Age Before Beauty

By Bill Winke

Hunters serious about deer management should target bucks based on age rather than antler score.  photo by Bill Winke

We always emphasize the importance of providing optimum nutrition throughout the year so the deer can reach their genetic potential, but there is also another side to deer management. You make a number of important decisions with your trigger finger – whether by squeezing or keeping it still. What you shoot and what you pass up has a big affect on future hunting, and once you start experimenting in this regard, you will face a big dilemma: which bucks do I shoot and which ones do I let go? Most hunters make that decision based on antler size. I suggest that there is a better way.

Most serious deer managers tell us that a buck isn’t mature until at least – at the absolute minimum – after his fourth birthday. During a buck’s fifth fall, he is 4 1/2 years old, and that is when he starts to put on the kind of antler and body size he is capable of producing. He also becomes much harder to hunt at this age. A 4 1/2-year-old buck is more secretive and reclusive than a younger buck. At this age, he is a fine trophy no matter what he has on his head and shooting one is no small feat. Getting bucks to this age is not easy either because they are so much easier to kill when they are a year younger and right on the verge of becoming great trophies.

When you start making management decisions based on age rather than rack size, you open up the possibility for an interesting dilemma. What if you have a chance to shoot a dandy buck that is genetically superior but obviously still young? Sounds simple enough on paper – you pass him up. But, in the real world it can be a whole lot tougher. A trophy buck is still a trophy buck even if he is only 3 1/2 years old. Many hunters will pull the trigger before they even consider how old the buck is. Believe me, I know from experience. I’ve done it.

The Toughest Decision

There is one area I hunt where the neighboring landowners have all decided to work together to let young bucks walk. In this setting, it is not only encouraged that you pass up small bucks, it is expected. The properties are not high fenced so there is always a real possibility that when you pass up a nice buck he will jump the fence and test someone else’s willpower and judgment. Also, your idea of “young” might not match that of your neighbor, and “boom,” he’s dead.

Two occasions stand out in my memory. Both bucks were 3 1/2 years old and both were already exceptional deer. The first was a 6 by 5 that would gross score 160ish. That’s a shooter everywhere I hunt, but because he was young, I decided to grudgingly let him go to see just how big he might become. As I watched him walk under my stand at eight yards and cross a small clover field behind me, I knew that he would someday be a true monster. My hope was that I might see him again someday.

Well, I saw him again all right – two weeks later in a photo as he lay in the back of a pickup truck. I didn’t have the heart to tell the excited bowhunter that I had passed up the buck. I could only swallow hard and shake his hand. This was a genetically superior buck and there was no doubt he was destined to gross in the 180s the next season. Bucks like that don’t come around very often; it is a shame when this rare potential goes unrealized.

The other young stud that I passed up was equally difficult but that episode had a much happier conclusion. This buck has become my poster child for managing by age.

A State Record One Year Removed

During mid-November of 1999, I passed up one buck four times at close range over a three-day stretch. The first time I saw him I immediately grabbed my bow off the hanger and began to prepare for the shot. But as the buck drew closer I could see from his body shape and facial features that he was definitely young.

I made a snap decision to let him go. I had to literally hang the bow up and put my hands in my pockets to keep from shooting him. He finally worked so close that he was actually under my stand. I could see two five-inch abnormal stickers off the inside of his right beam that added to what I figured was already a gross 160-inch, 10-point typical frame. Total gross was about 170 – a tough deer to pass up! Many people I’ve told the story to say I’m lying, but it really did happen. I remember telling myself that if I was ever going to shoot a 200-inch buck someday this was the deer.

As he walked away I felt silly at first, but then I began to feel a sense of pride. In a strange way, it was like graduation day. Even though I knew that buck was likely the biggest I’d see all year, and would look great in photos and on the wall, I had made an investment in my own deer hunting by not shooting.

