Deer pics for 6 year old plus buck I killed back in October

[ChuckC]

I’m new to this forum. I got this 6 plus year old buck the week before muzzle loader began here in Arkansas. Teeth wear showed it to be 6 plus years old. Old tank 9 point. I’ve killed bigger horned deer when I got to hunt in the Delta which include a P&Y 8 and 10 point. This is prob the best trophy due to age of the deer and being in zone 12 of Arkansas. This is the highly pressured mostly pine plantation area of south central and south west part of Arkansas. It’s the first actual 200 pound deer I’ve seen come off our lease.

 

[Sekora]

Great buck! If you still have the lower jaw you should send a tooth in to be accurately aged. I have been doing this with all my mature bucks the last few years and am sometimes amazed at the actual age of these animals. I've had some "experts" look at my deer and be off by more than a few years.

 

[ChuckC]

Great buck! If you still have the lower jaw you should send a tooth in to be accurately aged. I have been doing this with all my mature bucks the last few years and am sometimes amazed at the actual age of these animals. I've had some "experts" look at my deer and be off by more than a few years.

I just kept the horns. It was said 6+. From what I’ve read the buck could have been 6.5 to 8.5. It’s hard to tell the difference in our area once they are 6 or over with all the teeth wear. Where did you send your’s? It’s something I will definitely think about next time I kill an old one. I’ve got a 6 point that appears as old a the 9 I killed, but I’m buck tagged out this year.

 

[Agross]

Nice buck. 200 lber is a tank .

 

[ChuckC]

Nice buck. 200 lber is a tank .

Yes it is in this zone for sure. I killed an 8 point that weighed 220 when I hunted in a zone in the Delta of Arkansas. That’s when I realized all those folks that said that’s got to be 200 lbs were actually 160-170 lb deer.

 

[Agross]

Ive been hunting in Michigan for over 30 years now and my biggest was 175 lbs.

 

[ChuckC]

Ive been hunting in Michigan for over 30 years now and my biggest was 175 lbs.

Most of the bucks we have killed on our lease and leases around us are probably 2.5 - 3.5 years old and run 150 lbs at most. As long as people do it legally, I don’t care if they kill deer I pass. I killed a 3.5 year old this year that was an 8 point with no eye guards. I had 4 different cull bucks picked out. I’m trying to get guys in our camp to kill those type deer instead of a pretty looking 8-10 point that’s 2 years old. Biologist told me that a 3 year old will continue to grow but would at least be showing promise by that age.

In the pine plantations, we will never have the quality of deer that I hunted in the fields and hard woods. Not enough food and more deer density for the food we have. But, we can let the ones with promise get to 5 years old and it will be nice. I would guess that 75-80 percent of people that hunt zone 12 in Arkansas have never killed a deer that is over 100” gross score by P&Y measurements. That’s ok as well. I enjoy killing a big mature deer. If it’s a 130-140” 10 point or a 7 year old 6 point, doesn’t matter. Just enjoy trying to kill deer and learn more about their behavior every time I get to hit the woods.

 

[TheGDog]

Oh yeah... something 200+ will test ya on the hike-out, that's for sure. Phew.

 

[Tyrus001]

Trophy

 

[ky hunter]

Congrats on the buck !!! Thats a lot of buck drag.

 

[HuntingIN]

That is a fantastic buck


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[jbloss14]

Nice buck, Congrats!

 

[firewoodwolf]

Nice buck.

 

[pybucks]

Great ole buck, congrats!

 

[ttubudd]

Nice work!

 

[brooney3111]

Nice buck!

 

[cdavison]

Great buck! If you still have the lower jaw you should send a tooth in to be accurately aged. I have been doing this with all my mature bucks the last few years and am sometimes amazed at the actual age of these animals. I've had some "experts" look at my deer and be off by more than a few years.

Who do you send the tooth to?

 

[Molon Labe]

Great buck! If you still have the lower jaw you should send a tooth in to be accurately aged. I have been doing this with all my mature bucks the last few years and am sometimes amazed at the actual age of these animals. I've had some "experts" look at my deer and be off by more than a few years.

