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    #31
    I wouldnt have guessed him that old...very cool, thanks for the continuing education of us uneducated hunters

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      #32
      X2. I think this would be a really good exercise for one of you more educated hunters to start a thread on every week. We could give our best educated guess & then learn from y'all what the real age is and how you would have drawn the correct conclusion. It'd be an excellent opportunity to sharpen those skills before next year. I don't feel like I need to know scoring antlers as much as I need to know aging a deer on hoof- IMO.

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        #33
        Originally posted by kyle1974 View Post
        Age this deer by the hocks and you'd be a bit off...
        He doesn't look like a post rut deer in the picture. When was it taken? Aging by the hocks won't work until they start pissing their hocks getting ready for the rut. Some deer are so old they can't rut so no use pissing the hocks.

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          #34
          Late December I think. The rut seemed to kick off a couple weeks earlier than it did last year. I think that was exactly the case of this deer. Just too **** old. The protein feeders were "accidentally" filled up too late in the year, so the deer had protein throughout most of the rut. Maybe it helped them a little bit.

          I wanted to kill this deer this year but it never worked out. We'll throw some geritol out in his area, maybe we can get another year out of him.
          Last edited by kyle1974; 02-23-2012, 05:08 PM.

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            #35
            Originally posted by M16 View Post
            Also be careful with tooth wear. Someone said the teeth don't lie. Well unfortunately they lie quite often. On my ranch a deer that I know is 7.5 was harvested and his teeth aged 5.5. I've had a lot of deer where the teeth wear and the deer's age didn't match. Cementum annuli aging is an educated guess. A lot depends on the habitat as well as the deer's diet. Different places age differently.
            I only do the Cementum Annuli aging if the tooth wear does match up with what my physical assessment was. I have never had a deer show more wear on their teeth than I estimated. Sometimes like you indicated the teeth showed less wear than the deer's actual age. The Cementum Annuli method always has matched up with what I either knew or suspected the age to be.

            Curious if you have ever had a deer show dramaticly more tooth wear than what you knew the age was? I havent.

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              #36
              Originally posted by perfectstorm View Post
              X2. I think this would be a really good exercise for one of you more educated hunters to start a thread on every week. We could give our best educated guess & then learn from y'all what the real age is and how you would have drawn the correct conclusion. It'd be an excellent opportunity to sharpen those skills before next year. I don't feel like I need to know scoring antlers as much as I need to know aging a deer on hoof- IMO.
              If I can find some more examples I will post them. Maybe others have some other examples they can post up.

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                #37
                Here's one.... Early in the year, He's dead now.
                Attached Files

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                  #38
                  Here's another photo of him when he was having a bad day.
                  Attached Files

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                    #39
                    No daytime pics of him alive? Im pretty sure I know what the range of age is on him but might be better if some of the others can see a color pic.

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                      #40
                      here's one day time... he was always coming in right when the cameras went to IR mode. a buddy of mine shot him... tripped on the feeder pen trying to run and dropped right there. he was pretty messed up from fighting, he had lost his left eye and had deep cuts on his head and neck.
                      Attached Files

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                        #41
                        Originally posted by rtp View Post
                        Curious if you have ever had a deer show dramaticly more tooth wear than what you knew the age was? I havent.
                        Never. And as you know one side will usually age a year older than the other side. The biologist on my old lease used to use the least worn side to determine the age. I now believe you should at least use the most worn side. If the deer has been eating protien his/her entire life you can probably add a year or two.

                        Having bought my own ranch eight years ago it's been possible to watch more and shoot less. No longer being in competition with lease mates lets you pass deer you might otherwise shoot. I haven't shot a trophy deer in the last five years or so. I'm to the point where it's more fun to watch them on the hoof instead of seeing them on the wall. You learn a lot more from watching then you do from shooting.

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                          #42
                          Agree. I set the rules on my place and have veto power over everything so it has been a lot of fun to sit back and watch. I am entering my 7th year of protein so Im thinking these deer are going to start showing less tooth wear than in the past. That will allow me to extend my age criteria on trophies from 5.5 to 6.5 and then probably 7.5. I was always taught to use the most worn side when aging. Continued good luck on your place.

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                            #43
                            Good to see that some people are catching on to the tooth wear stigma. We are on our 5th year of protein and are seeing that the management and cull bucks we are harvesting at 4 and 5 this season were showing a year or two less by toothwear. Most of these bucks we have watched from 2.5 yrs. We all have our guesses and some of us look at deer every day. But the only way we will ever know how old they are, exactly, is when we bottle raise them and watch them die. But, we wouldn't be blogging about how old our deer are if it were an exact science. So, keep the pics coming and we can keep having fun and trading opinions. We'll never stop learning about these awesome critters.

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