Age this buck

Age this buck? I think 4.5 yrs old.

Fairly simple method some buddies showed me. Said they went to a seminar and measured a several jaw bones of deer with known age and got all of them right first shot. Not subjective at all, and perhaps more accurate than looking at tooth wear only.

hard to tell. lots go into aging, as the model describes. But just based on the pic, I'd say 4.5-5.

Could be 5. 4 year olds have real sharp tall teeth. They start dulling at 5.

Looking at the teeth is interesting. Deer are just like us, some have better teeth than others. I have some deer that have very little wear on the front or rear molars but the middle ones are all but gone. Some have incredible amounts of wear on one side and the other is new (favor chewing on one side) etc.

I would have no problem believing those teeth came from a 4 year old or even older. We have shot a few deer that we know how old they are because we have the pictures of them every year and at 4 years old show surprisingly little tooth wear.

I first saw this deer two years ago and aged him at 2.5 years old. Did not see him at all last year and I thought, before I shot him, he was another deer with very similar horns. From game cam photos two years ago, his antlers are virtually unchanged, with maybe a little more mass, but not much. I didn't feed as regularly this year, electrical storm played havoc with my timers, batteries and cameras, so that might explain why he didn't have more mass, but we have a great crop of acorns and native browse this year (Parker County), so the nutrients are available. The left side of the jaw does show a little more dulling, I still think I am going to stay with 4.5 but I could have misjudged the photos of him two years ago and he could be 5.5 yrs old??

Do you have the pictures from a few years ago? Any photos from this year etc.?

I don't have any photos of him from this year. I will see if I can find any photos of him from two years ago and post a photo of him after I had shot him.