Does anyone else have a hard time determining if a velvet buck is two or three? I have a handful of bucks running around that I am going back and forth on. What do you guys look for when trying to decide the age of a buck in the 2-3 range? What do you think these bucks below are? The first two are the same buck but I felt that a view of the brows was pretty cool Im pretty sure this buck is older than 2, how old do you guys think he is? any guess one what he will end up at as a score?
It is definitely harder to age deer on the hoof during the summer. There are really only a few things that are tell tell signs during the summer, that I look for. Chest development, shoulder development, and over all body size Out of all the pics up there, I only saw 1 deer that looked like he was a 3yo, that being the last one. The rest are all solid two year olds. One thing to keep in mind is that it isn't always crucial to know the exact age of the deer when you're picking out your hit list. Unless of course you are managing the property very strictly. If you are trying to kill older bucks, you simply want to target 'mature deer'. To me, it is always easy to look at a deer and tell whether it is young or mature.
I have always thought it seems really hard to age bucks in the summer too. Once fall rolls around I seem to do pretty good. We are trying to allows our bucks to grow to 3 years old and reach more of their true potential. I thought I was doing good last year until my dad shot a 6 year old buck that had gone down hill from 5 and scored 120... we thought he was 3 and going up as a 5 year old at 135 inches... That last buck has a 3-way split on his right G2 and almost a split on his left, looks like a main frame 9 right now with possibly another kicker growing on his right at the base of his G3-G4 junction. I have high hopes for him! The only buck that I think I recognize from last year is the buck in the third picture, he has double kickers on his brows, which a buck last year had. He appeared to be 2 last year about about 110 inches?
To put things in perspective at our farm, these following bucks have been shot by us and aged, first one is Stickers at 5.5, then Stickers at 6.5, followed by dook at 2.5 and stomper at 2.5 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's all specific to the area you hunt. It cracks me up when guys from one state throw a number out for guys in another state. Hell in the county I hunt in, the deer in the north half age differently than the deer in the south half because of the vegetation difference. Best way to find out is to pay close attention to your pictures each year. Kill a couple and get them aged. Guessing age is one thing in hunting you need to learn from experience specific to the area you are hunting.
As it was said above, a 3 year old in Alabama will be totally different from a 3 year old in the mid west. So it is important to consider the area when estimating age.
