No world record for big buck shot by Michael Gregoire near Sheboygan FallsBy Brian Gaynor, Gannett Wisconsin Media, found at pressgazette.com
January 9, 2010The much-talked-about buck Michael Gregoire shot with a bow and arrow on Nov. 5 on his brother's farm in Sheboygan Falls was judged non-typical and given a score of 175 3/8 inches at a measuring on Thursday night in Fond du Lac.
Michael Gregoire of Sheboygan Falls poses with the buck he shot on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009.
(Photo courtesy Michael Gregoire)Mark Miller, an official measurer for the national Pope and Young Club and for the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club, and another unnamed volunteer scored the Sheboygan Falls man's whitetail, which fell well short of the state record. The mandatory 60-day drying period, during which most antlers shrink, had expired this week.
"Especially on these extraordinarily large deer, we have a system in place to make sure everything is exact on them," Miller said. "Sometimes there are really unique configurations of antlers, in which case you have to look at the manual. Ninety-nine percent of the deer are straightforward and take about an hour to measure."
Miller, of Fond du Lac, is the same judge who spent three hours this fall measuring the Wayne Schumacher Buck, the state's largest non-typical shot with bow and arrow at 243 6/8 inches.
"It's not in the same class as the Schumacher Buck, by any stretch," Steve Ashley, head of the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club, said of the Gregoire Buck. "Any experienced measurer can look at the pictures and know that."
Gregoire's 12-point buck on Nov. 5 taped out at 217 5/8 inches, a gross measurement of the rack done by an official green scorer. If judged typical, and with minimum deductions, that measurement would have topped the world-record, Milo Hanson Buck, which measured 213 5/8 and was taken with a rifle in Saskatchewan in 1993, according to Boone and Crockett.
But not only was the Gregoire Buck judged non-typical, the score came up well short of the non-typical mark.
Kevin Hisey, executive secretary of the Pope and Young Club, based in Chatfield, Minn., said the group's scoring system takes into account antler mass and symmetry.
"It's very mismatched; it's going to lose a lot of its score based on symmetry deductions," said Ashley. "This is just my opinion, not the official word of the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club. I've spoken with other people, including Boone and Crockett, and from pictures, at least, they concur."
Gregoire, 38, of Sheboygan Falls, shot the whitetail buck from 20 yards on his brother Ed's 160-acre farm on the west side of Sheboygan Falls.
On Nov. 7, Gregoire, a tool-and-die foreman at Wisconsin Tool & Design in Plymouth, said the initial scorer said his 240-pound buck was typical, except for a flawed G2 point on the right side that would warrant a deduction but still make the whitetail a state-record typical.
"Some are saying that (the rack) is webbed so much, it might not be a typical," Gregoire added.
Miller said the Wisconsin record for a typical whitetail taken with a bow and arrow is 187 2/8, shot by Barry Rose in Dunn County in 2006, while the state mark with a gun is 206 1/8, harvested by James Jordan in Burnett County in 1914.
The legendary, 400-pound Jordan Buck, noted for its exceptionally massive and balanced antlers, was first recognized as the world record in 1978 and held the honor until the Hanson Buck passed it in 1993.
Non-typical records, shot by rifle or bow, are vastly greater than those for a typical. For instance, the non-typical world record is 333 7/8 inches for a buck taken in St. Louis County, Mo., in 1981.
The minimum score to gain entry into the Pope and Young record books by bow and arrow for a typical is 125 and for a non-typical is 155, Miller said.
Brian Gaynor writes for The Sheboygan Presshttp://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20100109/GPG0204/301090090/1233/GPG0204/Story--photos--No-world-record-for-big-buck-shot-near-Sheboygan-Falls
