AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

I shot a beautiful 8 on 3 november. It doesn't go up hardly at all just straight out and wide . the tines are all about the same length. In doing some reading one auther says that as a buck matures the angle of the rack changes and drops. Any info would be great. His face is all gray also with lumps like warts on his eyebrows.

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

I prefer to age a deer by looking at its teeth.A buck may have large mass due to its genetics but still be relatively young when you look at his gummies. A friend of mine here has a little collection of about 8 jaws from deer ranked fawn and up. He has them all lined up on display in his house, kinda a neat idea if your wife will go for it. This guy is a bachelor so he can get away with it. The doctor in town here took a buck last week that had 15 scorable points on it, had h1's like pop cans and not a tooth left in the deers mouth. Eating him will be like chewin on a tire but who cares when the deer is a booney.
not sure if that was the question or not, hope it helps.

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

its real hard to age by antlers because it could be a 1.5 year old deer with amazing genes, or it could be 5.5 with horrible genes. Also non typs and stuff like that.

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

Most deer are fairly predictable as to their age by looking at antler growth. In my hunting regulations book it has a chart to show how to judge by this. It has proved fairly accurate for me. This will change from region to region however and so you should just learn to judge the deer in your area. I judge them by their antlers and if I end up shooting a giant young buck by accident I don't care in the least. Anyways, judging age through antlers can work but you have to remember that it's only an estimate and not certain. Deer are predictable except when they get bad or superior genes. Learn to tell age by their body size and other things too. Try to estimate the age of every deer you see and soon you'll be good at it.

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

If they have really good mass you can be confident they are mature (3.5 years or older). Otherwise it is hard to estimate by size alone.

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

Do you have a picture of the deer...or better yet, the jaw?

RE: AGING DEER BY ANTLERS
 

I think you would have better luck judgingage by the size/physical characteristics of the animal than by looking at the rack.