Had an interesting conversation over Christmas.

I have a friend who is firmly in the "Would have been a good one next year" camp. He was moaning about folks shooting "basket rack" deer, and that this would mean his area would never see any big deer.

Here's the question - Sumter County, Alabama. One 7 point, one 8 point, and both were 180-200 lbs. Based on body size alone, I figured the smaller deer was at least 4.5.

Any thoughts on weight in relationship to buck age in that part of Alabama?

No pictures will be posted. I know there are folks here who hunt that area, and I am not trying to embarrass or shame anyone.

I shoot Alabama deer based on body size/shape, not in consideration of their "trophy" rack. I go to Texas for that.

Just asking about body size and relationship to age.

In Sumpter both of those bucks were most likely at least 4.5. In Marengo, our 3s would be 145-170. Our 4s would be 160-190, our 5s would be 175 - 225. Naturally, the time of year, available food, etc all plays into the equation in a big way, but these are pretty much a good general rule of thumb for that Marengo, Greene, Sumpter area. You're not going to have many 3 yr olds pushing 200lbs, anywhere in Alabama.

Weight means nothing. We have killed 6 5yr old deer this yr. Heaviest one weighed 205 lightest was 135.

Legit 180lb+ deer actually weighed on accurate scales is likely 4 years old this time of year (a little rut weight loss already). A legit 200lb deer is a mature deer. Rack size does not always correlate, I’ve seen a giant body 3 pt, and very modest racks too. My opinion for that area.

In Sumter county if they are weighing that I’d say they are mature. You don’t see two year old deer weighing that in the south

They’re mature. There’s a small handful of 3 year old deer that will hit a legit 180-200 lb weight.

I have often wondered about the accuracy of the aging process 1 year can make a lot of difference

It’s been my experience that most folks 180-200# are more like 160#. Scales don’t lie and few folks weigh enough mature deer consistently to be a good estimator.

I've got some big deer like this. Their racks are a different story all together. I can't really say that just because they are big body deer they are going to throw a nice rack. That doesn't appear to be the case.

I'd say that's 1 in 15-20 deer on my place. You can easily see them at a feeder even as a yearling they are easy to identify. They are big from the get-go. I have no explanation for this maybe like humans... one dude is 6'4" and the next guy is average 5'9". I don't know. Got some big does as well probably that same gene would make sense.

The other thing to consider is that deer don't throw a perfect rack every year. You can have one that gets to 5 and for whatever reason it throws a crappy rack and you will think they are done and going to decline in antler.... then the next year it will throw the best rack it's ever had.

So this is the problem. It's a problem very few of us have 99% of the hunters in Alabama won't get the chance to ever see something like this. The deer gets killed at 3.5 or 4 before it reaches it's potential. Most are killed at 2.5 IMO I would bet the numbers would be shocking.

FIFY

Likely a bell curve distribution within each age class

The 8pt just killed at my club was 2.5 and weighed 135 lbs on a scale. The doe my son shot weighed 100. No idea on age. As long as they are weighed on the same scale, I'm happy.

Marengo - Sumter - Clarke - 170 and up likely at least 4

It can be different In the rut - massive weight change - your really heavy deer can lose massive weight - 7 year old deer last year - very skinny when I killed him in Feb - had pics of him in years past when he looked like a donkey w horns - rutting for weeks had him run down

There’s always a bell curve with this type of data. That being said our weights correlate with age pretty well as I mentioned in a prior post. A 200lb buck, in Alabama, is mature by all accounts. 240lbs was the largest buck taken off our place in a decade. And he was an absolute monster that dwarfed everything else lol. We’ve killed a couple between 200-210 and all were 5.5 based on jawbone and trail camera pics through the years.

He’s the 240lb buck “Diabetes”. Pic was 9/27/18 and he was killed on the 5th or 6th of January 2019. We played cat and mouse with him for several years. Closest I came was bow season the same year. I sat one of our early planted fields and watched him and the other 3 mature bucks we had on camera all feed in the north end of the plot. Over a 100 yards from me lol.

Depends

I’ve seen mature bucks 4.5 and older go 180-200 and I’ve also seen the same age class weigh 130 live weight. Same area, killed a few miles apart.

The lease years ago as pretty consistent from the 10 plus years we had data on.

I guess it all just depends

Yep.....I figure you have a handful of variables from one area to the next that influence the width and amount of variation of each curve. In other words, the things that are dictating why some folks see it line up nicely and others dont

The density on that property is really not changing much. We haven’t shot any does on that property in the past 10 years. And average 2 bucks per year. 600 acre lease but we recruit from a lot more due to lay of the land. Not sure if that has anything to do with it though.

180+ lbs, I'm going to be happy with it. Mature for Alabama.

If y'all are talking live weights , that's much smaller on average than ours.