Help with aging a deer on the hoof

You need to hunt with your brother and have him pick the deer.

Best way to age a deer....

Ground check it.

Texastiger is correct

In this situation considering their rules and your inexperience, have him hunt with you and call the shot

You are looking for what appears to be a 50 year old man in the deer world. Pot belly, sway back, saggy skin around the face. If other deer are around, they will shy away and some will run off. If you are hunting a field, and every deer in the field goes on full alert, it’s probably a mature buck coming out. Also, ask if you can shoot a doe.
The key to passing up bucks is to look at them in the binocular first. If you judge them in a rifle scope, you will go ahead and pull the trigger.

Like they said, hunt with your brother. Take a deep breath and enjoy the time in the stand. You're just deer hunting.

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IMHO this is something that just takes experience

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Yep. and you have to WANT to understand how to do it. My dad has been hunting for 65 years and has never looked at a racked buck long enough to determine how old it was.

I over-analyze every deer that comes out.

Problem with diagrams like that is aging deer is not universal. Habitat has a huge affect on characteristics of different age deer. I can promis you a 4-1/2 yr old deer in piney woods WILL NOT look like that 41/2 yr old in that diagram.

It's easier to judge a mature buck when there are multiple deer to look at like will probably be the case if you hunt a field. Mature deer in general just act differently. If you hunt enough and see enough deer, you get to the point where you "know" a mature deer without even being able to describe how. Tell your family I said hello and y'all have a great Thanksgiving week. You still doing X-Ray? I just passed my 570.

Perfect thread for age this deer.

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I’m a firm believer that other than at the extremes of the spectrum, it’s impossible to do accurately.

This is one of those things everyone thinks theyre an expert on. Young/full grown/old enough to vote should be the categories people use. Not 3.5 or 4.5 years old.

ETA: I know of “hunting clubs” where part of the criteria to shoot is it be a certain age buck and determining that age is up to some dumbass who declared himself president and is worshiped as a god, and that’s where my butthurt on this subject comes from.