Luke Cuenco 09.12.22
Aging a deer during hunting season is an important skill to have should you be so lucky as to spot multiple deer during a hunt. Bucks can often be hard to age and depending on what you’re after or what kind of tag you have, you may want to avoid younger bucks or older ones. Properly aging a deer in the field is something that’s useful to both new and seasoned hunters so whether you’re trying to brush up on your skills to prepare for one of your first hunts, or you’re a seasoned veteran and you’re wanting to see if your skills are still up to scratch, the National Deer Association has just released a 31-minute video with a test at the end to help teach accurate aging techniques to hunters.
Can You Accurately Age a Deer in the Field? Find out with NDA’s Quiz!
The National Deer Association is pleased to announce the premiere of a new educational video project, “Aging Deer in the Field,” produced in partnership with The Bearded Buck. The 31-minute video uses footage of dozens of live, wild whitetail bucks to teach the aging technique, followed by a test using 20 additional bucks.
“The team at The Bearded Buck gave us full access to their incredible collection of whitetail footage from years of their hunts, with bucks of all ages, and then offered to produce the final product,” said NDA’s Chief Conservation Officer and host of the video, Kip Adams. “The result is NDA’s most comprehensive and realistic look at how to age deer in the field.”
“Aging deer in the field is not an exact science,” said Adams. “It’s a personal skill that is improved through practice, experience and follow-through. Fortunately, just like humans, whitetails possess distinct body characteristics by age class, and with a little practice hunters can become proficient at estimating the ages of bucks in the field. This video serves to introduce the topic and highlight the differences for each age class from yearlings to mature animals. The 20-buck quiz then allows viewers to practice what they learned.”
Trying to estimate the age of a buck while you’re cold, tired, and new to the skill of hunting can be quite tough. That’s why the national deer association wants to educate hunters on this important skill so that they can personally help increase the number of adult bucks in the woods that they help which should in turn balance the buck-to-doe ratio for improved herd health. The full video with a quiz at the end can be viewed below.
All photos/videos source: National Deer Association
