I know its not a great pic or angle but maybe yall can help i prob feel he is older than he actually is so please help due to body. Southern Live oak County


So in the first pic he is the one looking the opposit direction and second pic he is the closer deer to the cam.

Different buck here but if you could help on him as well. The one on the right of the pic. I think he is pretty old.

1st-3.5yo
2nd-4.5-5.5yo leaning more on 5.5
Nice bucks

4.5

3 and 4 yr olds from those pics. The bottom buck is standing funny in that pic and I think it makes him look older, he could be a 5 yr. Them toads are fat now.

Id call him 4

Wow i was off i figured the second one to be about right but the first guy i had at prob 4.5 def not 3.5. i looked at his neck since they are still a ways away from rut and his front legs are shorter than everyone elses and his shoulders are substantialy larger than all the other bucks i have seen but he may just have really good genes i guess.

I would call him "venison".

yeah normally i would to but we are on this lease and it is our first year and we are trying real hard and have a coop type situation set up with the neighbors and are trying to really let young quality bucks walk for a great place to hunt for years 2 and 3 and so on so year one we are being very strict with our bucks.

Are these some of the top end bucks that ya'll have on camera? What size antler are typically killed in your Co-op? Do ya'll have a system set up for taking certain bucks? Do ya'll cull any bucks?

I think top buck is probably 3.5. He has a straight back and quite a bit of difference between his neck and shoulders. In the second pick his chest looks deeper than his waist.

I would guess the second buck at 4.5 or 5.5. Neck meets the shoulders with a pretty smooth transition. He has a big sway to his back but the way he is looking over his shoulder probably makes it look more than it is. The main thing that would make me lean to 4.5 is that there looks like a little bump at transition from his neck to his brisket. That could be the stance though.

the wide one in the first pics is on the top end of what we have on cam to this point. I have been running cams since August 15th or so. i have some others that are really nice as well but i can tell they are even younger than the top one. for the agreement we set up with the neighbors it is 8 or better and 4.5 or older unless it is an obvious cull which we consider no brow tines at 3.5 as well as spikes at 3.5 no spikes earlier than that. I say coop type situation because it is not official but we sat and all came to an agreement of what we wanted out of the properties since we are all smaller properties us being the largest at 416 then 1 at 130 and one at 145 the 3 neighbor is high fence so we did not discuss with him since his has no relevence. the property across the road has been abandoned for awhile after landowner passed away a couple years ago and left it for the kids and they live out of state and dont do anything with it. taking certain bucks? can you elaberate on that.

here is an example this guy is on the no shoot list for at least this season then we revisit before next season with trail cam pics of this year to reassess

This is the first place any of us have really tried to manage. And the reason why we are doing it is after looking through here on a reg basis the results are very apparent of what can happen and we are committed to the place for the next 5 years contractually so we wanna reep in and get some nice bucks later rather than shoot whatever makes us excited at the time.

Some places set up a point system, like 8 pointers have to score over 120". For many hunters, aging is very tough and isn't an exact science. Even the best of the best get them wrong. You would surprised how many people confuse a 3.5 for a 5.5. The score requirement provides for another spectrum to be added to the equation that would allow people to double check themselves. If there was a buck that was obviously older and would only score 105", he would be considered a management buck or cull, whichever word you prefer.

I am not very familiar with the Live Oak area, but I believe STX owns some land in that area and he has more knowledge and experience than most of us.

I would call the first buck looking away 4.5, the second buck 5.5 and the last buck 3.5.

Pretty good deal that the neighbors are on board. More land that you all can agree on, the better it could be. The reason I was asking some of those questions is that IMO, the harvest would be based on the what the top end can produce, how many bucks you can legally take, and which ones you want to feed and let reach maturity. Not every buck is a great buck at maturity, but no buck can reach its full potential until it is mature. Depending on the number of deer you have, that might not even be an issue.

yeah i see what you are saying. Yes i have bugged STX plenty and he has been extremely helpful both on my posts and in private messeges and i really appreciate his help he has been spot on. See your aging is exactly the same as my thinking on all three. I did not think about the scoring on the hoof thing as i personally am not very good at this but felt i was better at aging on the hoof which i am doubting now as well. from what i see on trail cams we are at roughly 3 bucks to every doe. I have considerably more bucks than does which needs to be worked out i know. But the rule from the landowner is we have 3 hunters and we can take 5 bucks a year between the 3 of us and guests or whatever so 5 bucks for the property per year and as far as does go we can take a 5 man limit with guest tags that they use an so forth. However i feel 20 is way to many due to our ratios. I am thinking closer to 5-7 does. Granted the other 2 hunters dont shoot much and just enjoy the time out in the woods when they can get it which means the place is mostly mine as they are very busy and may come 2 or 3 times a year

Be careful using feeders to determine your buck to doe ratio. At my place, the bucks will take over the feeders and will keep the doe out of the area. If I went strictly off the feeders, there would be 8 bucks for every doe. You can feed a corn spot away from the feeders and spread the corn over a larger distance so the can feed comfortable. I would bet you would get some more doe coming in to the corn spots and get a little better idea of the ratio.

Not saying you aren't correct, there just aren't very many places in Texas that are LF that are going to carry more bucks than doe.

yeah ordinarily i would agree but this place is very unique and different as i have some cameras set up on a 30 acre food plot and i also have some set up on some opeings where i corn regularly with the road feeder and i have sat every weekend since about mid october and i see the same results everytime on the feeders and away from the feeders. Also this weekend i saw a spotted fawn nursing on a doe that was not kicking her off that just seems off for this late in the season. The 3 to 1 may be a little of a stretch but 2 to 1 would not suprise me one bit if we did a survey.

i still regularly see groups of 6-8 bucks show up together in alot of the locations on my spot and they are all different bucks. However i have started to pick up on a lot of traits that a few here and there share so i am assuming the genetics are very crossed. Prior to us being on this place this year the place has not been hunted (legally) in 4 years at least due to death and for sale and new owner running cattle and so forth.

They came running in to the field and the fawn was about 20 yards behind the doe and they were about 300 yards out and i got excited cause i thought it was a coyote chasing the doe till i put the scope on it and so it was a tiny fawn still heavily spotted. The got to about 75 yards out and mama started eating corn and fawn went to nursing.

Ricochet, nice bucks; beats the turkey eh?

yes DQ beats the tar out of the turkeys however they are still around in heavy force regularly.

I'd say 3.5 and 5+…That sway back buck is on his way down looks to me.