dbHunterNY

the draw must have been butter though. i'd leave it.

deer do crazy things when you release an arrow. when bowhunting seemingly slight angles can be more than you realized. also your point of aim versus point of impact can be farther apart when the deer is quartering slightly to you versus quartering away. their front half moves a lot more when they pre-load their legs at the shot to lead away. it was your first with a bow, which means that's awesome! don't keep anything having to do with size in the back of your head, you made it happen and that's all that counts.

similar 2.5 yr old buck out this way (flip the sides) blew up into a 150+" buck at 4.5 yrs old. you've got more potential where you are though. i have to think he'll be stupid big if he makes it another year. probably only happen if nobody can get seal the deal and take him. don't know of hardly any hunters that'd pass a buck like that. i couldn't.

not arguing so much as throwing out an educated opinion. what you believe is what you believe and entitled to. this is what i think. 4.5+ yr old deer are fully developed skeletally so skulls will be longest then also ears start to look smaller because of that. nose length actually looks much shorter at maturity do to thickness of the neck carrying up into head for that roman nose look. so nose length is tough to pin down for aging a deer on the hoof. a buck's antlers don't really downhill in antler size until after 8.5 yrs old. seen them drop quantity of points but amount of "bone" is the same and starts to peak toward 6.5, pending nothing else like injury. 6.5+ year old bucks are pretty rare to worry about shooting bucks before they go downhill. older deer with scrub genetics are more common for older deer in that they got that way partially due to being passed or not hunted specifically, because a younger buck that happens to have better antlers will get more attention. 140" in a realistic ceiling for max potential in most whitetail bucks i argee with. many don't live long enough to reach that though.

i do almost everything for guns and bows at my house in the basement shop. i've lapped scope rings and bore sighted to done about everything for bows.

yup. need to keep tabs on them. once closer only move when something is closer to them blocking you from line of sight or they're looking far away. short steps. long steps might find you freezing to hold a position out of balance. hard to shoot a bow that way. also need to know where the wind is going even if barely noticable. once you get close enough they might pick you out as something that looks off but not necessarily a problem. deer will circle to cut a marginal wind to check you out if it's close enough. if you know where they're headed you can plan when you can draw and shoot them. you need more time and setup unlike with a gun.

i don't use peep tubing but gotten lots in the past from lancaster archery online. they've got good stuff that won't dry rot. forget exactly what brand but wife has some of it in hot pink on her bow.

varies depending on free time i have. i try to shoot every week to keep muscles toned and mind from getting rusty on the release.

#1 - hunt with my dad and wife at some point this season. #2 - hoping for another memory filled mess of an outing with family or friends (the kind of stories you tell years later and still entertaining). #3 - see local hunters get great deer topping their best seasons. #4 - have everyone check in their deer without issue or missing information at our check station. #5 - see and hear something new from deer while out in the field. a lot of others but filling tags will be good to top off the season. with a buck i'm willing to take would be even better. as said in the original post though, that's always on the mind of a deer hunter.

seems the few i've seen have been on social media with no actual link to it. just search for one i've seen and it got taken down. i keep coming across the young man trying to draw a bow, gets it back, and then it comes flying back at him. another where a guy is in a kitchen showing others how easy it is to draw. puts his head between riser and string to be funny. then he gets stuck. lmao... still, i'm kind of disappointed.

ever surf the internet for people duplicating that video? haha pretty fun to watch. sheetrock dust settles and the bow stuck in the ceiling.

i've shot my current bow and others at 70lbs or close to it well in hunting or competition situations for years. i just turned down my primary hunting bow to 62-63 lbs last night and re-tuned it. i can draw disgustingly easy now and can hold that much longer. at 345 fps IBO it's still fast with arrows over 400 grains.

i'll be out regardless. if it's too hot i'll just be in a ground blind in black heat gear with a thermacell... spot where i can see a lot just downwind from where deer are piling into ag fields and not right on top of them. first thing in the morning and late evening. i've got a nice funnel to a pond for mid day. i'm ready.

uh... you did it... he just flew south.

they have words to describe folks like you.... snow birds.

My pictures are a little lacking. I'll work on that as this goes on. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Here's a 3rd deer. Post what you think for age. Again these were aged by a whitetail biologist that does this for a living across the nation and others in agreement. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

The QDMA videos are very good but sometimes going by dentine width alone can be tough with widths close so it helps to look at other things if you're on the fence between two ages. they only really touch on dentine width as that's the factor you should be looking at first and foremost. the second deer jaw photo has the lingual crests on the first and second molars (3rd and 4th teetth back) chipped. that's something else you have to watch out for. more coming. trying to take the best photos i can with my phone.

not sure that people will ever get around this idea. i think it does take someone to evolve as a hunter to get to a point where this is the mindset. i think it's a huge reason why any effort labeled "QDM" gets trashed, called elitist, and spun into something other than conservation. even in this thread a tool of ARs have been brought up when they aren't even the topic of discussion. if hunters in general continue to cherry pick tools and aspects of good deer management they agree or disagree with to fit their interests and then bastardize everything else, it'll always be spun into something unworthy. good news is that good deer management is just that and will never go away, even if it has to be pulled from the ashes.

Definitely helps sending some in as a group. Then it ends up being around $15. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Definitely in the teens for age and considered very old for a doe. I assume it was a doe. Those are the ones to pull center two incisors on and send in. From management stand point and using this method you'd just say 8.5+. it'd be just old and that's good enough. It's still very cool info to have a more exact age though.Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

In all fairness there shouldve been some disclosure the last three molars are washed out from flash appearing brighter than they are. The ones screwed to the educational board have been bleached a little from the sun also. Heres the point. Deer died late in the season. That said in person the first 3 teeth are pearly white compared the last 3. Also on the last back molar and on the front 3 pre-molars there's no wear. Right is the front and left is the back. No dentine lines exist on the lingual (tongue side) crests. Many 1.5 yr old deer will still have a 3 cusp (section) 3rd premolar but not all. This deer just replaced those front pre-molars. The deer is 1.5 yrs old. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Just over 100". If you hunt with others set realistic goals for yourself and just hunt sticking to them. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Could be possible but as you know you shouldnt use points over body to judge if its 1.5 versus older. Size could be a little different yea. Still should have a good idea though. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

That's my point that age class is the way to go. Too many unknown variables can affect antlers as a yearling or even a 2.5 year old. Shooting a yearling spike is just the same as a 6. A yearling died. High grading is a real thing I admit. All hunters inevitably have a tendency to high grade though. You shooting a spike versus a 6 pointer very well might be killing more potential. I believe one study was done and bucks starting out as spikes actually happened to grow bigger later on then the basket racked yearlings. It shows judging potential that early is a shot in the dark. Even have seen it where I hunt with voluntary antler restrictions. We protect almost all the yearlings there and then you really can see what has potential. Even then it's hard to know what they top out at until they reach 4.5+ with a normal set of antlers. We just go by age and don't worry about what it grows. If it's old enough it'll be a gnarly buck. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk