While thousands of attendees shoehorned into the aisles of last weekend's Buckmasters Expo, 17 sat quietly upstairs with measuring tapes in hand and plastic antlers on the tables in front of them. At the same time, four more first-floor tape wielders were busy scoring the real deer people brought to the show.
"We always have a deer scoring class at Expo," says Mike Handley, who has run Buckmasters' records program for most of the last three decades. "This year's group was the largest we've had since launching our Full-credit Scoring System in the mid-1990s."
The Expo class is a daylong affair capped with a written exam covering numerous aspects of the system created by Russell Thornberry, the former Canadian outfitter who was editor of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine for many years. Those who pass the test become certified measurers.
Everyone passed, meaning the states of Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kansas have new scorers eager to get started. Other summertime classes have yielded new measurers in Illinois, Missouri and Georgia. Their contact information has been added to the ballooning list of active measurers on the company's website.
"We've added 32 new measurers to the roster in 2026," Handley said. "That tells me the records program is gaining traction every day. As more people realize that ours is the fairest means of scoring, classifying and recording whitetails, the more it becomes a no-brainer.
"The nation's largest deer hunting organization is doing it right," he added.
The proof is everywhere: more scorers, more entries, increased social media presence, and a soon-to-be-published ninth edition of Buckmasters Whitetail Trophy Records listing 25,000 of North America's finest specimens.
The number of deer that came through the doors at Expo — twice the number brought to the 2025 event — also support the rising popularity of a system supported mainly by volunteers.
"It's all a labor of love, really. I guess you could call us the men and women who stare at deer," laughs Handley. "Ours is a nationwide network of individuals who volunteer their considerable time and energy to provide answers to hunters who want to know how their whitetails stack up against others near and far.
"A scoring session might take 30 minutes or three hours, depending on a rack's complexity," he continued. "Stories are swapped during that time, and bonds are created over shared cell phone images of whitetails past, present and future.
"The hunter leaves with a score representing everything the deer's carrying up top — every scorable inch, including the inside spread, without deductions. Measurers return to daily life with an unexplainable sense of accomplishment, a notch in their belts so to speak, and perhaps a tip for their time," Handley added.
The last scorers class of the season is fast approaching. It'll be held inside Bass Pro Shops in Concord, North Carolina, on Sept. 5. Attendees must pre-register at least a week in advance to allow for delivery of their measuring kits. For more information, contact Lucas Brown at lucas.p.brown@gmail.com or call (931) 436-8498.
For more information about the scoring system, go to Buckmasters.com.