Becky's Big Buck

When Jen Dailey and her daughter-in-law Becky went in search of a big buck a friend had told them about, they didn't know the buck they found would be a Boone and Crockett Award qualifier.

"I've been after a buck of that caliber for years. It was a deal with my dad. I needed to get a bigger buck than him. One of our friends called and said, 'Hey, I think I found Jen a buck,' so Becky and I drove over," Jen Dailey said of the 2019 hunt.

Jen and Becky parked on the east side of Rogers Pass and were scoping to see if they could find the buck.

"It was the last day of hunting season, and we just went to see if we could get something," said Becky, who grew up in Lincoln but now lives in Lewistown. She added her gratitude to Jen for taking her that day. "I couldn't have done it without her."

"I spotted the buck come up out of the bottom. I couldn't quite see how big he was yet. There was a storm, a huge, huge storm coming in, so it was snowing pretty good," said Jen, who looked toward Becky.

"I saw (Becky) was so excited. I don't get that excited anymore. I've shot 34 bucks in my life. So I said, 'You want him?'" Jen said.

Becky started out after the buck, said Jen, but he took off, so she motioned Becky back in and they went down the road. Because of the snow, there was nowhere to park, so Becky got out to go after the buck, and Jen went down the road to turn around. Jen said she was just glassing another buck when Becky called to say she'd gotten it.

"She just dropped me off, and I walked to where I needed to shoot it," said Becky, who shot the buck with a .243 that she inherited from her grandmother.

As Jen and Becky neared the buck, Jen started to realize how big it was.

"The closer we got to him, the more I just got emotional," said Jen.

The women took the buck to Aaron Daniels' for processing, and that's when they first realized they might have an award-sized animal on their hands.

"The first thing he did was take his tape measure out," said Jen.

"We took it to a Boone and Crockett official scorer, and I think it had to dry for 60 days. We took it to him, and he turns it in if it qualifies," Becky said.

It did. The buck scored 161-4/8 points and was accepted on Dec. 15 into the 31st North American Big Game Awards, 2019-2021 by the Boone and Crockett Club.

The minimum score for an award-winning buck is 160 points. A score of 170 or above is rated as an "All Time" animal. The current measurement standards were adopted by the Club in 1950.

The Boone and Crockett Club first began measuring and recording big game trophies in 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt was chairman of the Club's first record committee. Record keeping started in part as a means of supporting ethical sportsmanship, conservation and the recovery of big game species, according to the Boone and Crockett Club website.