It’s a common misconception among hunters that a white-tailed deer’s antler size will tell you all you need to know about his age. However, that’s simply not true. Rack size is more about food and nutrition, genes, and overall health than anything else.

A 2.5 year old buck could indeed have wider and/or taller antlers than a buck twice his age if all of the aforementioned factors play a big enough part. The same goes for a deer’s body size/weight, hoof size, gray on the face, or any other misconstrued theory you’ll often hear from even the most seasoned hunters. These factors simply shouldn’t be used to indicate relative age.

In reality, the most accurate method of aging is via tooth analysis. Over time, deer will lose certain “baby” teeth, and they’ll put a lot of wear and tear on their remaining pearly whites. By examining and studying this wear and decay, hunters have a fairly precise method to all this aging madness. But don’t think you have to be a wildlife biologist or even an experienced hunter to age your buck; there’s a very handy tool available to make things much easier.

Read more about the Deer Aging Tool in the Arkansas Hunting Forum.

Here are a few quick tips for judging the age of a deer by sight.

1.5 Year Old Bucks: It’s relatively easy to determine a yearling buck from a more mature buck. Yearling bucks have basically a doe body with antlers. A thin “figure,” skinny neck and long thin legs is a dead giveaway. Plus, most all yearling bucks have racks that stay within the spread of the ears. Resist the temptation of taking any buck in this age range. If you do, you’re committing gene pool suicide. If you don’t let your home range bucks reach their potential, they’ll never breed does, and those does will never have the chance to produce your future wall hanger.

Come inside for more tips on Field Aging a Buck

During this time, bucks are in dominance mode–aggressive toward any other bucks in their area–and that
means a couple of blows on the grunt, or a quick rattle of the antlers can send an already hot-under-the-collar buck into an all-out testosterone-induced fury.

But what about calling during the peak of the rut? Is grunting more effective or less effective? Should you rattle harder or softer? Are doe bleats effective? Should you grunt/rattle at all?

Well, there’s no doubt that calling during the peak is less fruitful than grunting during the final week or so leading up to it. At this point, the dominant attitude toward other bucks in the area seen during the late pre-rut has been redirected to chasing hot does that are ready to breed.

However, while peak rut calling can often be a frustrating effort, it’s not a totally lost cause.
The fact is, sometimes bucks are “between does” and will respond well to grunting, rattling and bleats.

Come inside to read more tips and techniques on how to catch the attention of peak rut bucks.

But the fact is, the rut is not the only time to bag a buck. In fact, it may not even be the best time. Why? Because during the peak rut, you can throw all deer predictability out the window. Testosterone-frenzy dominates. All that scouting you’ve done for months goes by the wayside. While this certainly means bucks make more mistakes, for all of you relentless scouters out there, it can mean days of frustration and confusion.

However, during the pre-rut, you get the best of both worlds. Bucks are still fairly predictable (they still, for the most part, maintain feeding times, travel routes, bedding areas, etc.) but they do begin to move more often and  roam farther, and  their ever-growing curiosity for hot does and heated emotions toward  imposing bucks makes grunting, rattling, planting scents, etc.  all that more effective.

Let’s take a look at a few strategies for hunting the pre-rut in Arkansas. Come inside the Arkansas Hunting Forum for the full article.