Originally Posted by flags

What I think happens, especially for game like elk is that a lot of people are hunting them with guides and they don't know much about them. They go on a guided hunt and when the guide says "shoot him he will score 330" or something like that, they take the guide's word as gospel even if the elk is little more than a raghorn. Guides get paid to get animals for their clients and they aren't above stretching things a bit on hunters that are kind of ignorant. Same thing happens with speedgoats. Not many people live in real good speedgoat country so not many people are good at judging them. There are a lot of non-residents hunting mulies with guides and the same thing happens there. How many spindly mulies you see with a caption saying he went 180 or 190? You don't here about it as much with whitetails since people are more familiar with them.

And since it won't make the book it never gets officially scored. Plus, no trophy ever gets smaller when the stories start being told. Unless the score is officially recorded it will always increase slightly every time the story gets told.