Weight/age correlation?

[Southern Sportsman]

It would obviously not work once a deer is pretty mature, but since they do most of their "filling out" between 2.5 and 4.5, could you use a deer's weight as an indicator of age with any kind of accuracy? I know it would vary by geographic region, but within the same area? The last two "good" deer I've killed were 3.5 and they both weighed between 145 and 150 dressed. Buddy killed a good one last week from the same farm and it was 148 dressed. I think he was 3.5 as well. Another guy killed a really mature deer last year and it dressed right at 200lbs. Never seen any data on this and was curious if there was any consistent correlation.

 

[Os2 Outdoors]

It would obviously not work once a deer is pretty mature, but since they do most of their "filling out" between 2.5 and 4.5, could you use a deer's weight as an indicator of age with any kind of accuracy? I know it would vary by geographic region, but within the same area? The last two "good" deer I've killed were 3.5 and they both weighed between 145 and 150 dressed. Buddy killed a good one last week from the same farm and it was 148 dressed. I think he was 3.5 as well. Another guy killed a really mature deer last year and it dressed right at 200lbs. Never seen any data on this and was curious if there was any consistent correlation.

This is basically what I do. I see and weigh 30-40 mature bucks a year. With sheds and trail cam pics I know exactly how old some of these bucks are. For my area.

<2.5 weigh 150#

3.5 weigh 160-170

4.5 weigh 170-185

>4.5 weigh 185+

Heaviest we've killed this year is 210#.


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[AT Hiker]

Dickson county where our family farm is (cattle pasture and hardwoods) a 3yr old will be lucky to push 150. Where I hunt in KY ( variety of row crops) some of the 2.5 look like they push 200! I think it is very localized with some serious outliers.

Im sure Ames weighs all the deer and a lot of WMAs do so as well. Would be neat to see those figures and compare them areas across the state.


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[catman529]

No it varies too much. Been watching a 3.5 year old buck since before season and he is a small bodied deer. Same property usually produces larger than average sized deer.

Now it varies even more between habitats, even if they aren't that far apart as the crow flies. I killed two bucks last year that were both 2.5 years old, one dressed at 150 pounds and the other one was the size of an average doe, didn't weigh him but he couldn't have dressed more than 80 or 90 pounds. The first buck was rich bottomland with agriculture and the second buck was rolling hardwoods with rocky clay soil and the ag fields were farther away.


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[Andy S.]

Im sure Ames weighs all the deer ......

We do, to the tune of 200 deer each fall, 40 or so being bucks 2.5-5.5 years old. Based on our dressed weights over the last decade, one could make some general assumptions about a buck's weight and age, but we also have data to refute any "absolute" correlations. I've seen healthy 2.5s dress 145 lbs, run down 5.5+ bucks dress 120 lbs, and everything in between.

 

[FARMTOFIELD]

Nope, my dad killed a 6.5 year old on our farm once that dressed 117 he was small all year. I killed a 3-1/2 on that same farm a week later that dressed 140s