Exactly! Your average deer hunter, who lives in the city, works alot, has wife/kids etc, & makes it out hunting a few times each season, does not have anywhere near the experience to age deer properly. Even professionals may misjudge age more often than not.

Id set a different criteria for shooter bucks, more like points or spread, for most hunters, & let the more experienced guys take on the borderline bucks.

But as stated here, it likely all for naught, as the neighbors may shoot everything that you pass on, anyway.

Guys, thank you!

Very good information! And just to put a little structure in place, the lease is about 1500 acres, 10 guns, in the hill country. Deer numbers are, I believe excellent. We definitely need to cull a few bucks. I see about two bucks for every doe. We have excellent buck numbers but most are pretty young. I believe between shooting them and the drought from a few years ago we are extremely short on older bucks. I posted on another thread pics of two of the oldest looking bucks on our lease and they a few and far between. In order to achieve a semblance of age management we would almost have to shoot only culls over the next two years.

Frankly, asking guys to pay to hunt and spend that kind of money but to not shoot the nicer bucks would most likely cause them to leave and/or create a dynamic that could become caustic. This is definitely not something I would want to endure. Also who knows if we put in all of the management practices and passed for a couple of years the owner wouldn't then demand a lot higher amount to lease the land. I've been told he owns land that produces trophy, 150+ bucks, and gets $5k per year per hunter.

So there's a lot to think about!

Deerhunter61, Don't let the naysayers discourage you. If you have the right core group, it can be accomplished.

Hunting cost a lot of money.....so ...on my lease we go by AR rules as the state law. The bucks we take meeting the ar rule are usually mature deer. This is all we can expect ...I am the lease manager and folks pay money that is hard to come by. I would never make a rule to keep a hunter from harvesting a good buck as determined by the hunter...different hunters have different expectations. A trophy buck is different for each hunter. We take very good deer by following this process. Setting a high bar is not fun...hunting is for fun only..if ya get a big one ..that is great and just gravy. If a hunter takes a buck just about 13 inches and he is proud of that deer ...I am glad for him. Respect for each other and the laws of the land and land owner are my bases for rules. I am doing my very best to follow a good management plan that I have designed myself. The production of great trophy bucks comes along every once in a while. I wish you luck in designing your lease...just be careful on rigid rules that cause hard feelings and cost people money they can't afford. Remember this ..biologist can't agree on a mature buck or even age a buck. These guys do it for a living.

Omg 10 guns in 1500 acres, first management rule I'd make is to dump half the hunters

Depends on where you are at. We have 10 guys on similar acreage and not uncommon for everyone to see 10-20 deer each hunt at each stand at the same time.

I know I was seeimg 10-15 deer every hunt and my BIL in closest stand to me was seeing 20-30.

All depends on location.

Kick off the people shooting 2 and 3 year olds. Replace with folks with common goals. Pretty easy.

Wait until after season, but before anybody has paid for next season. You can’t spring rules on people halfway through the season. But don’t tell your hunters about the new rules til after season. You don’t want guys who don’t agree with the new rules to shoot all of heir tags on purpose just out of spite.

My new approach this year — don’t shoot a buck unless you’re going to get a shoulder mount. That gives people a solid gut check when they’re looking at a borderline buck.

Once you put a management plan in place and the members agree to it then it's done. Anyone that can not go by the rules set by the members should be asked to leave period. I hate to say it, but if you can't tell the difference in a mature buck over a young buck then you probably don't need to be on a managed ranch. I would also have about 6 paid hunter on 1500ac to begin with and just get rid of the bad apples quick.

Kind of a rigged test. It was deer from all of the US. 6.5 in Iowa vs TX look different.

Personally I push for a min 6.5 age class. It pretty easy to define a 6.5 “majority” of the time. And even if you miss a year and it’s a 5.5. 5.5 is much better margin of error then 3.5

Even mature bucks look way different depending on the conditions, the time of year you see them, geographical location, and just individual differences. Several studies comparing cementum annuli tests vs. biologists’ guesses on age using visual and jawbone aging show aging is just a glorified guessing game on any mature buck that cannot be positively identified with a known history.

About the best that can be done is distinguishing yearlings, immature, and mature.

It makes folks feel better and knowledgeable though. I have been guilty of it myself.

Here’s just one example from OK.

What the heck does seeing 20-30 deer have to do w hunters per acre, nothing...... 10 hunters running around on quads and side by sides puts tons of pressure on deer. If you see 10-30 deer every time you sit you probably have waaaaaaaaaaay too many deer. Plus it's easier to manage 5 like minded hunters than it is 10

Based on the OP, it seems to me there is going to be a big hurdle with “buy in” when it comes to any restrictions.

None of these deer are < 5.5

Once you implement 6.5 age class then you also start establishing a history with deer, and the age gets more definitive

If you know them, you know them. You’re not aging them because you know how old they are already.

Most don’t.

I only had/have more then 1 years worth of history on only two of those. Both deer I tried to get my dad on year before, they no showed and I took them following year.

Point is >5 years is very distinctive. Most people that can’t call >5 have never seen one, there lies the issue. Not their fault they just havent been in a place with good structure. Once they do it becomes much easier...pre and post rut.

Once you have a prominent 5+ plus age class, aging gets easier. Herd dynamics changes also

The actual, objective data proves just the opposite. Experienced deer biologists = 0-7% accuracy rate aging bucks over 5.5.

