If you have an Alaskan Moose hunt planned or just dreaming of one.

[Olin Rindal]

In most areas in Alaska a moose has to be 50" wide or more to be legal. There is also a brow tine requirement if less than 50" of either 3 brow tines or 4 brow tines depending on the area hunted. It is really important to be proficient at judging spread because you will get a game violation for being anything less than 50". Even if you are a half an inch short you can expect a several hundred dollar fine and a confiscation of meat and antlers. Some bulls are very deceiving and hard to judge. There are little tricks to help judge the spread of bull moose such as 10" from out side to out side of the eye sockets and then visually use that measurement and compare it to the width of the rack. This is not a 100% method on all bulls. Just like you and I bull moose have different facial characteristics. The only way to get good is to practice looking at moose racks. Here are some pictures of a moose shot this year. I did not shoot this moose, I actually borrowed these pictures from another sight. I know the man that was the guide on this hunt. These are all the same moose. It also demonstrates how different angles make a moose look like an entirely different animal. If you have seen this post on the other sight please don't give it away. I would like everyone to take a look at the pictures and guess the width. Ill give it a couple days for people to guess and discuss the methods of determining how you came up with your guess.

   

   

   

   

   

[wingnut]

Yep after hunting them a few years with antler restrictions, they classify as brow tine legal or no brainer if you're going to shoot.  A bull at 49" looks just like a bull at 50",  So we go to about 55" and up on non brow tine legal bulls.  Luckily the area we hunt have lots of brow tines.

Mike

[akdd]

Alaska department of fish and game has a pretty good video on judging them.
 http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=multimedia.embeddedvideo&videoID=38069348

[Olin Rindal]

Yep that is a great resource. I thought there would be a little more participation on this. Oh well. I will give the answer tomorrow.

[BradLantz]

that one looks iffy ...

[Sixgun]

I'll play. I've never hunted moose, but am willing to learn something new.

I'm going to base my estimate on the picture of the gentlemen standing with the rack held vertical. The man on the right in the picture I'm estimating to be about 5'8". The other people in the photo seem taller, around 6' or so. I noticed that the arm is out, but bent a little. That indicates to me that the rack is in the foreground and is appearing larger.

The other picture with the rack on the back, also indicates that the rack is approximately the same height as the man.

I'm going to say that, that rack is roughly 68" inches. It was a definite shooter!

Ray

[MR BILL SHORTY]

62"    

[Cavscout9753]

Just trying the 10" eye socket thing I'm going to say 75"? Here at Benning we're QDMA so our bucks have to either have 4 points or be a spike under 3", and that makes me nervous enough to try to determine, I can not for the life of me imagine having to judge one of these in a short ammount of time!

[mark Willoughby]

68 1/2

[Archie]

If I remember correctly, a mature moose's ears are about 13" from tip to tip.  If that is the case, this moose looks like it would measure smaller than it appears.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was 49", and that all the other pictures are misleading.

My guess is 47", and those fish-eye pictures are misleading.  Note that the antlers are standing on a log in the beach/vertical picture.  I think those are a bunch of shorter men in the pics too.  In my opinion, you can't judge antlers when they're already on the pack, so those bear little in my estimate.  The most important picture in the bunch is the first one, where the head and ears are visible relative to the antlers.  

I grew up with my dad's 68" moose track hanging in the garage... and this one just doesn't seem to be in that class.

[AkDan]

1 dollar  bwahahaha!!!!

[centaur]

Whatever he is, he makes our Shiras critters look like babies. If he isn't legal, he oughta be.

[Keith Zimmerman]

Im guessing 60".

[CRS]

my guess is 63-65"

[CRS]

my guess is 63-65"

[stevem]

I say 66".

[yeager]

I'll take a stab at 73"

[Jeff D. Holchin]

I saw that thread on the web site you mentioned this past week (excellent story) but didn't get to the end where he said the spread.  I am guessing 63"

[monterey]

59"

[ChuckC]

So what is measured for width ?  Just the farthest (apart) point from each side ?  

This one appears to have a very misleading couple points that really go far out (see first pictures, face on).  Without those, this rack is much smaller in terms of measurements than it will end up measuring.

If indeed the width of the eyes is 10", both of the sides exceed 30", plus that 10" face".

Looks like a nice showy bull.