Again, bucks like that don’t come around very often in a hunter’s lifetime; it’s a shame to cut them off before they start to reach their potential. After passing the buck once, it became much easier to pass him again and again over the next few days. As predicted, after hunting several different states during the 1999 season, that buck was the biggest I saw all year.

After that season, I moved with my young family out of Iowa to a home in Michigan that was closer to my wife’s mother. And, of course, as luck would have it, I didn’t draw a tag to hunt Iowa in 2000. Enter Larry Zach. Larry is a wildlife artist of great skill, and he also hunted the same general area. During the summer of 2000, Larry began seeing a giant non-typical around the same patch of timber where I’d passed the buck the previous November.

During the summer, I had the chance to see videotape of the buck. Even though it was a little grainy having been shot at long range through Larry’s spotting scope, I immediately recognized the deer as the same one I’d passed up. His antler structure and abnormal points were identical, but what a jump he had made in antler size! Now instead of having a basket-rack, he had a bushel basket-rack.

After we talked about the buck, Larry began looking back through his tape footage from the 1999 season and found a minute of two of that same deer taken across the same open ridge.

Larry made it his mission to shoot the buck when the season opened on Oct. 1, but the deer had other plans. He went underground in late August and Larry never saw him again until Oct. 26 when his arrow found the mark. Even though the buck had broken off a five-inch abnormal point that was evident in Larry’s video, he still grossed over 240 inches and netted 237 3/8! He was the tentative Iowa state record archery non-typical for a week before a bowhunter in another part of the state shot a buck scoring 240 inches.

Even though I didn’t get a chance to hunt the deer, I felt good about it. Sure, it would have been great to have a gross-170 buck on the wall. And sure, there was risk that someone might shoot the buck later in the 1999 season after I passed him up. But, had I shot the deer when he was right under my stand, Larry never would have killed a state record.

The Big Jump

In a recent interview, a renowned deer researcher confirmed my theory. Bucks make a significant change in two categories from age 3 1/2 to age 4 1/2. Most bucks make their biggest jump in antler size during this year. Unfortunately, this growth spurt also coincides with a personality change that is just as dramatic. In human terms, they go from sexually charged, wild-eyed 18-year-olds to very isolated and cautious 35-year-olds in only one year. Both transitions can be shocking in their magnitude and frustrating in their outcomes.

After letting some 3 1/2-year-old bucks go during the season, you expect to come back the next year and find them again as 4 1/2-year-olds, but it doesn’t always work that way. Whitetail bucks are not the same animal after they make this transition.

In a typical fall hunting season, you might encounter several 3 1/2-year-old bucks within range, but only one or two (or none) that are 4 1/2 and older. This makes it very tempting to pull the trigger on a genetically superior younger buck. I remember a conversation I had with another excellent hunter a few years back. We were both singing the blues about how difficult it is to shoot a 4 1/2-year-old buck. We finally came full circle to the offbeat conclusion that the only way to shoot a 4 1/2-year-old buck on purpose was to shoot him when he is 3 1/2. Of course, that doesn’t make any sense, but it shows the level of frustration that goes with hunting fully mature bucks.

This reality only adds to the dilemma. Should you pass up trophy class 3 1/2-year-old bucks in the hopes of seeing them again as truly exceptional mature bucks with much more impressive antlers? My first illustration in this regard would echo a resounding “NO!” But my second such experience, the buck Larry killed four years later, produced a much better result. You will have to face this question as your management program gains momentum.

Managing for 4 1/2-Year-Old Bucks

My real point in telling about the two toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make in a tree stand is to bring attention to an important aspect of deer management. Most hunters overuse antler score as the main reason to pull the trigger. In their view, when a buck’s rack reaches a certain size he becomes a shooter. In the process of shooting these deer, they also shoot some genetically superior young deer – future monsters – a year too soon. Maybe the focus should really be on age. When a buck reaches a certain age, he becomes a shooter. In an ideal world, the management goal should be to hold off shooting all bucks until they reach 4 1/2 years old at a minimum.

