^^^I've always heard the same thing. Most of the highly managed ranches in Texas will start shooting their trophy deer at 6 or 7 but it wouldnt surprise me that they do/could actually peak later. I think the 6-7 yr old shooting requirements are driven more by the fact that he's spread his genes for a large number of years and every year thereafter, is just a crap shoot as to whether he will be killed fighting, by predation, by age or by disease. They grow them to kill and 6-7 yrs is about as long as they are willing to roll the dice and take that chance of losing them by letting them get that extra year. Nobody that I know in the business of growing big deer claims that a deer maxes out as a 5 yr old. 5 is really the first year that he's expressing his real potential.