Age this guy.

DUCKMAN11 said:
Texas deer I'm assuming? What county? From the different pictures you posted I don't see a buck over 3 1/2 years old.

Deer are aged on the half year. So .5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 etc. So when i say 4yo i really mean 4.5yo btw. Young Texas deer antlers grow up before they grow out. They will have a "basket rack" for about the first 2-3 years. A 2yo 8pt with a 14" inside spread could easily be a 3yo 10pt with a 20" inside spread the following year.

I look at their back/top line first... how straight/flat is it? The more sway backed the older the deer. Backs start to sway around here at about 4-5 years. It starts at the withers first. The back will slope down from the tail towards the shoulder/heart girth area then "ramp up" over the shoulders.

2nd I look at the belly. If the buck has a straight underline then he's under 4 years old. If his belly doesn't drop below his flanks I'd call that a straight underline. If he has a pot belly then he's over 4 years old.

3rd I look at the face. If his face looks like it just came out of a pencil sharpener. He has a narrow nose and a slim jaw line he's under 4yo. If you see a 8pt with a big wide Roman nose....shoot it if legal! Because that buck is at least 6yo and ain't gonna get bigger.

4th I look at how well the deer carries antler mass out to the tips. Big thick beams and points means he's close to maxing out on horn growth. They may grow very similar sets of antlers the last 2 years that they are at the peak before they start to decline around 6 years old.

These are general observations I've had from shooting a checking teeth on low fence Texas whitetail deer for the past 29 years. These "rules" have held true from Del Rio to Clarendon Texas. I also showed cattle for 15 years as a kid and been around them for almost 40 years so my "eyes" for animals is a little different than people who look at 2 legged mammals more than the 4 legged variety lol.

If you really really want to become a better Texas whitetail deer judge and hunter .... set up a bow stand 30yds from your feeder! You will learn more at 30yds in a weekend than you will at 100yds in a couple of seasons!!! Set it up on the east or west side and try to keep it in the shade. I buy the 12-15ft tripod types when they go on sale. I use a CVA single shot in 300blk suppressed with subs. I think I paid $219 for the rifle and $1300 for the can. I still chuckle every time I bring it out at how ridiculous it is to have a can that cost 6x what the gun did lmao. It shoots sub moa nearly 1 hole groups at 50yds with a $300 athlon 1-8x lpvo. And I use an 8x range finder as my "spotting scope". When the weather is good I hunt out of the tripods.....when it's blowing 30mph and 20° I hunt out of the box blind.

I don't try to age a 2yo deer or 3yo deer... I take one look and I can tell he's not 5+ and then just enjoy watching them be....just deer! The worst thing a hunter at our camp can do is shoot a non mature buck. Cull bucks are shot at the beginning of the season before the rut so they don't spread the poor genetics. Big antlers don't= dominant buck. I've seen an old 3pt woop the crap out of a 140" buck half his age! Like John Wayne said "its not about being fast....it's about being willing".

One year we put deer pictures we gathered in the summer on playing cards like the CIA did with AL Qaeda. The ace of diamonds was a spike that we knew was very very old. My wife shot him and we aged him at 8+ years old.

Sorry for the sermon! Just trying to shorten the learning curve for ya!
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Wow!!! Thanks, great summary.

For over 3 decades I had free access to a friend's low fence section in Webb County by Laredo till he sold it. Just the 3 of us hunted the place, plus any guest we bring on. With the abundance of WT I never bothered to really study them. Plus, I just harvested meat for the most part. I missed the opportunity to gain knowledge.

Just like most things in life, we miss the things that we had taken for granted that now are gone. Since he sold the place, and where I go now, a much smaller place, with just my nephew and I hunt on I thought I would put more effort to learn and grow the herd quality by selective harvesting. My nephew contributed to the effort by purchasing the cell coverage game camera and he just feeds me the pictures. We started this game cam thing just this past season. We're in a very rookie stage.

Yes, Texas. Place splits between Travis and Hayes in the Dripping Springs area.

Thanks again for help.
 
Rhett Crider said:
Nose bridge, neck girth, back sway, belly sag, leg length to body girth ratio(legs look shorter but stockier). These are usually the quicker observations I use. Antlers for scoring, not aging. Ten years in old Mexico. Loved that ranch. Four guns on 2400 acres. One buck at 5 1/2 or older. Harvested 6 bucks in those 10 years. Rare to see older bucks until the rut started. Low fence (sierra baja). Lease bordered the Rio Grande, decided to leave in 2015 when traffic to the river started on it. Both kinds 😬
Click to expand...

The old place by Laredo there is a gas line sendero that runs diagonally through the County, a highway through the brush country. There were nights when we set up on the white caliche top calling coyotes, 4 legged kinds with their litter crosses the property.

Ranch rule, don't leave the house without a weapon. When I hunt with a bolt gin, my 5.56 carbine is with me. Other times I hunted with my trusty M14 type. Dependable 1911 in an old tanker holster.

As we go there all year round either to hunt or do some long training, for years when we leave we put out canned food and water. Next outing all would be gone. By mid last decade, before the place was sold, trespassers routinely broke through the ranch house, eat everything in the pantry and consume our booze stash. I believe it was the turning why my buddy sold the place.
 
We recently installed a watering trough on the place. This has a float level for autofill, reservoir is uphill by the road to gravity feed through auto valve. This is a few days old..

IMG_20220718_064703.jpg
 
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FrogFire7 said:
I may get flamed on here, but I'm pretty sure the only way to accurately gauge age is tooth wear. You can make guesses but they're basically just guesses without seeing the teeth
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TxHeartShot said:
Pretty little buck, probably 2, maybe 3, y.o. Hill Country dink. Might as well eat it now while it's tender.
Click to expand...

Roughrice said:
I'd have put money down with you on the 3... looking at his horn base and his body condition, slightly lean for now but decent girth.
Maybe I am wrong...

Someone tell us
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🥩🥩🥩🥩 Tender for sure
 
Bottom line is if you want big deer you have to let them grow........Even the "cull" bucks will often turn out pretty nice if you let them reach maturity. We have found that shooting "cull" bucks before reaching maturity does not the reduce the number of these bucks you will see the next year. We now only shoot bucks that must be a minimum of 5 1/2 and it has made a huge difference.

Five years ago we took over a place in the Texas Hill Country that's not really known for huge deer. The place had been shot out and most of the bucks we did see were 2 1/2 with the occasional rare 3 year old. I was appointed "wildlife manager" of the group (6 of us on 2500 acres) and decided we were only going to shoot does the first 4 years. It was hard to do and ****ed some members off but they are sure glad now that we stuck with that plan. Last year the biggest buck we took off the place grossed just under 170".......and I think he was a 4 year old deer 😣

18AE35D3-1509-49C8-B86C-73464C54C84A.jpeg
 

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