How to Age White-tailed Deer | Three Methods You Can Use This Deer Season

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Aging Deer on the Hoof, Jawbone Aging, and Cementum Annuli

By: Eric Michel  

If you’ve been around deer hunting for any amount of time you probably understand that many hunters get caught up in trying to age deer, and for good reason. Aging deer, whether dead or alive, can give you valuable information about what you can do to better manage your herd and reach your goals. Many hunters would like to consistently harvest bucks of a certain antler size, but often times fall short. Allowing those bucks to live for a year or two more would likely help those hunters accomplish their goals, but they won’t know that if they aren’t aging their deer.  

There are several ways to age deer, but it’s important to understand that none of them are 100% accurate and accuracy usually decreases as deer get older. Each method also has a certain level of subjectivity associated with it. The only way to know for certain how old a deer is, is to give it some type of unique identifier at birth. Outside of that, you can rarely say with 100% accuracy that a deer is a certain age, but you can say that a deer is displaying characteristics associated with a certain age. Even though people will use the number of antler points and antler configuration to keep track of a deer throughout the years, they are still making assumptions about how old the deer is the first time they see it. Even if you think the deer is most likely a yearling when you first see it, there’s only about a 30% chance that buck will be on your property the next year. This is because about 70% of yearlings will disperse up to five miles away from where they are born. Additionally, the number of points and a bucks antler configuration can change from year-to-year depending on disease, quality of nutrition, and antler injuries. This article discusses the three most common methods to age deer.

 

Cementum Annuli

Most people have probably heard about how you can use growth rings to age a tree. Well the same concept can be applied to white-tailed deer. A calcified layer of cementum is laid down each year a deer is alive which allows you to take a cross-section of the tooth and count the number of rings associated with it. This method is done by removing one of the front incisors from a dead deer and sending it off to a lab so the age can be estimated. Generally speaking, the lab will charge you a minimum cost (usually around 75$) so it’s best to wait to send in all of the incisors you’ve collected until after the hunting season.  

Counting cementum annuli is considered to be the most accurate method of estimating age, though it’s not perfect and there is little, if any, research that has compared ages derived from counting cementum annuli to those of known-aged deer. This method can also be cost prohibitive for individuals who harvest a large number of deer from their property or even state agencies who collect samples from sometimes hundreds of deer.  

Tooth Replacement and Wear

Tooth replacement and wear is the oldest method used to age deer. This method is great for several reasons. First, it’s cheap. You can do this method by yourself without having to send the jawbone off for analysis. It is also fast after you know what you’re looking for. The biggest downfall of this method is its inaccuracy and subjectivity. There are several factors that can impact the wear rates for a deer’s tooth (individual variation associated with the deer, diet, sand content in the soil, etc.). This can cause an individual deer or even a population of deer to have different wear patterns compared to other individuals or populations. Additionally, when assessing the wear, the difference between a 2.5- and 3.5-year-old deer can be minimal and two people may have differences in opinion when looking at the same jawbone. On a positive note, this method is great for placing deer into one of three age classes: fawns, 1.5-year-olds (yearlings), or 2.5+. The downside is this may not be detailed enough to help you achieve your management goals.

  

So how do you use this method to age deer? This method revolves around identifying which teeth have been replaced and then understanding the subsequent wear patterns. The replacement portion of the method is almost 100% accurate while the wear portion of the method has decreasing accuracy as a deer ages because you are comparing the ratio of dentine (dark part of the tooth) to the enamel (white part of the tooth) on the lingual crest which is the crest adjacent to the deer’s tongue.  

Fawns

Aging fawns is easy because they don’t have all of their teeth yet. An adult white-tailed deer will have six teeth on their lower jaw. If you harvest a deer and it has less than six fully erupted teeth and the third premolar is a tricuspid (three cusps), then it is considered to be a fawn.

