A healthy 1.5 year old deer can have 6 or 8 points. My buddy shot a whopper 10 pointer a couple of years back in farm country that was only 2.5 years old. Number of points isn't a good indicator of age. Case in point: Basket-rack 8 pointer vs. a Heavy and wide, 130" class buck. Same number of points. One is a yearling and the other is 4.5 years old. It's really tough to age a whitetail on the hoof most hunters, though, (me included) so minimum points is really the only way to save some bucks. Even though you may be just saving the yearlings with lesser genetic potential.