If anyone doesn’t get a cementum annuli test done and the age isn’t known by year-to-year history, all the talk about ages of mature bucks is just that: talk. I get everybody does it. I used to think I could accurately age them too. But, I changed my mind when faced with the facts.

There are several studies with the similar results. Deer biologists give their estimates, and the definitive tests show they are are not accurate to any reliable degree on mature bucks. Results interpretation is not required.

You can be a biologist and not be field forged ecologist, on top of that biologist is broad, means nothing in specifics to Whitetail deer. One test I know that QDMA put out had deer from all over the US. Northern deer have a completely different structure then southern deer.

Anyway any field forged biologist specializing in deer can tell >5 years old, in the herds they are in charge of.

Every deer I posted above is definitive, and they are from four different TX counties(ranches/pastures from 210 acres to 4500). Not hard when you decide to view things from more of an ecology stand point first and not just a shooter stand point. And yes I use deerage.com for cementum annuli testing.

Well, I’m not knowledgeable enough to know the difference between aging from a “herd ecologist” vs. a “shooter” standpoint. I just thought age estimates were age estimates. Didn’t realize being “in charge” of a herd made one better at aging bucks with an unknown history (I guess all those deer biologists in the studies aren’t “in charge” of anything).

Forget the age estimate studies then. I should have known all the biologists participating in them were just dummies.

Well if a biologist is in charge of herd and can’t tell between a 3.5 year, 4.5year vs a 6.5year old,he has zero field time, and is doing data sets and not field ecology, nor should he be in charge of anything other then data sets. You probably shouldn’t hire him as a biologist or guide. I don’t expect a biologist unfamiliar with an Iowa herd to be able to age deer to same degree he does on a ranch he manages in TX. It’s a different structure based on different social herd principles, but I image he would caught one quick.

Via your own account why do we even have harvest ages if people can’t tell the difference between a 3.5 and 6.5? All those ranches and hunters doing it are liars? like I said refer back to photos I took above, they are definitive.

I suggested a 6.5 age class criteria because if you are off a year, you killed a 5.5 and not a 3.5 like you would of on a 4.5 criteria.

I’ll use TLK as a reference, is he a shooter or a hunter that’s spends more time watching and observing. On his lease you better not show up trigger happy, thus why they are able to continually produce the best that thier genetics will allow by making sure that their deer reach an age to express those genetics.

With that said TLK isn’t an exception there are dozens of guys on this forum that produce or allow/mandate an age class that maximizes genetic ability, via age class expression. If they are doing it, everyone on thier lease is doing it. Amazing stuff that someone can learn to age deer.



Obviously you are just here as always to TROLL since you don’t believe it’s possible to manage via age classification.

I’m not here to troll.

I presented a study on the topic. It’s straightforward. It’s definitive. There are several just like it all over the country. That’s not trolling.

I thought folks might be interested in actual facts on the topic at hand. You apparently dispute the studies - citing you and guys you know as having superior knowledge/ability to everyone else (as usual). You are a “study guy”, but apparently only if the studie(s) confirm what you already think you know.

Folks reading the posts can decide what they think for themselves. No doubt many will continue to state exact ages of unknown mature bucks with confidence. It’s what most everybody does. Accepting limitations is hard for many. The “industry” relies on it. Egos rely on it. Many “lease rules” rely on it. I get it.

Everyone have a great day.

P.S. I have never said it was not possible to manage via age classification. I said yearlings/ immature/mature can be discerned. As usual, you put non-existent words in my mouth so you can accuse me of trolling and/or make a non-existent point. Now, who’s the troll?

All that study says is that the biologists didn't get the age of older bucks correct. Is that right? They may have missed by a year one way or the other. Its not a big mistake to call a 5.5 a 6.5 or a 4.5, but I doubt they were calling him a 2.5 year old etc. I also question what they were given to look at as far as the photos of these deer to age, were they summer pics, velvet, pre/post rut, in the rut or all different stages?

I too like the young middle and mature age groups. I do also think if your used to looking at a group of deer you can get better at it and with cameras running year in and out you get deer that you can follow from year to year to get a better idea and then having those known age deer to compare to others will give you a better idea of them as well.

Examine the chart. What it shows is that judging yearling/immature/mature can be done with a fairly high level of confidence. After 3.5 they are wrong 70+ percent of the time. After 5.5 they are almost always wrong. Their guesses are not on the chart, but one can glean from the results on the old age-classes that they are guessing 3:5-4.5 a lot. (Which is what most everyone does.)And still getting it right even between those two classes less than 30% of the time.

Again, if you can follow/are following deer year-to-year you are not “aging” them - as you know how old they are.

You’re still a troll it’s Pretty apparent.

You tossed out a study as gospel that’s irrelevant because of the data sets.

I disputed the study because it genetic, it’s not specific. It’s not specific to biologist speciality or experience or geographical area. It’s a random sampling from deer that weight 300lbs to 90lbs from Michigan to Florida. Any biologist that specializes in Whitetail herd management would conclude the same thing. You get on a lease that mandates front tooth extraction and aging becomes very clear.

If you take the time to learn your herd you will know it. Okla/KS deer age out younger then hill country or Stx deer due to Bergman’s rule, but with a little time it’s easy to pick up. People do it every day