“score”

Fourteen-year-old Paslie Werth, of Cimarron, Kan., shot a massive deer on Sept. 6—a 42-point whitetail buck tallying a gross green score of 282 6/8 inches—while rifle hunting on family property with her father.

A 23-point buck that could be a new Florida state record was poached last October. The buck was initially measured by a Boone and Crockett Club official and grossed a green-score of 207 inches, putting it in the class of the current state record.

This month presents opportunities for a bowhunter or early-season muzzleloader hunter—if you don’t mess up first. Here’s how to score before the rut arrives.

A special Pope and Young Club judges panel has declared a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep taken in South Dakota in 2018 as the new world record with a final score of 209⅛ inches, surpassing the previous world-record ram by nearly 10 inches.

Before you pull the trigger or release an arrow, do you know how to field judge a whitetail deer’s antlers? Those who hunt simply to fill the freezer, this is not really an issue. But for those who are hoping to shoot a buck with antlers that meet or exceed a certain numeric score, more often than not, overestimate the size of the antlers, leading to that common malady known as “ground shrinkage.”

The Quality Deer Management Association and Powderhook have announced the release of the 2016 update to their "Deer Tracker" app, a free program that allows hunters to monitor deer activity and harvests in their surrounding region and throughout the country. New interactive features allow users to estimate the age and score of bucks in posted photos as well as locate nearby public hunting land.

Here's how to score on late-season, hunter-wise honkers.

The more you know and the better you play, the more you score—especially if you are where the ducks and geese want to be.