No that isn’t a young deer unless you are in Alberta or Saskatchewan. I’d guess him at 5 yrs old if he’s anywhere South of Minnesota. If he is an up and comer I’d like to see a picture of one of your bucks that has arrived. Great deer. If you can pass him you are one tough mudder.
Im in Saskatchewan, im just looking at the neck I guess, he looks thin. I have a 3 others I am more interested in, but I thought this guy would be great next year? I guess I still have a lot to learn about aging a deer..!
Beautiful buck! If he makes it another year or two, he's gonna be a giant. Kudos for already knowing you'll let him pass.
That’s why I prefaced my judgement based upon whether or not it is a Canadian deer. I’m far less comfortable guessing age of a deer from up there and you may well be correct that he is only 3 or 4. If you have deer to hunt that seem older to you then heck yea.... let that dude walk and see what happens. He could yet blow up to be a mega giant.
I agree he looks on the young side to me. His face and head seem too straight and crisp to be very old. I'd go 4.5 ish. I think he has room to grow yet for sure.
You're in an awesome position if you can let him go and be fairly sure he'll be around next season, because you have bigger bucks you can take. Most of the land is Sask is private, isn't it?
You can not put Minnesota all in one group as far as size of antler to age. The conditions in Northern MN your logic may be accurate but North central on down to the border is ag country and antler growth is not minimized.
I was just talking about body size and simply picking a state close to Canada to draw an imaginary line beyond which it would be hard for me to be comfortable looking at a deer’s body and judging his age with the same reference points that I’d use for a deer from most of the rest of the Midwest. I wasn’t referring to antlers at all since that is no way to attempt to judge the age of a whitetail anyway. I completely defer to the ability of a MN resident when it comes to judging a MN deer. That was sort of my point... there’s no way that is a pic of a young deer in most of the whitetail range but if he’s from pretty far North then sure maybe he is younger than he looks to me. To be honest when people are asking opinions on age of a buck it should be a rule that they say what state the deer is in. I’m also guessing that a 4.5 yr old buck in Florida might look like a 2.5 yr old to me and a 1.5 yr old to you.
