The 50" gets a lot of people in trouble every year. I shoot most bulls under 75 yards. I go by brow tines as moose vary in horn heigth (which look wider than they are) and body size.
You can tell the ones closer to 60" are big but try to judge a
48" to 52" when you are risking all. F&G will take everthing from you if you are wrong,
Too true! Brow tines are the best certainty, but they can get you in trouble also - especially on a hasty assessment. Doubly so if one is not well versed in "brow tine". Add to this the enormous variety in antler configuration.
ADF&G's unctious "if you aren't certain, don't shoot" is of small comfort for those who were certain they were certain and correct, but weren't. Been there, done that. Fortunately in the first 2 years of the new system, when they cut everyone some learning slack.
For antler spread, there are several ways of making a close guess, but kk is right - it's that 48 to 52 range that will kill you, if 3 (or 4 in some areas) brow tines (study up on what is a legal brow tine) are not present. Especially on those dang basket antlered bulls- they can have huge antlers, but may just not reach the minimum width.
I have adopted ear length as one of my measuring standards for width on mature bulls. I've measured the ears of several such bulls I have killed, and all of them came out right at 11 inches long, from tip to skin. If you can guess, or better yet, catch the bull looking at you with an ear laid out horizontally, and there is an honest (no cheating now, allow for any off-angle or other discrepancy) ear-length of antler beyond the tip of his ear, he will go about 52 inches - that gives you a little bit of buffer. If it ain't there, nor the brow tine, don't take the shot.
I formulated this method several years ago, used it for the first time this year on my double-tine-set bull. When he raised his head and dropped that ear, it looked like an honest ear length. Insurance check on his left brow tine seemed to show 3, making him double legal. He turned to run and I busted him before I could check his right side. His main set of tines only went about 44 inches, but those big outside tines sweeping up on the outside, from the bottom of the palms, gave him extra width. In fact, I didn't realize he had two sets of tines until he was on the ground - I was just going by observable outside tine length in relation to the ear.
Turned out he wasn't brow-tine legal on either side, either, but either side was a fool-ya at the angle. On his left side, he had 3 "functional" brow tines (according to Cris Hundertmark, who ran the Moose Research Center until his retirement from ADF&G, and is now a prof at UAF), but was not technically brow-tine legal . He had an anomaly single spike inside the real two point brow tine, on the same plane and correct angle, but there was no common base.
On the right he had one legal brow tine on the upper palm set, and two on the lower - or was it the other way around? They had an arguable common base, too - but were not on the same plane, though both sets were on a different plane than the tine-set they went with.
He did go 52 and an eighth, however.
Elapsed time from seeing him to him hitting the ground was about 6 seconds - maybe less. I have confidence in the ear system, under the appropriate circumstances, obviously.
Uncas. Sounds like you spend most of your time looking at the wrong end of them swamp donkeys!
