Aging mule deer bucks!

I had kinda wanted to keep the jaw bones out of the equation until people had guessed by the body. The point being to see if anyone was good at guessing the age of a deer without having to kill it first. I guess I don’t have to post all the bucks before I start adding jaw bones to the bucks I’ve already posted.

His body is telling me 5.5+. His antlers with the extra knobs and things are telling me the same thing even though his bases are a tad small. He jaw bones are telling me 4.5.

I think any deer between 4.5 and 8.5 is downright hard to determine by looking at them. I think some come closer to looking mature at 4.5 than others, and I think some hang on to their body condition and antler quality longer than others. I think even a few into the 9.5-10.5 realm can look like their in quite good condition.

I should probably revise down my guess on greenhorn’s bucks. But they are mature.
 
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I had kinda wanted to keep the jaw bones out of the equation until people had guessed by the body. The point being to see if anyone was good at guessing the age of a deer without having to kill it first. I guess I don’t have to post all the bucks before I start adding jaw bones to the bucks I’ve already posted.

His body is telling me 5.5+. His antlers with the extra knobs and things are telling me the same thing even though his bases are a tad small. He jaw bones are telling me 4.5.

I think any deer between 4.5 and 8.5 is downright hard to determine by looking at them. I think some come closer to looking mature at 4.5 than others, and I think some hang on to their body condition and antler quality longer than others. I think even a few into the 9.5-10.5 realm can look like their in quite good condition.

I should probably revise down my guess on greenhorn’s bucks. But they are mature.
I agree with all you said.
 
Deer 7

I think the game cam pic is the same deer, but I’m not 100% certain.
 

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Deer 7

I think the game cam pic is the same deer, but I’m not 100% certain.
6.5 somewhere in there... his face doesn't look real extremely old.... but his body and the extra trash on his antlers and how deep his forks are make me think he's a lil older deer.
 
To come within one year aging a buck guess 4 if you are sure he isn't 8 and guess 6 if you think he might be 8.

That will get you within 1 year on the majority of mature looking bucks. Still a guess but it will usually get you within a year on public land bucks because 8 or older is freakishly rare and if you can't tell 1 or 2 just give up. Not really scientific though, but if you are just guessing it is like picking the center box on tic tac toe.
 
I couldnt' find the FWP paper on the two I put pictures on but I think it was 5.5 and 8.5. My son's being the older one
I knew I overshot after thinking about it, but those two bucks are just in a whole different class from anything I’ve killed in terms of both bodies and antlers.

Those are some fantastic bucks.
 
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Deer 8. Not mine, but I was there. I also processed the deer and got 137lbs 4oz of boneless meat for an estimated live weight of 412lbs. When I walked up to this deer I thought I could have jumped on and taken it for a ride. Prior to processing this deer I’d never had one big enough to break 107lbs of boneless meat. It was aged by a biologist, and the jaw is in my garage. I will send a tooth to Matson when I send the rest of the teeth I would like them to age.
 

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Deer 8. Not mine, but I was there. I also processed the deer and got 137lbs 4oz of boneless meat for an estimated live weight of 412lbs. When I walked up to this deer I thought I could have jumped on and taken it for a ride. Prior to processing this deer I’d never had one big enough to break 107lbs of boneless meat. It was aged by a biologist, and the jaw is in my garage. I will send a tooth to Matson when I send the rest of the teeth I would like them to age.
I'm gonna go with 7 1/2 or 8 1/2 somewhere in there. To be a rank like that he's gotta be on the older side.
 
Deer 9 and 10

Jaws and/or ages according to biologists coming for all the deer next.
 

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I probably should have posted 9 and 10 first instead of last as I think they are easy to age and should be informative on the rest.
 
Those teeth are pretty stained but don't show a ton of flattening and wear. Molars are all pretty sharp. My guess is 5.5 yr for the wide one, 4.5 for the other. That top one has a real thick body, many steaks!
Quite a bit of flattening on the wide one. Not sure what you’re looking at. When I see tooth wear start to have flattening/smoothing that’s dishing, that’s usually around 7.5 years old in both whitetails and mule deer. I’m ready to see the teeth on more of these bucks. The kill photos are anyone’s guess literally
 
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