These are rather precise measurements to be made for the final tally, but since time is of the essence when in the field, there are several quick things to check to get a good idea of your buck's final score:

• Check the number of points - a good trophy will have at least ten points, five per side, including eye guards.
• Check overall frame size - look at the point length, main beam length and the inside spread. A trophy buck will have a high rack that spreads to his ears or past (this implies a rack of at least 16 inches wide). In short, the higher, wider, and thicker the better. (If the horns on the rack are thin, it usually means the deer is young.)
• Check the profile -- Trophy bucks typically have main rack beams that stretch past the nose when looking at it from the side. If it doesn't stretch past the nose, though, it still might be of trophy status. If, for instance, the ends of the main beams curl back towards the buck's eyes, there might be three or four more inches on the rack that won't be visible unless viewed from the front.

Once you have more time, then you can get up to your eyeballs in measuring bliss by breaking down your buck according to the following Boone and Crockett criteria, the same ones you'll encounter on their score sheet. (Be sure to make each of these measurements with flexible steel tape, rounding off to the nearest one-eighth of an inch, and remember that measurements aren't official until the antlers have air dried for at least 60 days.)

• Count the number of points on each antler: The projection must be at least an inch long to be counted as a point and the length must exceed the width. The beam tip is counted as a point, but not measured as a point.
• Measure the tip to tip spread: Simply the distance between the tips of the main beams.
• Measure the inside spread: Simply the greatest distance between the inside edges of the main beams.
• Calculate the length of all normal points: Normal points project from the top of the main beam and are measured along the outer curve of the beam.
• Calculate the lengths of all abnormal points: Abnormal points emerge from atypical locations, such as off other points or from the bottom or sides of a main beam.
• Measure the length of the main beam: This is measured from the lowest outside edge of a burr along the outer edge to the most distant point on the main beam.
• Make four final circumference measurements: These are the smallest distances around certain areas of the rack -- between the burr and the eye guard, between the eye guard and the second point, between the second and third point and between the third and fourth point.

Boone and Crockett Typical Deer Score Sheet
*must have Acrobat Reader to view file