Yearlings

You can age yearlings with almost 100% accuracy because you are still using tooth replacement as your guide. Remember, the first thing you do when aging a jawbone is count the number of teeth on the lower jawbone. If there are six teeth, the next thing you do is look at the number of cusps on the premolar or third tooth in from the front. If this is tooth is a tricuspid, then it is a yearling or 1.5-year-old deer. This is easy to identify, but it gets more complicated depending on the exact age of the deer. If your state allows for an elongated hunting season, deer may have already replaced their tricuspid tooth. If so, the new bicuspid that has replaced it will be much whiter than the surrounding teeth with very little wear.  

2.5-year-olds

You can still use the replacement portion of this method to classify deer as at least 2.5-years-old. This is  pretty easy to do. First, you make sure there are at least six teeth. Next you check the third premolar to see whether it is a tricuspid or a bicuspid. If it’s a bicuspid, and the first three teeth display some staining and wearing, then you can classify the animal as at least 2.5-years-old. However, if the third tooth is a bicuspid and the first three teeth are completely white with no wear or staining, then the deer is still likely a 1.5-year-old.

3.5+ year-olds

Aging deer as 3.5-year-olds or older means you now have to use the tooth wear portion of the method. For this, you start on the first molar (the fourth tooth in from the front) because this is the oldest tooth in the jaw. The concept of tooth wear is pretty simple. Looking at the tall portion of the crests, you simply compare the width of the dentine to the width of the enamel. If the dentine is at least twice as wide as the enamel, then the deer can be labeled as a 3.5-year-old. If the dentine is not twice as wide, then the deer is likely a 2.5-year-old. You use this same comparison of dentine to enamel to age a deer to 5.5+. So for example, if the dentine on the fourth tooth is twice as wide as the enamel, then the deer is at least 3.5-years-old so you move to the next molar. If the dentine on that tooth is not twice as wide as the enamel, then you stick with the age of 3.5, but if the dentine is twice as wide on the enamel of the fifth molar, then the deer is likely 4.5-years-old. You then apply this same concept to determine if the animal is 4.5- or 5.5-years of age. If the dentine is at least twice as wide as the enamel on the 6th molar, then the deer is at least 5.5-years-old, but if it isn’t then the deer is probably only 4.5-years-old. Accuracy dramatically declines with the increasing age of an animal and aging to 5.5-years is adequate for most management schemes so it’s best to stop and aging at 5.5-years.

Aging Deer on the Hoof

Aging deer on the hoof is one of the most used methods by both hunters and biologists. You don’t have to watch any hunting show long and you will inevitably hear somebody say something along the lines of “look at this 2.5-year old, he sure is an up and comer”. Everybody likes to think that they can accurately age on the hoof and there are several benefits to being able to accurately age a buck on the hoof. Mainly, because it is the only way you can assess the age of a buck while it’s still alive which should ultimately help you reach your management goals. Aging a buck on the hoof takes a lot of experience of looking at pictures and even with that, it is the least accurate method. A study that polled state deer biologists and university researchers showed that when given a series of pictures of bucks, only 62% of them accurately aged yearlings, only 43% accurately aged 2.5-year-olds, 25% for 3.5-year-olds, and less than 30% accurately aged 4.5-, 5.5-, 6.5-, and 7.5+ year-old bucks. But despite being an inaccurate method of aging, it is still widely used. Here are some characteristics you can use to help you decide how old that buck is before you pull the trigger.  

Fawns

Aging fawns on the hoof is pretty easy but also very important. For example, if you are trying to fill your doe tag during a late season hunt, you don’t want to mistake a buck fawn for a yearling doe. It’s much easier to identify fawns when they are in a group with adults because they will generally be the smallest of the bunch. You can also look at the shape of their head. Fawns obviously have smaller heads and will tend to look like a soda bottle, short and stubby.

