Age the Buck: Round 4

I'm a little late on posting the fourth round in my Age the Buck series of posts, but the Blog Buck is coming right along, now in his final weeks of antler development. I've made two card pulls since my last post, and have here photos of the buck from July 1 and July 12. The buck is much easier to consistently identify these days. He still appears with his regular running buddy, the little devil-horned spike, and he also has a pair of swollen ticks stuck to the base of his left G2.

In my first post about this buck, back in late May when the buck had but two branched nubs, I guessed him at 3 ½, and predicted he'd grow into a 120- to 130-class 8-pointer. I almost changed my guess after the second post, but stuck with it.

At this point, though, I'm officially making a revision. Although it looks like he will indeed be an 8-pointer, I think he'll top out at 105 to 110 inches once the velvet's gone. And the more I look at his body, the more I believe he's 2 ½, rather than 3 ½ (although, for this area, he's an above-average sized 2 ½-year-old). So he's safe from me this season.

Bow season opens here on Sept. 6, and those first days are my favorite of the entire season. August 1 marks my transition, so to speak, from running my trail cameras mostly for fun to dialing my focus in on a specific buck that I'd like to hunt. Normally, I'd be thinking of moving this camera by now.

But as luck would have it, a new deer showed up on this camera the end of last week. And this deer is a special one indeed, unlike anything I've ever seen in the wild. Suffice it to say, I may have found a new blog buck to watch. I'll be sharing photos of it in my next post.