How do you age a deer from the stand?

When you are 20′ in the air with your rifle, and you see a buck…what are you looking at to tell how old it is?

I know once a deer is down, you can tell by its teeth. But when the adrenaline is slamming through your veins, and you are trying to tell whether that buck is 2.5 years old or 3.5 ears old…what’s the determining factor for you?

(Just curious, and also trying not to be too productive at the office before the weekend!)

I didn’t know you were ever productive at work.

Try not to look at the horns and look for certain body characteristics.

A 2 1/2 yr old is going to have a skinny neck, slimmer chest, and his nose will be slightly sloped. (Their body almost resembles that of a large doe)

A 3 1/2 yr old is going to have a fuller neck, a more filled out midsection, and his nose wils be somewhat blunt.

It is tough to describe the differences until you really put your time in and see enough deer through trial and error to accurately tell the diffrence.

Just my 02.

There are three things I look for when aging a deer. The first is a ears to head comparison. If the buck’s ears look too big for his head he is most likely less than 3.5. Second is the depth of his chest in relation to his rear end. A mature buck will have a fully developed chest cavity that will be slightly below his hind quarters while a young buck’s chest is a little higher. The third is not the most accurate test, but I look at mass. Most of the bucks where I hunt, Southern WI, make a large jump in mass from 2.5 to 3.5. These aren’t foolproof and by no means am I an expert, but just a few thing I look for.

Does age even matter,if the deer is there and you think its gonna look nice on the wall then shoot it,for me a shooter buck is out past the ears and has at least 3″ brow tines, #points arent an option; in the real world your gonna have about 5-10 sec to make a decission..