Yearlings 

Yearling bucks should be one of the easiest deer to estimate age for, but again, only 62% of professionals were able to accurately place bucks into this age class. There are several things to look for that will help you when aging yearling deer. Primarily, you should be looking for underdeveloped muscles in the buck’s front and hindquarters. They will also have pencil thin necks and their stomachs will run at an upward slant from their front quarters to hindquarters. Another characteristic to look for is how long their legs look. Younger deer tend to have legs that look disproportionately long because they haven’t filled out yet in their quarters and stomach regions. Probably the most tell-tale sign that a buck is only 1.5-years-old is if it looks like a doe after covering up it’s antlers. If this is the case, then you most likely are dealing with a yearling buck.

2.5-year-olds 

Bucks that are 2.5-years-old can be difficult to tell from 1.5-year-old bucks. Generally speaking, their legs still look long for their body, though they will have front and hind quarters that will be more filled out than a yearlings. A 2.5-year-olds neck will also begin to be more filled out than a yearlings during the rut.

3.5-year-olds 

Being able to identify a buck as 3.5-years-old can be one of the most important things you can do for your management plan. This is because 3.5-year-olds have only reached about 75% of their maximum antler size. That remaining 25% can be the difference between a 130-inch buck at 3.5 and a 160-inch buck at 5.5. Unfortunately, the 3.5-year age class is one of the most difficult to accurately age. 

By 3.5-years, bucks will start to have more swelling in their necks during the rut with their neck flowing more into their brisket. Their legs will start to look more proportional to their body and they will have a sleek, muscular look to them though their front and hindquarters won’t be fully developed. They will also start to develop moderate tarsal staining.

4.5-year-olds

By 4.5-years, a buck will start to develop the sleek racehorse look. They will have fully developed front and hindquarters but will look more muscular than anything. Their necks will begin to look very swollen during the rut and their stomach will be flat from front to hindquarters. They will also display an increased amount of staining on the tarsal gland. 

5.5+

Once a deer has reached the age of 5.5-years they are generally considered to be fully mature. These deer will have fully developed front and hindquarters but they will no longer look as muscular as they did at 4.5. Bucks that are 5.5+ tend to have a sagging belly and a swale in their back. Their necks will flow right into their brisket and will look quite large after swelling during the rut. A fully mature bucks legs will also tend to look short relative to their body because their body is now fully developed.

Regardless of whether you are looking to age deer on the hoof to help determine which bucks you will harvest this fall, or are trying to collect harvest data to monitor your management program, age data can be invaluable. Keep these methods in mind this fall when trying to age your deer.

Field Scoring a Deer 101

Best Trail Camera Tips for Deer Season

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Trail Camera Tips and Tactics for Deer Hunting

Trail cameras have been the sportsman’s favorite scouting tool for decades. What was once only a blurry snapshot of a deer running off, has turned into a highly detailed image that is packed full of valuable scouting data. Everything a hunter could need is right at their fingertips.

Cameras have also become incredibly convenient.  Before, having a trail camera meant running to grab the camera and then proceeding to run to the print shop to have the film developed.  For some individuals, this was a process that took hours, if not days, depending on the convenience of the location. However nowadays, images are viewable on the spot. Not only are they clear and detailed, but they are packed full of data. In fact, cameras can go as far as telling you exactly how big the deer you are going to shoot is, before you even hunt it.

As with all technology, trail cameras are now better than ever.  They are more compact, have higher quality photos, are more discrete, and give out such a significant amount of information that most people don’t even know what to do with it all.

 

However, getting the most out of a trail camera requires more than just buying the latest and greatest.  Instead, it takes careful planning, knowledge, and a management strategy.  That’s why we have put together a list of tips that will help improve your trail camera game.  

 Pick a Quality Camera (not just the fanciest one)

This one is pretty obvious. There can’t be quality trail camera photos without a quality camera.  Using an outdated or poorly designed unit means not only disturbing deer, but also getting disproportioned and low quality images. Not being able to see the image makes it difficult to analyze the image and its data.

Therefore, one of the most important aspects of a productive scouting plan is having a camera that can take high enough quality images.  Unfortunately, this is much more complicated than most people think. For starters, a high number of megapixels does not indicate a high quality camera. In fact, manufactures even inflate megapixels to help inflate sales. Therefore, it’s wise to look at more than just the megapixel count. Instead, look at its capabilities and if those capabilities will fit your individual situation.

