I think it would be a great Idea..we always do our contests the "BETTY CROCKETT" score system, weight and score..But how ever you do it sounds like fun..

[huntinglife]

Count me in but lets come up with a better way to judge the contest then just weight! There is no way I am going to drag a bear out of the woods just to get a really perfect weight on it.. Too HEAVY! What about Score, Picture Quality and or something else!

[charlie brown]

I like the idea, but it would have to be better organized than the last one we had.

Have a set number of people per team.

Turkey and whitetails each have their own forums and their own contests every year.

Have a team for each category

Mule deer bucks by score
mule deer does by packaged weight
bull elk by score
cow elk by packaged weight
Antelope buck " "
Antelope doe " " "
bull moose " "
cow moose " " "
black bear by skull size
cougar by skull size (maybe, not too many hounders on here that I know of)
and then sheep by B&C score (not sure how many people will have sheep tags)

Say 5 people per team, and total score of the 5 people.

Set a deadline as after the last western state to have results in. I think its WY at July 10th, Idaho may be a little later for the controlled hunts. So, sign up by August 1st. Submissions must be in by Jan 31st. I think there are still some hunts going into January in a lot of places.

Later,

Marcial

[huntinglife]

As much as whitetail have their own forum and their own contest I still believe that they are a big game animal and that we should count them in the list of big game animals. I think we should get this up and rolling though before spring bear season hits by May 1st, 2007.

Maybe we should limit it to only one of each species allowed per team member!

I look forward to it! In fact I look forward to a fantastic year of hunting!

Kevin

[lethalconnection]

Well i know for one im not big on the whole weighing thing cause i for one dont have a large enough scale for dressed weight animals and as for the boned weight i take different parts of the animal after i de-bone it to get it processed into hamburger and such, i could weigh it all if that was what we did but it would be a bit of a pain so i propose that instead of that we give each animal a set score based on difficulty to harvest the animal(for example Big Horns you have to go on quite the hike in the mountains to harvest one and mulies are on the plains so therefore they arent as hard)rarity of gettin the opportunity to hunt the animal(for example for me to get drawn for a pronghorn here it takes 7 years now in other states/provinces that maybe different)also the amount that one person maybe able to harvest (for example here in Alberta i can shoot 3 mulies next year and only 1 moose and 1 elk during rifle season)

So what i figure by set points for an animal this is what i would have it like now this is just a suggestion changes can also be made

Rams(can specify different speices if wanted):5
Bull Elk:4
Cow Elk:2
Bull Moose:4
Cow Moose:2
Bear:3
Mulie Buck:3
Mulie Doe:1
Pronghorn Buck:3
Pronghorn Doe:2
Turkey(not sure if we are gunna include them):2

And on the bulls/bucks what we can do to reduce the chance of a tie is take their base score then add the amount of points they have to that maybe

I only came with this whole scoring thing within like 5 mins so changes and such can be made or additions can be made or things can be removed so just let everyone know of this possible scoring system, i think it will take away alot of pissing around in the end.

[EKM]

Turkeys as big game?
You're kidding right?

Guess the first step is some standards as to what "big game" really means....
Amazing.