As a professional and hunter intersted in quality white-tailed deer management, there are a few questions people always seem to ask me: “What do you think he’ll score?” This is usally followed by their second question, “How old is he?”

Although these are both good questions, they usually are not asked in the proper order. The very first question you should ask before pulling the trigger is “how old?” For any hunter that is interested in harvesting a mature whitetail buck, the best way to improve the odds is to pass on harvesting good young and middle-aged deer. If you aren’t willing to let them live another year, how then do you expect to shoot a larger buck? Luck?

Estimating the age of deer can be hard. This can be especially difficult if the buck is a hundred or more yards away, the deer is obscured, moving, and the hunter is trying to make up his mind as to whether or not to squeeze the trigger. (more…)

Tooth wear and replacement is one of several methods for aging white-tailed deer.  This technique has ben used for half a century to age and manage deer on ranches across the United States.  Although this method is not perfect, it has been used in the successful management of deer herds.  Deer are aged by examing the wear and replacement of the premolars and the molars of the lower jaw.

As a deer grows older, its teeth continue to wear.  As the enamel begins to wear away, and the exposes the dark dentine material, noticeable distinctions in tooth wear begin to occur between each age class.  Deer are aged in year and half increments, such as 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2 etc., since fawns are born from late May through July and are not harvested until the fall hunting season.

Deer managers may be, and should be, interested in deer ages from a deer management standpoint.  Age data provides information about deer herd characteristics, hunting or mortality pressure on a particular age class, and progress of the wildlife management program.

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Estimating the ages of live deer accurately in the field is an invaluable skill for any serious deer manager, and trail-camera photographs provide excellent opportunities to practice. Whether you use your trail cameras to conduct accurate surveys of your deer population or just to gather snapshots, accurately estimating ages to bucks is important to assess the progress of your management program.

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