awesome, love studying trends and such and all that jazz. One final question...how would you describe your hunting area? Pressured, highly pressured, light pressure? How many acres is this property? That top buck is really that old, that's awesome...his body doesn't show it as much as I'd thought but like I said without knowing the buck personally it's tough to tell really. You ever see any of these bad boys or get any of them...especially the bottom one, things awesome looking!
You know I think his body scrunch may have got me with the age...I trust you but can also see him being that old (the top one).
This is making me realize how unorganized my trail camera pictures are... I can find some pics from 2011 on my hard drive, but can't seem to find any from mid-october on. From what I have on facebook and what I remember, Nueve (top buck) would show up practically every night from late October-Mid November at the scrape he's pictured at. The first pics I got of him last season were the night that I had peed in the scrape I had found (done in the afternoon). I have daytime scrape pics of him from 2010 but can't find any of those. Middle buck got three pictures of him in 2010 and never heard of him again. He was a 3.5 possible 4.5. Bottom buck got a ton of pictures of in 2010, about 70% during the middle of the night, and the remainder right at dusk. Did get one of him at 10:00 AM, but that was not over a scrape. Never saw any of these bucks besides Nueve, which I had an opporunity at last November and messed that up. He's still around though. The property I hunt I would say the deer get MUCH more human pressure than most places, but it's from duck hunters not deer hunters. The area is surrounded by a public hunting area that is for waterfowl hunting, and only allows I think 30 total deer hunters on spread throughout the season. It's only me, my dad, and brother with sometimes the landowners going out for an evening or two after a duck hunt. These are WAY southeast MO deer, not the northern MO deer that people are used to seeing 250+ live weights on mature bucks. The property is somewhere between 350-400 acres, I don't remember the exact number. I don't put all of my buck pictures on FB, but some of them I do. You can see some of them at these links: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.427036066486.235411.693466486&type=3&l=60d608b53d http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150234682021487.320267.693466486&type=3&l=2f3d865020 Forgot to add, I killed a buck that I had gotten on camera a bunch in 2010 (including on my mock scrapes) that was a 4.5 and my dad killed one last season that I'd say was a 3.5 that we have thousands of pictures of the last two years from all over the farm, day,night, trails, scrapes, you name it. PS, I like your blog!
OK, At the risk of sounding stupid I have to ask a question... I was always led to believe that the only way to accurately age a deer was by looking at their teeth, since you guys are coming up with such a detailed age I was wondering how you are doing so just by looking at a picture? BTW I'm Bobby, First post here, just bought my first bow and really excited about learning as much as possible between now and opening day.
First off... welcome! good question too. Even aging using a lower jaw isnt an exact science, as a deer's environment/diet can impact tooth wear, but as to aging from a photo, it is not more than an educated guess, but it is possible to gauge the age of a buck by looking at certain body characteristics....the key is dont go by antler size very much.....1 1/2 year olds are pretty easy, small short bodies and faces and dissproportionately long legs, and usually just small forked or branced antlers. 2 1/2 year old deer have a thin streamlined look....body has filled out some, but chest and neck still appear thin, and legs are still long compared to the body size; at this age, bucks "coming in to their own" and will often show up very regularly in daylight as they try to assert their dominance. antlers are usually thin even though there may be lots of points. 3 1/2 is where it gets a little more complicated....a 3 1/2 year old buck will have a "racehorse" appearance...streamlined proportionate body, muscles have filled out, the legs appear just slightly long, the belly and back will be flat, and the chest will have filled out. deer between 4-7 are hard to differentiate unless you have previous history with the deer, but generally a mature buck will appear stocky, legs will appear shorter, neck will be large, head will elongate, belly will fill out on the sides (they will appear "fatter") older deer will also get a pot belly that hangs down and a sway back. Deer older than 7 look like old bruised warriors. loose skin often hangs from their chest. roman noses are common, as is a lot of gray at the end of the nose. hair often looks patchy, and they usually carry lots of scars if the live that long. hope that helps...good luck!
Thanks bud on the blog...got a lot coming just been busy. Doesn't surprise me Nueve made a habit of investigating the scrape at night...smart/mature action. Bottom line is you guys got some awesome bucks around...I hope for your sake that bottom one is still kickin' and may slip up once this year (he's a freak!). As for the peeing, like I said I'm not saying it's going to alarm every single deer, and may even catch the intrigue of some...I'm just not the type I guess to want my presence known when I'm hunting. Now in the offseason and sometimes when checking cams (rare as I try to do this to and from stands if possibly quickly) during I'll purposely make sure to leave scent...let them encounter it with nothing happening when I'm not trying to harvest them. While the hunting pressure...or I guess human pressure is high as you say, mature bucks would still view this as a safe environment...more so than so, less than others obviously though. Sounds like plenty of acres to hold many mature bucks...be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. :D
It's from all the Monsterraxx you've been around...you probably have trace elements of it throughout your whole system haha!
Physically he nailed it...another common way a lot of us know the age of the deer we hunt or get on pictures is just that: picture history. Say we get a picture of an obvious young 2 1/2 year old one year...then more the next year...pretty soon in 4 years we can say without a doubt he's a 6 1/2 year old deer. The above is an awesome answer and "guide" to estimating age by pure typical physical appearance...like he said though, once they hit the 3 1/2 and up until really old it gets tough to distinguish.
It works...a valid opinion/statement, but you guys who are for it...how can you make blanket statements about it. Not trying to sound like I'm disregarding your opinion as not true, just don't you feel so much more could be at work as to why the deer came to your scrape than simply human pee attracted him or human pee is why the deer came to the scrape? Lots of reasons deer move, when they move, how the move and where they move to. What were the wind conditions when a mature buck visited your human pee scrape, where is the location of the human pee scrape (by placing human pee on a already active scrape or making a mock one in a good location of course you'll get some buck interaction with it...but not because you have peed on it, but because either the location of the scrape or the fact they already were planning on coming to it. I'll never say it doesn't "work" in that deer won't get spooked to the next country by it, and I'll go as far as to say younger bucks will most definitely visit it in broad daylight...but just like un-humanized scrapes mature dominant bucks will only visit the scrape at certain times and almost always during barely or no legal light, save a few times during the hunting season (after rains, when lunar tables say move but breeding isn't ready yet and such)
Duh. Same could be said with purchased deer pee and scents. Except, this is free. Do what you want, but I know what I'll be using.
I'd say the same thing of deer pee and scents...your not going to attract big mature bucks because of them...but some people feel that way due to the commercials, tv shows, magazine ads or threads where people proclaim it or simply say "yeah it works". That's all I'm saying, lot of un-intentional conditioning occurring in the whitetail world.
I read an academic study a few years back. The results showed that scrapes (both mock and natural) containing human urine were visited more often than those which were doctered with store-bought deer urine (both natural and synthetic). I've been wizzing all over the woods and killing deer ever since!
