ORIGINAL: njbuck22
Nets are for fishing. I think its horrible that a deer gets penalized cause he grew some additional bone that isnt symetrical. Like others have mentioned, the only way to get a true reading would be water displacement, but im not sure i see that happening anytime soon. All the guys i know all go by gross score, gives you a more accurate image of the animal, although sometimes that can be misleading too.
You have to remember though where and why scoring came to pass.
Granted the B&C system was not the first scoring system in the country.
However, B&C is concerned with the overall quality of the resource. They want to show how conservation practices, coupled with man's ability to co-exist with nature, can provide healthy specimans that grow to trophy potential.
The reason for deductions is because there is an anatomical description of what a whitetail deer should look like.... antler wise. And that is with typical antlers, that are symetrical. B&C has their own definition of it too that they use for scoring purposes.
It wasn't until later on that they added the non-typical catagory, that gave credit for abnormal points. However, there are still symmetry deductions on non-typical trophies... and that is because things are supposed to be symmetrical.
If you had one arm that was 30" long and another arm that was 20" long... or one ear that was big and one that was small.... you wouldn't be considered a typical, human being. Its not that you are somehow unequal to others.... thats what America is about... equality... but it doesn't really make you a "healthy" human from a design standpoint. You might have low BP, great choloesterol and a 30bpm resting heart rate.... but you know what I'm getting at here.