Age a Ky buck

ng270

Active Member
My son took this buck last week on our Kentucky property. Anyone have an age conjecture? As is often the case, not great photos for aging, but they are what I have. Thanks.
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His body isn't huge, but not all mature deer have huge bodies. Also, by November 18 in KY, most bucks have lost a tremendous amount of body weight from the rut. The bases of the antlers look big enough to rule out anything less than a 3 year old, and based on all other factors I see, my guess is that the deer is probably a 4 year old.
 
I’m going with 4+ based on his neck and bases. That’s about all these pics will allow me to judge. They don’t often pose broadside, head up and looking at you. :)
 
I hadn't checked cameras for a week so when Gunner killed the buck I hadn't seen any pics of him. But I think I would have guessed 4-5 years old as well.
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Gunner noticed his incisors looked beat up.
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I pulled his jaw and decided he was older than I thought. Really heavy wear compared to 4 year olds from the same property.
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Yes, those last pictures definitely say older than 4 to me. Congratulations to your son BTW - I forgot to say that earlier.
 
Looking at those teeth, that deer is older than 4. Or ate rocks his whole life.

Lol, that's almost exactly what I said when Gunner asked how old I thought he was when we were looking at his teeth: "Either he's old - like 8-10 years old - or he's eaten a lot of gravel."

Sitting in the stand that evening I got to going over past bucks we had on the place that would have fit this one's description. Having owned the place about 11 years now, it seems that any time a "stranger" adult buck shows up, I can usually find him in my pictures from prior years, unless he's really nondescript. A buck I called "Elf" came to mind. Named mostly for his pointy ears, but also pretty diminutive, even for a 1.5 year old.
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He made a pretty good jump from 1.5 to 2.5, and I figured he had potential to be a good one, in spite of a narrow spread. These are the pictures that first led me to think that Gunner's buck is likely Elf. The antler configuration is pretty consistent from here forward - the right beam generally doesn't sweep as far outward before turning forward as does the left, and the right beam tip turns up noticeably while the left doesn't as much. G2's bases are well in front of where the beams turn forward. And an extra off the front of one of the bases. All of those are noticeable in Gunner's antlers from this year.
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But at 3.5 he didn't show up at all until very late - actually after the first of the year, and my thinking about his ultimate antler potential took a hit.
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First year he threw a kicker from a G2.
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4.5 years old. Late show again, and really poor pics, but same deer.
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Finally at 5.5 I got pics of him overnight between the first and second day of firearms season.
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Of course I was hunting for him at that point, but he disappeared, and I didn't get pictures of him at all after that. Being that the surrounding properties are heavily hunted, I assumed he was harvested in 2019 by someone else.

So if he did survive all this time, he would be 8.5 years old this fall. Which seems to line up with his teeth wear. I'll send his lone remaining middle incisor to get a lab age, but I'm pretty confident this is the same buck.25 11-18-2022 resize.JPG

So mostly I posted this thread to see if you guys' "on the hoof" guesses were similar to mine, or if I was missing something. Thanks for the input.

Assuming that it's the same buck - I would not have guessed that his antlers would be this much smaller at "only" 8 years old. But since he never really was a giant (at least before 6.5 or 7.5), I suppose it's not surprise. We can't all be Micah Parsons. As you said, Native, some mature bucks just aren't that big. According to chest girth measurement this one went about 205# live weight, and the boned out meat yield supports that.
 
Lol, that's almost exactly what I said when Gunner asked how old I thought he was when we were looking at his teeth: "Either he's old - like 8-10 years old - or he's eaten a lot of gravel."

Sitting in the stand that evening I got to going over past bucks we had on the place that would have fit this one's description. Having owned the place about 11 years now, it seems that any time a "stranger" adult buck shows up, I can usually find him in my pictures from prior years, unless he's really nondescript. A buck I called "Elf" came to mind. Named mostly for his pointy ears, but also pretty diminutive, even for a 1.5 year old.
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He made a pretty good jump from 1.5 to 2.5, and I figured he had potential to be a good one, in spite of a narrow spread. These are the pictures that first led me to think that Gunner's buck is likely Elf. The antler configuration is pretty consistent from here forward - the right beam generally doesn't sweep as far outward before turning forward as does the left, and the right beam tip turns up noticeably while the left doesn't as much. G2's bases are well in front of where the beams turn forward. And an extra off the front of one of the bases. All of those are noticeable in Gunner's antlers from this year.
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But at 3.5 he didn't show up at all until very late - actually after the first of the year, and my thinking about his ultimate antler potential took a hit.
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First year he threw a kicker from a G2.
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4.5 years old. Late show again, and really poor pics, but same deer.
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Finally at 5.5 I got pics of him overnight between the first and second day of firearms season.
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Of course I was hunting for him at that point, but he disappeared, and I didn't get pictures of him at all after that. Being that the surrounding properties are heavily hunted, I assumed he was harvested in 2019 by someone else.

So if he did survive all this time, he would be 8.5 years old this fall. Which seems to line up with his teeth wear. I'll send his lone remaining middle incisor to get a lab age, but I'm pretty confident this is the same buck.View attachment 24734

So mostly I posted this thread to see if you guys' "on the hoof" guesses were similar to mine, or if I was missing something. Thanks for the input.

Assuming that it's the same buck - I would not have guessed that his antlers would be this much smaller at "only" 8 years old. But since he never really was a giant (at least before 6.5 or 7.5), I suppose it's not surprise. We can't all be Micah Parsons. As you said, Native, some mature bucks just aren't that big. According to chest girth measurement this one went about 205# live weight, and the boned out meat yield supports that.

Those are great pictures.

I have pictures of a 7.5 year old buck that leaves almost no doubt about his age. I had him at 2.5 and 3.5, but not again until 7.5. Your son's buck would outweigh my deer by 50 pounds. As a 3.5 he was big and beefy but became leaner and petite looking over time. The only thing that changed about his rack from 3.5 to 7.5 was that he gained some mass. There was almost no difference in the width, beam length or tine length.
 
It's surprising to me that some 'disappear' for that long, then randomly show back up. But as this particular buck got older he didn't seem to enjoy having his picture taken, so it's possible that he was around sometime during the drought of trail camera pictures and just knew where my cameras are. Either way, gives a guy hope for seeing some of those bucks that didn't come back last year, sometime in the future.
 
It's surprising to me that some 'disappear' for that long, then randomly show back up. But as this particular buck got older he didn't seem to enjoy having his picture taken, so it's possible that he was around sometime during the drought of trail camera pictures and just knew where my cameras are. Either way, gives a guy hope for seeing some of those bucks that didn't come back last year, sometime in the future.

Two years ago my Booner disappeared from cameras. The night before I harvested him he showed back up on only one camera - a new one at a location he didn’t know about yet. I had just put it up two days before.
 
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