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Mark Freeman Commentary Big racks should wow one and all By MARK FREEMAN David Morris will hunt for the biggest trophy big-game animals Southern Oregon has to offer this weekend, and he'll do so without leaving his seat at a West Medford sporting-goods store. Morris, the keeper of Oregon's official hunting records, will simply wait inside the Black Bird Shopping Center and watch the trophy deer and elk antlers come to him. Hunters from across the Rogue Valley will pull their old antler racks, some of which have been stored for decades in basements, attics or barns. They'll bring them to Morris' touring trophy big-game show for official measuring and scoring under record-keeping rules for comparing big-game trophies. And invariably, Morris expects to find a few specimens worthy of scoring in the top five or 10 animals in their class. Maybe it's a new state-record blacktail deer or Roosevelt elk. Maybe a mule deer, or even a black bear. But as sure as a buck sheds his antlers each fall, Morris will find a few new records this weekend in Medford. "The best thing is to see the reaction from the public when one of these big heads comes through the door," says Morris, who publishes and promotes the Record Book for Oregon's Big Game Animals. "Everybody crowds around it, asking where in the world it came from. We measure it, and tell everyone it's a new top five blacktail, or top 10 Roosevelt elk, and everyone's shaking their heads. They can't believe it. "It's happened at every show we've done," he says. "And it'll happen three or four times this weekend, for sure." Morris will be measuring the heads and antlers of big-game animals for free this weekend when his traveling tour of big-game hunting records returns to Medford. The so-called Tour of Northwest's Big Game Animals is free and runs from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The show features more than two dozen of the best deer and elk antlers ever scored in Oregon and Washington. The scoring is based on a series of measurements, which are tallied based on Boone and Crockett Club criteria used to compare one animals's antlers with another. This weekend's show sports many of the biggest antler specimens ever seen in Oregon, and some date back to the 1940s. Black Bird managers have cleared an 8-by-60-foot aisle through the center of the west Medford store. Store managers expect a steady stream of hunters who will ogle and salivate over the different trophies. "What else can you do for free in Medford?" says the Black Bird's Mike McMullen, who will bring in a blacktail deer head of his own for measurement. "There's a lot of us out there like me, who always wanted to know what that big buck we shot years ago would score. Here's their chance." For decades, hunters have compared their deer and elk by comparing measurements of their antlers. And in this case, more than size counts. The lengths and thicknesses of various beams and tines are all measured, as well as the space between the two antlers themselves. The measurements are all added up. Then deletions are made for imperfections, with the lack of symmetry between the two separate antlers a common loss of inches. The various measurements are based on rules written by the Boone and Crockett Club and followed by sanctioned scorers. The club is also the official keeper of the records for all big-game taken by rifle hunters. Morris publishes Oregon's version of the record book, as well as similar books for Washington and Idaho. Hunters whose animals meet minimum scores can pay Morris $15 to get their trophy listed among the records, and more than 5,000 have done so in Oregon since Morris published his first book in 1996. Morris has spent the better part of the late 1990s scouring the different hunting communities for hidden trophies for scoring and entry into his record books. But lately, the trophies come to him. Of the 25 mounted deer and elk part of his current traveling show, all but four were unearthed at events like this weekend's show at the Black Bird, he says. That's how the so-called "Ginger Rogers Buck" came to Morris. At Morris' 1998 show at the Jackson County Expo, Mert and Erlene Thomson of Trail had Morris measure the mounted antlers of a blacktail buck shot on Rogers' Eagle Point ranch in the 1940s. It became the earliest known blacktail of its kind to tally 180 inches in the scoring criteria. Stories abound of hunters, or their sons or grandsons, dusting off a set of antlers from the attic or pulling them off the garage wall and taking them to a Morris show, where they learn the buck or bull is one of the top 10 ever measured in its category. "They come in, and they really have no clue," Morris says. "You tell them they have a new record, and their jaws just drop. It's great." And it's predictable. So predictable, in fact, that Morris fully expects to find three or four more top 10 records in Medford this weekend. "It's amazing this is still happening to me," Morris says. "I've been doing these shows for five years, and we've done 100 of them. I'd have thought we'd found all the old record (antlers) by now, but they don't stop coming. Everywhere we go, we measure heads all day, and a lot of them end up in the top 10. "Each week, you walk into a new town, and the excitement is there," he says. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA