I’ve always wanted to tag a buck in the snow, but is this guy old enough to shoot? I’d say he is …
Aging this New Yorker Buck
This northern buck is a beast by all standards when it comes to the body size! Regardless of where this photo was taken, any buck that carries this much bulk throughout his body is not a young deer.
Notice that the buck’s heavy neck meets up very low on his brisket, another tip that this New York native does not take crap from nobody. The real give-away is the buck’s head.
The head of a mature whitetail buck should look short. It’s not actually short but it will appear short. This is because an older buck carries a lot of mass around the back of his jowls, the area where the head meets up with the neck.
With all of these physical features in mind it’s easy to estimate this buck on the far end of the age scale. Since he’s a northern buck he’s going to appear heavier than most, but even with that in mind this buck is at least 5 1/2 years of age.