Old deer? (Looks old to me)

[Trevor]

Had this buck show up on my camera. This is the only pic of him. He looks old in the face. What do you guys think?

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[wtnhunt]

Hard to say from a front on pic. A nice buck though. Looks like he is waiting at your stand for you to kill him. Good luck.

[Ravin R10 man]

could be...drop your cam to knee high, you'll get much better look at the deer

[Trevor]

I did drop the camera down. I haven't got out to my stand for a week so I hope to get another pic of him. Hope he sticks around.

[fly]

Hard to say - I think we can mostly agree at least 3.5 years. Shoot him and check the teeth then let us know.

[hoosierhunter]

I think he's a young buck. Narrow head, no scars from fighting, looks pretty narrow in the back and hind quarters. The caveat would be if he's a southern or SE deer then he might be a tick older. If he's Midwest then I think 2.5.

[Ravin R10 man]

I think he's a young buck. Narrow head' date=' no scars from fighting, looks pretty narrow in the back and hind quarters. The caveat would be if he's a southern or SE deer then he might be a tick older. If he's Midwest then I think 2.5.[/quote']

Perhaps he's not a fighter?

[wtnhunt]

Best guess here from that single pic would be at least 3.5, but probably not more than 5.5.

[im your huckleberry]

I agree with wtn as well as hoosier, 3.5 - 5.5 yrs older deer are chunkier , but i also see where it could be showing signs of extra white on what muzzle you do see and maybe a little more white around his eyes.

[Rhino]

I can't really judge the age of him by the look of his face. Bad angle for judging his body features. Like others have said, depends on what part of the country you're in too. My gut feeling is he's not mature. Why? A mature buck usually has more mass. The circumference of an eye is typically about 4" and his bases appear to be a little less than that.

[Stinger-Hunter]

Looks a little grey in the face. I can't imagine a buck over 1 1/2 that doesn't fight. Law of the land.

[dbHunterNY]

ideal picture is a sharp color, broadsided, head up, no vegetation or stuff in the way to hide any parts of the body. that said you can sit work with less. this picture is a lot less. grey in the face means little. have had older bucks to without significant scars. if he's in an area similar to the Midwest with good soil he could be 2.5 years old. otherwise best guess is 3.5+ yrs old. this is a hard antlered buck, but another no-no is using characteristics to judge a buck while still in velvet with lower testosterone levels.

[wtnhunt]

[QUOTE=Rhino;n2056846]I can't really judge the age of him by the look of his face. Bad angle for judging his body features. Like others have said, depends on what part of the country you're in too. My gut feeling is he's not mature. Why? A mature buck usually has more mass. The circumference of an eye is typically about 4" and his bases appear to be a little less than that.[/QUOTE] Al is right, eyes are approximately 4 inches. After enlarging the pic on my screen I thought the mass at the bases on your deer were just slightly bigger than the eyes. For Tennessee deer if going off antler characteristics that would appear to be at least 3.5, the beams are at least 20 inches, has circumference of greater than 3.82 inches. Here was a thread with chart I posted from the TN harvest data a few years back, [URL="http://forums.realtree.com/forum/general-discussion/deer-hunting/113126-thought-this-was-kinda-interesting"]http://forums.realtree.com/forum/gen...da-interesting[/URL]. [TABLE="class: text_table_listTable"] [TR] [TD="colspan: 9"][COLOR=#252C2F]** Bucks **[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: text_table_listHead"] [TD="class: text_table_colhead"][COLOR=#252C2F]Age[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Number[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Percent[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Avg. Points[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Avg. Beam Circum[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Avg. Beam Length[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Avg. Outside Spread[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Avg. Live Weight[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_colhead, width: 5%"][COLOR=#252C2F]Spikes[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]No Age[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]79170[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]Fawn[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]189[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]1 1/2[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]798[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]40.92[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]3.92[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]2.30[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]9.07[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]7.85[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]108.65[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]31.83[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]2 1/2[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]750[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]38.46[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]7.14[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]3.18[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]15.12[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]13.22[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]135.54[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]2.13[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]3 1/2[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]328[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]16.82[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]8.20[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]3.82[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]18.05[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]15.69[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]160.82[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.61[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]4 1/2[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]59[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]3.03[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]8.59[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]4.49[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]20.44[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]17.19[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]180.00[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]5 1/2[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]15[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.77[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]8.80[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]4.60[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]19.13[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]16.73[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]197.56[/COLOR][/TD] [TD="class: text_table_listdata"][COLOR=#252C2F]0.00[/COLOR][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Keep in mind antler characteristics are not a good method for guessing a deer's age, and the sampling is probably not great for this chart either. And also where you are will make a difference.

[Trevor]

Thanks for all your input guys. I'm located in southwestern Ontario. I'll be back in my stand this weekend and check my camera and hope he is still around.

[dbHunterNY]

anymore pictures of him?

[Strut10]

I'm with Hoosier on this one.

He's not more than 3.5, IMHO.

 

[Trevor]

No more pics of this deer. The woods were this camera is has become a ghost town. The farmer/landowner has taken the corn off last week and I haven't been able to hunt due to work so hope to get out this weekend. Thanks again for all the info.


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[dogdoc]

Is very gray in the face.  Lots of bucks have loss a lot of weight during the rut.  He may be doing a lot of traveling looking for one more doe since you have never had him on camera before.  I'm going with an old deer.

[Stinger-Hunter]

I was just thinking about this while driving to work... the gray face.  It definitely matters.  Is it an indication of an exact age?  No.  But there are no gray faced fawns-4.5 year old deer.  That's like saying a huge racked deer means little.  Not really, a 14 point wild deer with a 21" spread rarely means that deer is younger than 4.5 years old.  So a gray face is an indication of a 5.5 + deer 99% of the time..  That gray face of my buddy's old 8 pointer was aged by DNR Biologist at 6.5 years.  Sorry guys, but this has been bugging me.  This image might be difficult to see the gray, but you can definitely see around the eyes.  I saw this buck in person and it looks straight up old - 6.5 years.

 

Edited December 14, 2016 by Stinger-Hunter

[wtnhunt]

Roman nose bucks are also said to be older.  

Think there is some truth in some cases to the gray face buck being an older deer but don't think it will always be the case.  

Masks, markings, and coloration differences can be genetic in some cases.  See about one in three bucks here that have a complete black muzzle around and under the chin, more distinct in some than others.  See some deer with double white throat patches.  See some bucks that their heads are more red than others due to the type tree they have been rubbing on, no telling what color is under the dyed red coloration.  

Too bad you have not gotten any more pics of him Trevor.  Hope he is still around. 

[dbHunterNY]

I've seen "gray in the face" deer that were 2.5 yrs old.  I don't hold confidence in every DNR person aging deer either.  not saying anyone is wrong.  just don't think "gray in the face" is something to bet money on.  like william said it would be great if there were more pictures.  roman nose is a good physical characteristic for aging as it describes thickness of the neck up toward the head and skull height from the jaw line to the top of the head.  fully grown skull or skeletal maturity happens at 4.5+ yrs old and typical at 5.5 yrs old is when the neck fills out all the way to its head, as if it was a barrel you could fit its head down into during peak rut.  most people use the term loosely though not truely knowing what it means.