For example, find out and compare the following features between cameras before making a purchase:  

  • Motion detection range 
  • Flash capabilities 
  • Type of flash 
  • Recovery time 
  • Number of “true” megapixels 
  • Number of lenses 
  • Age of camera 
  • Mode options (time lapse, video, etc..)

If your camera doesn’t have a fast recovery time; you’ll likely miss seeing critical angles, or even multiple deer in a photo.  If your camera doesn’t have high quality flash, you risk spooking the deer or missing valuable night images. All of these have big impacts on your scouting plan.

Some people get lost comparing and understanding technical features; however, something everyone can do is read reviews, watch reviews, and even try a little trial and error of their own before committing to a purchase.

Ways to do this include: 

  • Looking at real life example photos on social media,  
  • Watching YouTube reviews 
  • Reading reviews across the internet 
  • Trying a friend’s camera out 
  • Test running a camera in store before making that purchase

Remember not all trail cameras are created equal. Therefore, even when hunters aren’t familiar with a camera’s specifications, they can still look at real work examples to help them make a better purchase.

Find the Right Location and Don’t Be Afraid to Move

Location is everything.  From macro-environment to the micro-environment, having the right location tends to be the one of the most critical factors in success.  Whether you are talking about which parcel of land you want to focus your attention to the food plot you will decide to hunt over, success is highly dependent on each location and its ability at the time to support quality deer.  When that field no longer has corn? It’s time to move locations.

Therefore, whether you hunt land in different locations, or during different times of the year, it’s important that you keep an open mind and move your camera when necessary.  If you aren’t seeing deer that you think should be there, then move. You wouldn’t hunt the same spot without seeing deer; therefore, don’t scout the same spot – no matter how convincing the environment might look.

Perhaps you pushed too much scent through the area causing deer to re-route your area.  Maybe the food source was harvested, water dried up, or hunting pressure changed the deer’s pattern.  Then it’s time to move.

How to Find the Right Locations

When deciding on the right location before and after a trail camera move, there are some critical aspects to consider. These can include:

The Conditions of the Land 

  • Is it woodland, prairie, or cropland? Understanding the landscape is important in understanding which areas you should monitor.

The Time of Year  

  • As mentioned, deer patterns and actions change throughout the course of a year.  In fact, the food plot you were monitoring in September might not be the best place to set up your camera during the rut. Instead, you might choose to setup over a scrape, or a funnel. As the season’s change, so should your scouting plan.

Number of Trail Cameras You Have at Your Disposal 

  • If you could only afford one camera in your budget, make it count.  Use it to help you find proper stand placement based on deer size, time of day, and routine.  
  • If you use multiple cameras you can monitor the entire area, multiple deer patterns, and even find your buck’s core areas.

Ability to Move 

  • If possible, move throughout the season. This helps reduce scent in a particular area and reduce pressure on the deer. 

We have an in depth article discussing the best trail camera locations that you can read in full here.

Know Your Settings and What They Do For You

Setting up your trail camera means adjusting its settings to fit you and your situation. Just like with our cell phones and computers, sometimes it is easier to set it and forget it then to actually learn why these settings are there or what they can do for you.  

Our tip is to have a list of tasks you should do before implementing any camera.

  1. When you get your camera, first make sure you insert the right size SD card and the proper batteries. If you are checking your camera, be sure to check the batteries and camera storage. If you don’t plan on returning to this area for a significant amount of time, the bigger the card, the better.   
  2. Next, check for software updates.  This is crucial to assure your camera is operating smoothly and at its highest capability.  
  3. Then you need to adjust the settings for your particular goal.  Trail cameras come with many different modes and settings. For example, you can pick time lapse mode to catch the changing environment from afar.  You can also adjust motion detection and response time to capture a select amount of images when movement appears.  Perhaps video mode will be better for deer analysis and scoring.

