Idaho hunter locks up world record for bull elk

Statesman staff

An Idaho hunter is officially the world record holder for bull elk after a mandatory drying period and official scoring, the Boone and Crockett Club reported.

Denny Austad of Ammon paid $150,000 for a Utah Governor’s Tag, which allowed him to hunt with any weapon in any open unit in the state.

Austad hunted public land in the Monroe Mountain District in southcentral Utah and killed the bull Sept. 30 after hunting for 13 days. It was dubbed the “spider bull” for its unique antler configuration. The Boone and Crockett Club, which tracks record

animals in North America, said in a press release it is possibly the largest elk ever produced in the wild.

A panel of judges determined a final score of 478fi nontypical points, 93-plus inches more than the Boone and Crockett minimum score of 385 for nontypical American elk, and more than 13 inches larger than the previous world record.

It is the only elk on record with a gross score approaching the 500-inch mark, at 499 3/8. Official data dates back to 1830.

The giant bull has nine points on the left antler and 14 points on the right. The larger antler has a base circumference of more than 9 inches.

The Boone and Crockett scoring system rewards antler size and symmetry but also recognizes nature’s imperfections with nontypical categories for most antlered game.

The bull’s final score includes 140 inches of abnormal points.

The previous world record for nontypical American elk was 465 2/8 points. That bull was found dead and frozen in Upper Arrow Lake, British Columbia, in 1994.

For hunter-taken nontypical American elk, the previous top bull scored 450 6/8 points and was taken in 1998 in Apache County, Ariz., by Alan Hamberlin.

“Along with measurements that honor the quality of the animal, Boone and Crockett Club records also honor fair-chase hunting,” said Eldon Buckner, chairman of the club’s records of North American big game committee. “Through our entry process, signed affidavits and follow-up interviews with the hunter, his guides, and state and federal officials, we were satisfied that this bull was indeed a wild, free-ranging trophy and that the tenets of fair chase were used in the harvest.”

The club credits conservation practices that have translated to flourishing big game populations, with balanced age-class and mature trophy animals.

Over the past 30 years, qualifying Boone and Crockett record-book entries for American elk have increased 193 percent from a total of 14 in 1977 to 41 in 2007.

Across all categories of native North American big game, the overall trend is even higher, with 344 qualifiers in 1977 up to 1,151 in 2007 — a 234 percent increase.