No doubt about it, any buck that makes the Boone and Crockett Club or the Pope and Young Club all-time record book lists is one exceptional deer. But Florida doesn’t have a history of producing large numbers of those exceptional bucks.

Even so, a few whitetails from the Sunshine State have qualified for either the B&C book or the P&Y book, even if not all were actually entered for recognition. And some other bucks have been mighty close.

So what makes a record book deer?

Let’s start with the Boone and Crockett Club, since it came first historically and dates all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency.

Teddy himself helped found B&C in 1887, along with other sportsmen and conservationists concerned about the future of big game and big-game hunting in North America. In the U.S. at that time, the numbers of wild animals were very low. Many people feared that the westward push of "civilization" would soon result in the extinction of all big game.

Starting in 1906, William T. Hornaday began working to establish the National Collection of Heads and Horns at New York City’s Bronx Zoo. By 1922, the collection opened and was dedicated to "the vanishing big-game animals of the world."

Those animals have not vanished, of course, due largely to modern scientific game management -- much of which was either brought about or strongly influenced by the B&C Club and its members.

In 1932, the B&C Club began keeping big-game records with a simple book that included only a few specimens, listed by length and the spread of their horns, antlers or skulls. In 1947, the club held its first competition for outstanding trophies. And by 1950, that competition had evolved into the current trophy-scoring system. (The Pope and Young Club also uses that scoring method.)

Today’s criteria for entering a whitetail deer are strict. Unlike the P&Y Club records, the Boone and Crockett Club accepts animals killed by any legal method -- as well as ones that are discovered already dead, which they list as "pick ups."

As a result, the minimum point requirement for a B&C deer is higher than for a P&Y deer.

For a typical whitetail, the minimum requirement is 160 points for the three-year Big Game Awards program. A deer that scores 170 or above is eligible for the B&C all-time records program, and for inclusion in the Records of North American Big Game, published every six years. For a non-typical whitetail, the minimum scores are 185 and 195, respectively.

To find an official B&C scorer in Florida, go to the Boone and Crockett Club’s Web site and click on "Big Game Records" at the top. Scroll down until you see the link "Find An Official Measurer" on the left side.

Clicking on it will take you to a page where you can enter "Florida" to pull up a list of 26 official scorers in the state, as well as the requirements to enter your deer into the awards programs, if it qualifies.

Through this site, it’s also possible to access the entire B&C Club records list, for a fee.

In 1961, the Pope and Young Club was founded as a non-profit scientific organization. Following the Boone and Crockett model, the P&Y Club advocates responsible bowhunting as it promotes fair-chase hunting and good conservation practices.