KY Deer Age/Opinions (Season-Long Thread)

[Nashbow]

I was a long time viewer of the QDMA management threads and was sad to see it go. Glad to see many of the previous posters came over to this site and plan on keeping a running thread of the deer we are seeing on our property in Trigg County KY. My intent is to have others see a general sample of the antler/body characteristics and provide a 2nd opinion on age and shooters as this is the first year we're hunting the property. We have the ability to hold the majority of the bucks on our property and are hoping to focus on only shooting deer that are at least 5.5 each year. My current perspective is we only have 3 shooters with quite a few 3.5 year old deer, but would like to know if others think some of the 3.5 are actually 4.5. With that said, here's what we've gotten in our first 2 months on the property:

"Toto" 5.5+

"Hightower" 5.5+

"Zeus" 5.5+

 

[Nashbow]

Here are some non-shooters, would love others age opinions as ours are best guesses based on what we've seen from the previous "fully-mature" deer.

"Tex" ~3.5

"FedEx" ~4.5

"Saban" ~3.5

 

[Nashbow]

"Fred" ~3.5

"Takeo" ~3.5

 

[Nashbow]

"Ghost" ~4.5

"Seacrest" ~2.5 (looks like he's 5 in the face and body is fat, but small?)

left-

"Spud" ~3.5 (smaller buck in the pics with the deer we call Zeus)

 

[Nashbow]

Would love to get others opinion on the deer that aren't obviously mature/shooters. Curious as to whether I'm being overly optimistic in hoping that so many of them are just 3.5. Simply based on the discrepancy between those deer and the truly mature deer, seems like quite a leap.

 

[wbpdeer]

You have a great set of photos of top end deer for most southern farms I know of. I would be proud to hunt most all of them.

Good luck to you and welcome to the forum.

 

[Paradise725]

Wow, what a bunch of slammers! You know your deer better than any of us, so I'd trust your judgement. Tex looks like he could be 4.5 to me but the rest of them seem about right. Good luck killing those older deer!


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[Nashbow]

Got a new buck on camera last week and would like to hear your opinion on whether he is a shooter, given the context of deer above. My thoughts are the body features indicate mature despite the mediocre rack compared to the areas potential. Tough decision when you have a one buck tag and 3 guys hunting the farm.

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[Nashbow]

//cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5819fd940ad90/VID_77440605_011538.mp4
Had one of our 3.5 year old bucks all under me for 45 minutes last week.

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[catscratch]

I won't even pretend that I know how to guess the age of deer, but I do love your big 8's.