Video of a deer I passed up tonight.

[LD Fisher]

Thx Hunter, he's pretty proud, but dad is sweating the taxidermy bill 😳

I hope yours has learned how duck and will be around for ya next year.  Looks like he will be a "nice" one!!!

[Seth]

1 hour ago, Hunter53 said:

I was judging by his body size/composition.  You never want to judge by antler size as that can be very misleading either way.

I have a hard time judging their age once they reach 3.5+ unless I have game cam history with a deer. Most 3.5 year olds I've seen are between 110-120" around here with a few breaking in to the 120 class, but rarely over 130". If that deer truly is 3.5, he is a very rare deer and I hope you get a chance at him in the future because he will be a world class 8 pointer.

[Hunter53]

Here is a good article to help with judging deer on the hoof. It says for the southeast but it is good for up here as well.

http://extension.msstate.edu/sites/default/files/publications/publications/p2206.pdf

[Seth]

Even after comparing those images, I don't see where anything really stands out from the buck in your video that says 3.5 and not 4.5 year old. I'll say that he doesn't look like he's 5.5 as there isn't any belly sag yet. I passed the first nice buck I saw this year during MO's rifle season. He was came out about 300 yards away and walked along the fence line. His rack looked really nice, but I wasn't convinced that he was a 4.5 year old deer based on the body. If he is a 3.5 year old and made it through till next year, he will be a dandy. He could have been a 4.5 year old though. The buck I ended up shooting looked more filled out and I believe he was a 4.5 year old and shot him. I'm pretty sure the buck I passed would outscore him though as he had much taller tines and was slightly outside of his ears.

Here's a couple deer that we had several years worth of pictures on. It's fun to see how they grow through the years.

 

This one was my favorite, but we never were able to kill him. He's the largest deer we've ever been able to follow on our cameras across the years. This farm sold last year and we lost access to hunt it. I'm not sure if the new land owners ever saw or killed him this year. I'm sure we would have heard something if they had.

2014 - 4.5 years old

2015 - 5.5 years old

2016 - 6.5 years old (his best year)

2017 - 7.5 years old (his rack is really starting to show some character now)

[Codywskeeter1521]

I'll have to agree with you on the 3 1/2. But this time of year post rut it becomes even more difficult to judge the age class of a buck. 

  He's a beautiful deer and has potential to be a giant in a couple years. But there's no place like Kansas. I wish Missouri would look to Kansas for deer herd management .. Good luck the rest of the year

[Sprint21fter]

Kansas is giving hunters a doe tag with their buck tags.  Farmers are telling us that there is overpopulation of does.  I wish Kansas would take a tip from South Dakota as for what they do about populating the pheasants!  

Midwest has the food for growing big deer.  Must harvest a fair amount of does to keep population in check.

[Hunter53]

From what I saw the other night (around 10 different bucks and 15 or so does) the balance where I am hunting seems to be ok for now.

[Bigfishes1]

That’s a nice buck for sure. Never mind the age of that deer, a man has to have the time available to let deer like him walk  Until I get to retire some far off year from now that buck is taking a ride to the house with me every time 

Spent a year living in NW Kansas impressive deer herd, lots of walk in hunting that is exceptional, I would argue better than any private SW Missouri ground I have ever hunted    Kansas is good....not  Iowa good.....but good. 

Missouri on the other hand does a poor job. Rifle season during the rut??? C’mon man!!! Over the counter non resident  tags???? Get serious!!! Crossbows for anyone during bow season???? Wow!!!! The only bucks MDC is concerned are the ones in people’s wallets. 

[tjm]

Mo. does a great job with deer but they should sell more tags and cheaper tags, deer here can't grow to farm land sizes simply because they are overstocked for the habitat.  Witness any highway.

As to the buck, it's OK but I'd have taken the big doe and ate her.  Kill off the good  bucks and kill off a big portion of the gene pool,  leaving that one is a good; leaving the one sided or big deer-little rack type maybe not so good. I can picture a herd of all two pointers  resulting from the point count hunts.

[Codywskeeter1521]

3 hours ago, Bigfishes1 said:

That’s a nice buck for sure. Never mind the age of that deer, a man has to have the time available to let deer like him walk  Until I get to retire some far off year from now that buck is taking a ride to the house with me every time 

Spent a year living in NW Kansas impressive deer herd, lots of walk in hunting that is exceptional, I would argue better than any private SW Missouri ground I have ever hunted    Kansas is good....not  Iowa good.....but good. 

Missouri on the other hand does a poor job. Rifle season during the rut??? C’mon man!!! Over the counter non resident  tags???? Get serious!!! Crossbows for anyone during bow season???? Wow!!!! The only bucks MDC is concerned are the ones in people’s wallets. 

Couldn't agree more with the last part of this comment..