In general, be sure to adjust the following settings:

  1. Mode (video, timelapse, etc…) 
  2. Trigger speed 
  3. Flash settings 
  4. Frequency
  5. Test these features. After finding the proper location and placement, be sure to test these settings before leaving the area. Nothing is worse than leaving the camera for a few weeks only to return and find that your photos aren’t angled appropriately, or you happen to have no photos at all.

Reconsider Your Placement

Knowing where to place your camera, means knowing your goals.  Sometimes hunters seem to think it’s a “one size fits all approach”.  However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are many different angles and scenarios you can use your camera in.

For example, are you looking over a field and want to monitor the number of deer, environment, or other factors? Or do you hope to place it over a salt lick to catch that close up photo?

Knowing which one is right for you depends on a number of factors:

  • Do you want an aerial view of your food plot or a close up shot of that buck? 
  • Do you have multiple cameras to catch multiple angles (close vs aerial)? 
  • Do you want to score that deer? You will need a clear and close image, or video.  
  • Is motion detection important or will you be using time lapse mode? 
  • Is the camera the perfect distance from the target?

Go through each one of these before choosing, and especially leaving, a spot. Keep an open mind.  Perhaps monitoring the environment while you monitor your deer size can help you put together a better scouting plan. Maybe video will suit your needs better. Don’t be afraid to learn the settings, find the right locations, and then change up your placement.

You can find a more detailed guide on properly setting up your trail camera here.

Photo Management

One of the most overlooked features of any trail camera strategy is organization.  In fact, photo management can revolutionize a scouting routine. For example, being able to pattern deer means having a traceable record of deer size, timing, and camera placement. You cannot rely on your own memory for this. You need an organized database where you can literally map trends, track conditions, and even analyze deer size.

Photo management software is a must for properly organizing and analyzing this data.  However, not all photo management software is the same.  Despite there being plenty of options available, there is only one that is developed by researchers to accurately estimate your deer’s size: BuckScore.

BuckScore

One of the best tools for organizing and analyzing trail camera photos is BuckScore.  Instead of traditional tools that simply organize photos based on environmental conditions and/or time, BuckScore can help you organize buck based on its size.  This is incredibly important when determining which bucks to target and which ones to let walk.  It also helps alleviate wasteful data and photos that clutter your computer and don’t let you reach your end goal: shooting that trophy deer.  It’s also incredible exciting to know if that buck you’ve been tracking can join the Pope and Young club.

Take Your Trail Camera More Seriously This Year

Many people simply set it and forget it when it comes to trail cameras.  They add the batteries, insert the SD card and set it out for use.  However they are missing out on the cameras most advanced and beneficial features.  A few adjustments can go a long way in trail camera value.

For example, if you don’t plan on leaving your camera out for a significant amount of time; you might benefit more from video mode then from capturing stills.  Additionally, if you plan on leaving your camera unattended for a few months, it’s in your advantage to not use video or time lapse to save space.

By better managing your data, taking time to find the best spots, and doing your research before you invest; you cannot only improve the quality of your trail camera information, but also improve the success rate of your hunt this fall.

Perfect Trail Camera Setup

Trail Camera Tips for the Hunting Season and Beyond

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Scouting Your Hunting Property with Trail Cameras

Trail cameras are arguably one of the best tools you have as a deer hunter to help increase your chances of harvesting a buck in the fall. Hunters are able to develop things like their hit list of bucks they would like to harvest if given the opportunity during the hunting season and can glean the most recent information about deer movement to help guide which stand to hunt. Although using trail cameras can be useful, how do you know how many to use or where to put them on your hunting property? This article will give you some tips on where to set up your cameras and how many cameras you may need to be effective in your scouting.