It is truly interesting how deer wear teeth differently.
A buddy killed a really good buck that looked like 3yr teeth wear and he sent tooth out and it came in at 5yr.
Also had a buck that we swore was 6yrs+ based off the tooth wear...he had 6" bases and scored around 140" as a 9pt weighed 195lbs middle of the rut...and it was a 3yr old.

I shot a 4yr old buck that only had 4" bases but lots of length 151" deer. Looking at his mass you would have thought i messed up and shot a 3yr old but i knew the deer and had pics from the previous two years.

It depends on the individual animal and the food sources they have available...or how much they chew their cud. If an animal has access to mineral licks or spends a lot of time breaking down rough browse it will wear the teeth out quicker than a deer that spends its time eating soft grasses or grain.

Only way to really know a deer age is either tooth cut age or a picture history of the buck...helps to have an identifying characteristic like cut ear, facial scar, puffy knee joint, old wound etc.

You can tell if a deer is 4yrs old quite often by bone structure...shoulders...hips and facial features...BUT this is only going to give you 4+ on age at skeletal maturity. There are some 3yr olds that can be bigger deer. Just like people...you can have a 6ft dude that weighs 150lbs and a 5'8" dude that weighs 300lbs...

You can guess the age of a deer by picture correctly 80% of the time...and dentine wear probably 90% of the time but there are always the outliers that are the exception to the rule.

 

[Sekora]

I use deerage.com. Company used to be based out of Texas, but got purchased by another company in Montana. This will be my first year using the Montana location.

 

[ChuckC]

It is truly interesting how deer wear teeth differently.
A buddy killed a really good buck that looked like 3yr teeth wear and he sent tooth out and it came in at 5yr.
Also had a buck that we swore was 6yrs+ based off the tooth wear...he had 6" bases and scored around 140" as a 9pt weighed 195lbs middle of the rut...and it was a 3yr old.

I shot a 4yr old buck that only had 4" bases but lots of length 151" deer. Looking at his mass you would have thought i messed up and shot a 3yr old but i knew the deer and had pics from the previous two years.

It depends on the individual animal and the food sources they have available...or how much they chew their cud. If an animal has access to mineral licks or spends a lot of time breaking down rough browse it will wear the teeth out quicker than a deer that spends its time eating soft grasses or grain.

Only way to really know a deer age is either tooth cut age or a picture history of the buck...helps to have an identifying characteristic like cut ear, facial scar, puffy knee joint, old wound etc.

You can tell if a deer is 4yrs old quite often by bone structure...shoulders...hips and facial features...BUT this is only going to give you 4+ on age at skeletal maturity. There are some 3yr olds that can be bigger deer. Just like people...you can have a 6ft dude that weighs 150lbs and a 5'8" dude that weighs 300lbs...

You can guess the age of a deer by picture correctly 80% of the time...and dentine wear probably 90% of the time but there are always the outliers that are the exception to the rule.

This was a combo of pics and knowing the deer. Plus looking at the teeth. I killed a cull eight that you would think was a two maybe three year old but he was at least 4 by pictures I have of him. Not much mass at all and no eye guards to speak of. Really unique dark dark horns especially for a smaller racked deer for our area.

The old 9 point I killed is the first 200lb plus deer I’ve seen come off our lease. I see guys say a buck is 180 lbs then on the scale it’s 150. In these pine plantations with a few oak creek bottoms, not a ton of food unless you feed or can plant food plots. Food plots can be a problem cause timber companies won’t allow them except on power lines or gas lines that can’t have trees on them. I’ve tried to feed protein late winter through summer along with establishing mineral sites. In our zone 12 of Arkansas, I would bet 75-80% of hunters have never killed a gross 100” P&Y measured deer. Lots of pressure and lots of deer killed that are 2.5 first week of gun season that coincides most of the time with our peak rut.

I’m going to send the teeth to the deerage that Sekora mentioned just to check next year. Probably even a couple of old does that don’t have fawns just to see.