buck age

Top-10 States in Mature Buck Harvest

Nov 13, 2024 Kip Adams

Deer hunters in the United States are taking more mature bucks than ever in modern history. That’s true both as a percentage of the antlered buck harvest and in actual numbers of bucks harvested. This…

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“Age This!” Celebrates 10 Years. Why is Buck Age Still Important?

Sep 17, 2024 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

We’ve been featuring an “Age This!” buck survey in this organization’s weekly e-newsletter for 10 years now. September 17, 2014 was the first newsletter to include a reader-submitted trail-camera photo and age poll. That’s not…

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Which Deer Aging Technique is More Accurate, Jawbone or Cementum?

Sep 20, 2023 Kip Adams

There are two methods hunters can use to estimate the age of harvested deer, and both rely on deer teeth. There is a lot of misunderstanding, misapplication, and misinformation shared about these valuable deer management…

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4 Lessons About Antlers and Deer Age from a Simple Chart

Mar 2, 2021 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

It’s difficult to overstate the value of this chart for anyone trying to improve their deer hunting. It was produced by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for their annual deer harvest summary, and…

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Pumba: Yet Another “Inferior” Buck That Wasn’t

Dec 20, 2017 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

Can you name a fellow hunter who says that bucks with weird antlers should be “culled” for the benefit of the herd because they’re somehow “inferior”? Way too many of us can, so we should…

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Can You Estimate a Buck’s Age From His Shed Antler?

Mar 13, 2017 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

Don’t you love that little thrill, that tiny psychological jolt you get when you first spot a shed antler? Especially a big one – but a very small one is exciting, too, simply because you…

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New Data On Buck Home-Range Size by Age

Aug 19, 2014 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

For his graduate-level research at Auburn University, Clint McCoy tracked the fine-scale movements of 37 different bucks wearing GPS collars on a 6,400-acre hunting site in South Carolina. Because habitat quality is extremely high on…

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The Rewards of Restraint

Sep 13, 2012 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

Look carefully at the trail-camera photo above, taken by QDMA member and private lands biologist Joe Lacefield of Kentucky. I love this photo because it captures part of the spirit of Quality Deer Management in a…

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A Leg Up: Judging Buck Age From Body Proportions

May 7, 2012 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

Is there a wall or door somewhere in your childhood home bearing pencil marks that track your height through the years? If we could just as easily track the body proportions of whitetail bucks as…

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The Antler Growth Bell Curve

Apr 23, 2012 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

There’s a simple rule underlying antler development in whitetail bucks that all hunters should understand. Awareness of this rule provides a bridge over many of the false expectations, myths, mistakes and frustrations that lie waiting…

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