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Cementum Aging - Am I Wrong?

Age

  • Total voters
    10
lazy_turtle

lazy_turtle

Member
Hey all,

Just wanted to get some of ya'll experience with cementum aging. My taxidermist sent off my buck's tooth to Matson's Lab last fall. Just got the results back: 3.5. Pretty bummed. My goal is 5.5+ which I thought this deer easily fulfilled. Am I wrong here? I'm in west central MO.


2020

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2021

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2022
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I'd take it with a grain of salt. I've got a tooth slide back from a lab (I requested they send it to me as I have access to microscopes). They aged it at "4" and from looking at the tooth section, some areas I can find more of the "cementum annuli rings". That last pic makes him look like you are closer on your guess.
 
One or two of those pics look like a different deer to me, hard to tell for certain. But regardless, your harvest pic along w the trail cam pics that are definitely the same deer make me lean towards very little chance that’s a 3 yr old. Looks mature, 5.5 plus to me. Could maybe buy 4.5
I’ve always sent our teeth in to the lab in Montana and the results have always matched pretty closely to what we suspected the age of the deer was. Interesting that you may have a different experience here. Curious as to what others think
 
Rous14 said:
One or two of those pics look like a different deer to me, hard to tell for certain. But regardless, your harvest pic along w the trail cam pics that are definitely the same deer make me lean towards very little chance that’s a 3 yr old. Looks mature, 5.5 plus to me. Could maybe buy 4.5
I’ve always sent our teeth in to the lab in Montana and the results have always matched pretty closely to what we suspected the age of the deer was. Interesting that you may have a different experience here. Curious as to what others think
Click to expand...
Yeah, some of the angles in the pic make him look pretty different. Fairly certain all pics are the same deer because of the split G2s with the distinctly black tail.
 
Thats not what I would have expected. The 2022 trail cam photos and harvest picture look like he's 4.5+ to me. Stud of a buck regardless but I hear you on the age not being what you expected. I was in the same boat this year - really wanted something 5.5+ and ended up shooting the biggest in a new area and found out he was likely 4.5 this year from a neighbor.
 
They do say they only have a 80-85% accuracy on whitetails. With a slightly higher accuracy on northern whitetails that aren’t supplementally fed. But most errors have been found to be within one year.


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I figured this guy was close to 10. Had zero prior pics until last year around thanksgiving. Had 9+” bases and not much else. Was very surprised to get the results back that he was 5.5 years old. Made no difference to me, felt good to outsmart a mature deer even though he had a small rack. Sometimes you just don’t know.
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I give little regard to tooth sampling with regard to age.
Here in MN, we have to send in a tooth of bear taken for aging.

I know someone (grin) that happens to be around alot of bears killed.
That someone (grin) has sent in teeth from the same bear but under 2 different hunters names.
I've "heard of" disparities ranging 8 years.

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I hope you're not kicking yourself for harvesting that trophy buck due to age results some stupid lab sent back to you. Two reasons I won't do it are:

1. I've seen enough of situations like this that I don't trust the labs. (Similar to 23 & Me type DNA genealogy crap. I saw where identical triplets received different results. What a scam!)

2. If it's big enough for me to harvest, finding out it's 2 yo will have more of a negative impact on my feelings about it than finding out it's 10 yo will have of a positive impact. Not worth taking the risk of tainting the memory of my hunt and my decision to harvest that animal.
 
I am not sure from the pics that all pics are the same deer, but I am not sure of that. What I am pretty sure of though is that harvest photos is not a 3.5. If it is, then I would feel fine about shooting 3.5's! Nice buck!

In my experience...you can get some really high potential 3.5's with long tines, etc, and an overall good score with the rack. But, bases as big as those are not found on 3.5's...at least IMO. If he really was 3.5 then you had a "world record" "fawn" rack there in 2020. :) I think you met your goal of 5.5+, I would guess him as a 6.5, FWIW.
 
Thanks for the encouragement all! Matson lab is actually going to test the backup tooth that was sent in for me. I’ll be sure to post back in here when I get them.

But, regardless of the results I’m still super proud of him, and confident he’s at LEAST 4.5. Probably older

And here’s some more harvest pics while I have you.

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My guess is the results will be the same on the second look.
Aging deer is fun but just data! Most hunters want to kill the old slob buck but if it has big antlers regardless of age it’s something to be proud of. Great buck and congrats!
Two years ago I sent in a set from a 237 gross NT net score was 230 1/8 B&C and they aged him a 4.5 years old. I requested a second look 3 months later a email came and they said they were sticking to first assessment at 4.5
 
I dont know how accurate they really are. We hunted a deer for 6 years, literally my wife shot him in the antler and then we chased him for the following 5 years- they said he was a 5 1/2 year old....we figure at least 8 1/2 if not 9 1/2...
I shot one that I had chased for 3 years, and first year I hunted the farm he was there at 150", they said he was 4 1/2... we figured 6 1/2 or 7 1/2...
 
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