To the untrained ear, a lot of the conversation around deer camp or the office water cooler throughout the past week may have sounded more like someone reading off an accounts-payable ledger or the blueprints to a house.

“How long are his G-3’s?”

“What kind of deductions are there, will the buck net out for the book?”

“Is he a mainframe 10 or considered non-typical?”

Queries such as these have been on the tips of deer hunters’ tongues lately, and to someone unfamiliar with the scoring system used on whitetails, it all sounds like a ridiculous foreign language.

Somewhere along the line – when hunting became less of a necessity for those solely seeking meat to feed themselves and their families, and more of a means for long term conservation and individual experience – a standard for exceptional specimens of popular North American big-game species was established.

The brainchild of Teddy Roosevelt and a handful of other foresighted sportsmen who were concerned about the fate of our diminishing big-game animals around the turn of the 19th century, the Boone and Crockett Club (appropriately named after our nation’s best-known outdoorsmen, Daniel and Davy) is still responsible for the measuring and recordkeeping of the tiny percentage of world-class animals that qualify for “The Book.”

Scoring is based on minimum number of inches for each specific kind of animal, which encompasses most of the common big game you can think of, and a few, like walrus and musk ox, that do not immediately spring to mind.

Predators like bears and cougars are measured and scored based on their skulls. Antelope, various sheep and the like are scored by their horns. And, of course, antlers are the main object of attention for members of the deer family, such as elk, moose and our beloved whitetails.

Certified scorers systematically measure antlers using a small tape measure and tally up numbers to the nearest 1/8-inch for a cumulative score that is based on each individual deer’s antler measurements.

Although the process sounds tricky, scoring a deer is not all that hard. However, tagging one that makes the books is a different matter.

As residents of the Bluegrass State, we have far better than average opportunities to arrow or shoot a buck meeting the 170-inch typical or 195-inch non-typical minimums.

Kentucky ranks within the top five states and provinces for Boone and Crockett whitetail entries, close on the heels of big buck powerhouses such as Saskatchewan and Iowa, and is No. 2 overall for the number of “Booners” harvested per square mile of land.

Despite these promising statistics, the odds are still stacked against orange-clad wanderers looking to bag a buck with enough bone adorning his noggin to earn its place in history.

Only about one out of every 2,000 bucks taken in Kentucky this year will net enough inches of antler to qualify for the book, regardless of our state’s fantastic herd balance and snowballing reputation as the “place to go” for out-of-state sportsmen seeking the buck of a lifetime.

With all of this hoopla, it isn’t difficult to become hypnotized by the lure of tape and tines.

Still, at the end of the day, when you are hugging the warmth of a stone hearth or recounting the tale to a child whose eyes are wide in anticipation, those inches of antler do not reveal very much about the pursuit and warmth of a memory that will last a lifetime.

If appreciated and harvested both ethically and legally – the ways in which the founders of the Boone and Crockett Club intended – every deer, or even walrus for that matter, is a trophy.

Nonetheless, scoring your buck during some free time can be rewarding in its own right, and there is no better way to do so than by visiting www.boone-crockett.org and clicking on “Scoring your trophy.”

Instructions, diagrams, and a printable score sheet are provided online, and all a user has to do is take the measurements and the score is automatically tallied.

— Geordon T. Howell is outdoors columnist for the Daily News. He may be reached by e-mailing highbrasshowell@yahoo.com.