BETHLEHEM (TNS) — Pennsylvania bucks have been growing older and bigger for most of the 21st century, allowing more hunters to join the ranks of those who have bagged some real monsters statewide.

That’s thanks to antler-point restrictions that the Pennsylvania Game Commission put in place beginning in 2002.

The change has seen the commission adding upwards of 100 names to the state’s record book annually, based on minimum standards for the length of a deer’s antlers under the widely used Boone and Crockett Club scoring system.

Bob D’Angelo is Pennsylvania’s Big Game Scoring Program coordinator. He has a team of about 25 official scorers across the state that work with hunters who think they have a contender, and he previously spoke with lehighvalleylive.com about his work.

The Game Commission’s Pennsylvania Big Game Record System, online at pgcapps.pa.gov/pbgr, recognizes hunters who’ve bagged extraordinary bear and elk in addition to deer, with about 300 entries added each year across all three species, according to D’Angelo.

For deer, the records as of Dec. 2, 2025, included typical deer numbering 2,582 shot in archery and 1,861 shot by a firearm, in addition to 27 pickup deer that can mean an entire deer rack from a roadkill or a dead deer found where the hunter cannot be determined. The records for nontypical — we’ll explain what that means below — totaled 266 in archery, 203 with a firearm and three pickups.

Pennsylvania Game Commission records have been updated annually since 1965, with entries that date to 1830 — when Arthur Young, of Centre Hall, took a buck in McKean County that scored 175-4 and ranks 12th among the state’s biggest typical white-tailed deer shot with a firearm.

Buck harvested from deer farms are ineligible for records.

How antlers are scored

The scoring system of the Missoula, Montana-based Boone and Crockett Club rewards inches of a deer antlers, measured in whole and eighths of an inch.

For example, Pennsylvania’s No. 1 buck in the typical whitetail firearm category was shot by Frederick Kyriss in Montgomery County in the 1960s, and scored 204-6 for 204 inches plus 6/8 of an inch of total antler length.

Bass Pro Shops owns Kyriss’s mount but had a replica made that is on display at the Game Commission’s headquarters in Harrisburg.

A typical deer’s rack is rewarded for symmetry, while a nontypical deer has antlers with points protruding in an abnormal way — like drop tines, stickers and points off points, D’Angelo explained.

It’s the same with elk. A black bear, on the other hand, is scored based on its skull length and width.

A deer or elk rack requires a 60-day waiting period before it can be scored, to allow for the antlers to shrink a bit.

“That’s the drying time,” D’Angelo said. “That’s so everybody’s on the same playing field.”

For a bear, the hunter has to wait 60 days to be scored from the time the skull is cleaned — often by using dermestid beetle larvae that eat away any remaining tissue.

Among the states, Pennsylvania ranked 26th overall in the sixth edition of Boone and Crockett Club’s “Records of North American Whitetail Deer,” published in 2021, according to club spokeswoman Jodi Stemler. The Keystone State had 114 total entries in the book, including 77 typical and 37 non-typical deer.

To make the cut for recognition by the Boone and Crockett Club itself, a typical whitetail needs a minimum score of 160 for an award and 170 for the all-time list, while a non-typical whitetail needs to score at least 185 for an award and 195 for all-time.

Pennsylvania’s minimum scores to be considered a record are lower: 115 for a typical whitetail in archery and 140 for a typical whitetail firearm, or 135 for a non-typical whitetail archery and 160 for a non-typical whitetail firearm.

“We use the same scoring system as the Boone and Crockett Club but our minimum entry scores are lower mainly because we have so many hunters in this state, about 700,000, that our bucks generally don’t obtain the age of some of the other states, such as Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and others,” D’Angelo explained in an email, continuing: “Also, many of the Midwest states are more agricultural and a buck that obtains age and good feed has more opportunity to grow a trophy rack.”

Antler restrictions 101

Prior to 2002, an antlered deer was considered legal with two points to an antler, or a spike at least 3 inches long, according to the Game Commission.

From 2002 to 2010, the antler point restrictions were three or four points-to-an-antler depending on the part of the state being hunted.

And starting in 2011, the four-point area changed to three points to an antler, not including the brow tine. The three points-to-an–antler area did not change, and these can include the brow tine.

Before the restrictions, 80% of the buck killed by hunters in Pennsylvania were 1 1/2 years old, according to the Game Commission. Now about half are 2 1/2 years old, with much bigger antlers.

“They’re coming from all over now just because of the antler restrictions put in place in 2002,” D’Angelo said of record deer.

Age is one of the three main factors that influence a buck’s rack, along with genetics and what they’re eating. A deer in an agricultural area eating corn will grow bigger antlers than a woodland deer eating tree buds and acorns, for example.

Where were Pa.’s biggest deer shot?

The Boone and Crockett Club says among its records, Pennsylvania’s top counties are Westmoreland with 10 deer, Allegheny with eight, and Beaver and Clarion with five each.

Pennsylvania Game Commission scorers see a lot of big bucks from areas in the northwest and the southeast where public-access land for hunting is limited, according to D’Angelo.

“There are some big deer that aren’t being hunted hard,” he said.

Most of the additions to Pennsylvania’s records each year are typical buck shot in archery, which includes crossbows.

“In reality, we should raise that minimum score because 115-class deer, although a nice deer rack, is not that unusual these days because of antler restrictions,” D’Angelo told lehighvalleylive.com. “I’m hesitant to do that, however, because of the hunters listed in the records; I wouldn’t want to cut them out.”

Shot a potential record buck? Here’s what to do.

To enter a big game animal or for more information about the Game Commission’s Big Game Records Program, contact Big Game Records Program coordinator and Boone and Crockett Club certified scorer Bob D’Angelo at c-rdangelo@pa.gov or call the Game Commission Harrisburg Headquarters at (717) 787-4250, ext. 73348.

He will connect the hunter with one of the commission’s scorers located in each of the commission’s six regions.

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