Could anyone help me with an age guess?
12-05-2006, 02:24 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 44
Could anyone help me with an age guess?
I took this buck with a gun over thanksgiving weekend in MD, but I posted it in the archery forum because even though I hunt with guns as well as archery, archery hunters as a whole areoften a bit more knowledgeable. I am curious as to what you might think the age of this deer is, especially within the context of the recent post of what percentage of deer die natural deaths. The area where I was hunting is bordered by very lightly hunted public land. (only opened to the public two years ago and like I said, very few hunt there.) We own an adjoining hundred acres or so, which includes some nasty and impassable swamps. The other side is bordered by a large river. This is the largest bodied deer we have taken out of this area in recent years. I am trying to decide whether he was simply a young, large deer that formed poor antlers due to perhaps a sickness in the spring or something, or if he was an older deer past his prime. He was very rutted up, and had battle wounds on his chest from antler gouges. His long and somewhat handsome looking face, as well as the outward angle of his rack leads me to believe he is old. However, I guess I just have a hard time believing he could really have lived so long. For comparison, the other deer in the second picture had a much smaller body, and his rack had a very upward angle, so I think he was a young deer.
like i said, I was just curious... thanks for the guesses... and sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate the first picture...
Jon
like i said, I was just curious... thanks for the guesses... and sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate the first picture...
Jon
12-05-2006, 02:39 PM
#3
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location:
Posts: 1,424
RE: Could anyone help me with an age guess?
chances are they're both 1.5 but that may be a year younger. I'm haven't seen many deer from the northeast part of the country, so I could be slightly off. But my bets would fall on 1.5