Superior 3 1/2-year-old bucks are much more valuable than the average 3 1/2 year old. And because 3 1/2-year-old bucks are definitely much easier to kill (where they exist) than 4 1/2-and-older bucks, the very deer (genetically gifted 3 1/2-year-olds) that should get another year older are the ones most hunters target. Like I said, it is a dilemma.

Unfortunately, most of the world in which we hunt is not ideal, and passing up a great 3 1/2-year-old buck in the hopes of seeing him a year later and a year bigger is often tough and sometimes even foolish. That’s a decision that only you and your hunting buddies can make. But, if you are in the right setting where most of the hunters are committed to growing whoppers, passing up these super young bucks is the one of the  most important single steps you can take toward some day shooting a monster.

How to Age Deer on the Hoof

Just as you can guess a person’s age very closely by looking at his or her body and face, you can do the same with a deer. Of course, it is tougher with deer than with people because we interact with people a lot more. Our visual cues are sharper and better defined. However, that shouldn’t stop you from getting good enough to tell a 3 1/2-year-old buck from one that’s older. Here are the things to look for.

Facial features: Young bucks, 3 1/2 years, or less, have tighter skin on their faces. Their noses generally look long and thin when compared to an older buck. There is no loose skin sagging under the jaw to reveal age. Typically, they don’t yet have the classic Roman nose facial profile and broad forehead that is a characteristic of older bucks.

Body profile: A buck of 3 1/2 years or younger typically has a wasp-shaped body that features a narrow waist. In other words, the animal’s girth at a point just forward of the rear legs is noticeably less than his chest girth. Their legs look long compared to their bodies. As deer get older, their bodies become much more blocky or square in appearance because their bellies have the same (or larger) girths than their chests. As they get really old they may also exhibit a sway back – a dip in the line of the back bone right over the center of their body.

Antler appearance: Antler appearance is the least effective way to age deer. Antler mass can help you a little. Most of the time, older bucks have more massive antlers than young bucks (but not always). Though mass is more closely related to genetics than age, it does tend to increase as deer get older. Just keep in the mind the fact that mass is only a very rough, and marginally trustworthy, guideline.

Antlers also tend to “trash up” as the buck gets older than 3 1/2 years. Sticker points begin to appear around the bases and sometimes off the primary typical points. Again, this is only a rough gauge but is worth observing.

Brian Van Horn of Kentucky, a long time Whitetail Institute customer, right, tries to harvest bucks that are a minimum of 6 1/2 years old.

Managing for True Mature Bucks

Whitetail Institute customer Brian Van Horn owns a 700-acre farm in Illinois . Over the past 20 years, Van Horn and his family have shot 13 bucks that gross over 145 inches. Along with his parents and wife, the group does not shoot bucks under 140 inches. But personally, Van Horn targets his deer by a different system. Van Horn follows the guidelines laid out in the adjacent article – he shoots according to age rather than antler size.

Van Horn, however, takes the concept of managing for 4 1/2-year-old bucks several steps further – he waits until he feels they are 6 1/2 years old or older. After all, many biologists and deer experts claim a buck often doesn’t hit his full potential until year six or seven (and maybe even beyond).

“I have the genetic potential on my farm, as do most areas of the Midwest , to grow 200-class bucks,” Van Horn said. “My biggest is over 220 – it was the largest deer killed in Illinois that year. So I just try to allow my deer to get some age on them.

“I realize some of the bucks we pass up cross the property line and are killed by neighbors, but that doesn’t change my management plan. Some bucks survive each year.

So does Van Horn harvest a monster buck every year?

“I hunt a lot, more than most hunters,” Van Horn said. “I’m blessed with a great spot to hunt not too far from home. But I haven’t shot a buck in several years. Would I like to shoot a buck every year? Absolutely. But I’m at a point in my life where I want really big deer, so I am very careful not to shoot a buck unless I think he is truly mature.