Identifying Buck Movements

Every hunting property is a little bit different. Some properties may have plenty of bedding areas but lack food sources and others may have just the opposite. Using cameras is one of the more effective ways to identify how individual bucks are using your property. This generally begins sometime in mid to late summer when you can start to identify bucks based off their antler development. Place your cameras in known feeding areas to inventory which bucks are hitting which food sources. Once you have a buck identified and know which food source they are consistently visiting, you can then begin to identify travel corridors and potential bedding areas. Hopefully you have already had a chance to scout the property to identify travel corridors and bedding areas, but if you haven’t you can begin with an aerial map to help you narrow down these locations. Once you have identified those areas on the map, you can more precisely go in to scout. Using multiple cameras on multiple food sources will also help paint a picture for you regarding deer movement on your hunting property. For example, if you get a picture of a buck in your food plot planted with soybeans at 7:30 p.m. and then another photo of the same buck in your white clover plot 6 hours later, you likely can start to put together that buck is taking it’s time moving between plots. That may mean there is a bedding area in between them or there are certain features in the landscape that the buck may be more likely to use when traveling. This type of scouting if done well before hunting season or even year-round can dramatically improve your chances of harvesting a buck by simply knowing how deer in general, or a buck in particular, is moving across your hunting property.

Inventorying Bucks on Your Hunting Property

One of the more entertaining things hunters generally look forward to each year is creating a hit list of bucks they may be interested in harvesting in the upcoming hunting season. Trail cameras can obviously aid in this process, but how many cameras do you need and where should you place them to accurately inventory the bucks using your property? Research has shown that when conducting a trail camera survey to estimate things like deer density, recruitment, and adult sex ratios, you will need one camera per 100-acres of land with larger properties generally yielding more accurate estimates. This is a good rule of thumb to follow, but what if you only hunt 200-acres and are most concerned with simply inventorying the bucks using your property? If this is your situation, then placing a camera on each major food source, whether that be a summer food plot, an agricultural field, or even a supplemental mineral site, will allow you the best chance of identifying a majority of the bucks using your property. If you are limited on the number of cameras you have, make best use of them by placing them on high-traffic food sources. In other words, use some on the ground scouting to identify heavily used trails coming into or leaving a food source. This will help maximize your efficiency. If you check your cameras and find that you don’t have many pictures, then don’t be afraid to move the camera. Placing cameras in major food sources means you can check them without causing a major disturbance. Drive right up to the camera if you can. This will help decrease the impact you have on the area and will allow you to move the camera if you think you may have a better area. 

Gaining the Most Recent Information (MRI)

Being mobile during the hunting season can be one of the best ways to increase your chances of harvesting a buck. But how do you know when it’s time to move to another stand or move your set-up all together? Having the most recent information, or MRI, on hand will help you in making this decision. There are several ways to gain information during the hunting season. You may simply see deer consistently using a trail just out of range and need to move your set-up to capitalize on that movement. But what about the movement around other stands you aren’t using? You guessed it! Trail cameras can help in this arena as well. Using cameras at stand sites can be tricky given you will want to minimize disturbance when checking them. Waiting for the perfect stand conditions to hunt that particular stand and then switching out SD cards when you are walking into or leaving the area will help minimize the disturbance you are causing. You can also try using cameras that use cell phone connection to remotely send you pictures of what’s going on. This will completely eliminate any disturbance from an area while still allowing you to obtain the MRI. Deciding on how many cameras you need to have out during the hunting season is also a bit trickier than when you’re inventorying what bucks are using your property. Try to identify which stands will be your best stands during the season. This may change throughout the fall as bucks transition from using food sources more during early and late seasons to checking bedding areas during the rut; though, bucks will also still scent check food plots during the rut so it’s always a good idea to have a stand on a food source that does will use throughout the fall. Again, you want to be careful and minimize your disturbance when checking cameras during the hunting season, so wait on ideal conditions to hunt a stand and check your cameras then to see what’s going on and don’t be afraid to move if the cameras are showing heavy action in a different area.

 

The old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words” couldn’t be more accurate when using trail cameras for scouting. Using them year-round will help you identify everything from how deer are using your hunting property to which hit list bucks are around in the fall. Try using some of these tips the next time you’re scouting your hunting property and they just might help you close the deal during hunting season.