How Old Was that Animal?

[antlerradar]

I got the results back from Matson's lab.
8 years old on this buck.

 

[DFS]

I got the results back from Matson's lab.
8 years old on this buck.View attachment 260338

Weird!! fwp shared a study with me that bucks don’t get any bigger once they hit 4 years old. That must have been an outlier.

 

[Big Fin]

@antlerradar Those sheds make for a great story of that buck’s life. Tooth aging adds even more. Makes you wonder all that buck saw and lived through.

 

[RobertD]

One of my favorite stories/pictures on the whole site. Congratulations again

 

[seeth07]

Weird!! fwp shared a study with me that bucks don’t get any bigger once they hit 4 years old. That must have been an outlier.

Idk. I'd agree that it proves that. His 4 1/2 yo set is about his peak. Score wise maybe there are some slight increases over the remaining 4 years but not much

 

[RobertD]

Idk. I'd agree that it proves that. His 4 1/2 yo set is about his peak. Score wise maybe there are some slight increases over the remaining 4 years but not much

I bet that 7.5 set outscores the 4.5 set by 15 inches

 

[DFS]

Idk. I'd agree that it proves that. His 4 1/2 yo set is about his peak. Score wise maybe there are some slight increases over the remaining 4 years but not much

We must not be looking at the same picture.

 

[seeth07]

We must not be looking at the same picture.

Because of more mass? I'm not seeing it

 

[DFS]

Because of more mass? I'm not seeing it

Extra points, tine length, mass. It’s a complete different deer from 4 to 8. The beauty of it is @antlerradar will log back on and tell us. I certainly might be wrong.

 

[MTTW]

One of the best hunting stories that I have read just got even better.

 

[seeth07]

No doubt the first set at 3 1/2 is small to the 4 1/2. Lots of improvement in that year jump. Then every year after that I see maybe 1 to 4 inches of change in score maybe but just don't see 15 inches of score difference at 7 1/2. Some weird stuff happens at 8 1/2, kinda makes me second guess it's the same deer but it definitely is

 

[Bowmannate2000]

I got the results back from Matson's lab.
8 years old on this buck.View attachment 260338

Lot of mass at 3 years old!

 

[antlerradar]

The four year old set just looks big because it is forward in the picture. Antlers are both about 62 inches at four years old, if you guess on the broken point. The four point side at age seven is 74 4/8, the five point side is just under 74. At age 8 he added mass and nontypical points.
I have never seen a buck that has peaked at four years old. My buck is unusual in that he got a little bit bigger every year, not that he is at his best at age eight. Often you will see one down year, and then a recovery.

 

[antlerradar]

I bet that 7.5 set outscores the 4.5 set by 15 inches

Four year old set, 140 to 142.
seven year old set, 165+
Official gross on the eight year old deer, 186

 

[Sask hunter]

Shot this bear in spring of 2022 so a year after these trail cam pictures. He came back at 7. Also have my WT and second spring black bear getting aged as we speak

 

[Bowhuntrben]

I wish I had known about this long ago. It would've been awesome to know more scientifically how old deer were rather than just guessing, particularly on our bigger ones. Would've also been nice to know on my one antelope since I have no reference to have even an educated guess on it.

Utah moose was aged at 5.5.

I currently have 4 whitetails in getting aged and should get results in February. I am quite certain of one buck's age since I passed him up the year before I shot him. 1 of the others I have a pretty good guess (I feel). The other 2 will be really interesting to see the results. I'll try to post once I actually get the results back.

I really wanted to shoot the buck in the attached pics just to see how old he is, but I had a soft spot in my heart for him and just couldn't do it...so I made him off limits for everybody else too Maybe he's not as old as I think, but I passed him up in 2021, and he already looked ancient then and had the grayest face I've ever seen on a deer. Passed him up again in 2022. Pics don't make him look as old as he looks in person. Doesn't seem to have a saggy back like some people attribute to older bucks, so who knows. Maybe it's just that he's a warrior and very beat up that makes him look old. He got poked in his eye last year, and I think he's blind in the one eye. Recent pics from this year make it look like he's in terrible condition...a busted ear and tongue hanging out oddly and looking oddly colored in a couple of the attached pics. Not sure if he'll make it through winter. If not, hopefully we find his skull so I can get him aged. His antlers don't really reflect a deer with much age in our area. He was about the same size in 2022 as he was in 2021. Antlers are only what I would expect on a bigger 2.5 year old or smaller 3.5 year old. He acted like an old man when I saw him crossing a fence...sat there for several minutes thinking about how he was going to get across rather than just jumping across like most bucks do.

 

[seeth07]

Colorado Estes Park Bulls. Tooth sampling was requested by CPW and we submitted our two bulls. They came back at 3 1/2 and 5 1/2 YO. For some idea of how big they are, I myself put a very rough tape measurement to them and the younger one was 230ish gross and the larger one was 260ish gross with all the broken tines (literally every one was broken but 1)



Better photo of the larger of the two bulls.

 

[sclancy27]

We do not age fish, just mammal teeth. Paddlefish are a really neat fish and knowing the age of some of those would be interesting!

You could pull the otoliths and give then to a grad student at UM or MSU, they would prob age them for you.

 

[Bob-WY]

Wife and I shot 2 antelope bucks in a WY study area so we had to save the heads. Ended up bringing them to sheridan office to get a tooth pulled. One was very young, one very old. Biologist walked me through some simple antelope aging based on the difference. Gotta admit it was way cooler than I thought it would be

 

[Flatbrimmer]

This whitetail was 6 when he died of EHD. I didn't send in his teeth. Didn't need to as I found all of the antlers he ever grew.View attachment 190291

This is an impressive picture.