This week’s ‘Age This Buck’ article features an interesting deer from NW Illinois. This buck was given the nickname of “Coke Can” due to the mass around the bases of his antlers.
This buck was found dead in the spring of 2021, and professionally aged. Give us your best guess at how old this buck was during the 2020-21 deer season, and check out what our experts think!
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Expert Opinions
Bob Zaiglin
The first things I noticed about this buck are healed injuries (cuts) on the lower sides of each ear and a rounded nose which are signs of an elder deer. There is also a slight drop in the belly. An obvious sign of weight loss in the hams indicates this buck is minimally six years of age and possibly older. This is a large-bodied buck with obvious wrinkles in its hide, unlike that of the smooth appearance of those bucks five years old or younger. And although I look at the antlers last, a buck of this size would have a much larger rack in its prime years of four to five years of age.
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Erik Barber
A huge body, unique drop tine off the buck’s right beam, and deep belly suggest this buck is 6 ½ years old. The buck’s rack isn’t super high scoring, which is a great example of the fact that not all 5 1/2 + year old deer will sport 150”+ racks.
Todd Graf
This is a tough one to judge, mostly because once bucks get over 5 years old they tend to look the same year after year. But this deer was actually one that Kurt Thorsen and I found dead while shed hunting in 2021. We had him professionally aged at 8.5 years old, and he was a warrior! Despite never sporting a rack over 130 inches, this was a deer we would've loved to harvest given his large body size and HUGE bases which earned him the nickname "Coke Can".
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