Rackmastr:Congrats on your tag. I used to know all the rules for judging big elk,but have mostly forgotten them....
But I'll try to help and others with more experience will no doubt chime in.Maybe they'll remember all the "rules".
First,I'd look for length and mass.A 350 class bull looks big and "boxy" and has a typical 6x6 configuration,in most cases;look for length and mass everywhere, in the main beams,and all of the tines.I think you want main beams in the 50" range,and the back "forks" will be deep and well formed with the main beam sort of (sometimes but not always) turning down.He will sort of look like he could scratch his ass with his back tines if he stretched his head back a bit.The swords should be long as well,IIRC between 18-24".The trez(is that what they call them?) will be long and sort of curved,out and up,and in a big bull seem to add to the appearance of a wide spread.
The first two tines will have length and sort of appear like they'd stretch out at least half the length of his face,maybe more in a really big bull,and sometimes sort of hook up.
With all of this,he will have a lot of mass carried throughout the rack,including the tines.
Each bull is a bit different,and some will have more of these characteristics making up for a lack of others;but a 350(and up)class of bull is a very solid notch up from a 300-320 class in all these characteristics,and once seen, will not be forgotten.A big bull will knock your eyes out and make a lot of these evaluations pretty unneccesary.He will look like "WOW" at first glance unless you're a really hard core elk hunter with a lot of bulls in your background,and exposure to lots of really big elk.
The biggest I've seen was a huge 6x6 in Arizona that I looked over for a long time.He had all the above characteristics in spades and I sort of concluded that he would gross book(about 375 IIRC)and may very well have been considerably larger;he appeared VERY wide because he was,and had very long trez that swept up and out,adding to the appearance of spread.Viewed from the side, his beam length had the "scratch the ass" length and forks were very deep.Generally he had all and more of what I described above, and was bigger in every regard than the 350 class bulls I had previously seen.
In the case of a really big bull,all this excrutiating evaluation will be unnecessary.Like Jack O'Connor said, the big one's will "look big".
