I posted about this buck a few months ago:
I figured I would put some "closure" to it. This is fairly large high fence ranch in Webb county.
These were the only two pictures I had of this deer that were from 4 years ago. At the time we were just guessing 5-7 years old. He never turned up in any pictures in the past or present. He was also not on any of the flyover pictures and no one ever laid eyes on him that we know of. To top it off these two picture were towards the front of the ranch where there is a lot more people traffic.
Long story short, my oldest son and I were thinning down the heard our last morning around New Year's before we left. I laid eyes on a buck about a mile down a sendero that was walking like he was sick or injured or maybe just old.
We finally made it to the area where he was and I made a quick decision to let my son shoot him. He had been gored in the vital area and he obviously had a lot of age on him. It was a lot bigger buck than I had intended on letting him shoot, but I knew it would mean the world to him. He probably shoots the most does on the ranch next to me over the last few years so he definitely has worked his way up as far as that goes.
Anyhow, I ended up mailing off his front teeth to Deer Age. I have obviously heard what others have said about this process to its reliability, but I wanted to test some deer for myself. They came up with 11.5 years old. I feel like they probably were pretty close, but it is always a guessing game unless you can follow the deer from birth. We have been fortunate to take some pretty old deer off the place and I knew this one would be in that category.
When we opened him up the gore had gone through to the body cavity. He had a rancid smell and his meat was yellow color.
We were probably all of 200 yards from the front gate when my son shot him.
I figured I would put some "closure" to it. This is fairly large high fence ranch in Webb county.
These were the only two pictures I had of this deer that were from 4 years ago. At the time we were just guessing 5-7 years old. He never turned up in any pictures in the past or present. He was also not on any of the flyover pictures and no one ever laid eyes on him that we know of. To top it off these two picture were towards the front of the ranch where there is a lot more people traffic.
Long story short, my oldest son and I were thinning down the heard our last morning around New Year's before we left. I laid eyes on a buck about a mile down a sendero that was walking like he was sick or injured or maybe just old.
We finally made it to the area where he was and I made a quick decision to let my son shoot him. He had been gored in the vital area and he obviously had a lot of age on him. It was a lot bigger buck than I had intended on letting him shoot, but I knew it would mean the world to him. He probably shoots the most does on the ranch next to me over the last few years so he definitely has worked his way up as far as that goes.
Anyhow, I ended up mailing off his front teeth to Deer Age. I have obviously heard what others have said about this process to its reliability, but I wanted to test some deer for myself. They came up with 11.5 years old. I feel like they probably were pretty close, but it is always a guessing game unless you can follow the deer from birth. We have been fortunate to take some pretty old deer off the place and I knew this one would be in that category.
When we opened him up the gore had gone through to the body cavity. He had a rancid smell and his meat was yellow color.
We were probably all of 200 yards from the front gate when my son shot him.
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