Jawbone Removal & Aging of Whitetails

[hunt4ever]

Most agree estimating the age of harvested deer is a necessary skill for the hunter or manager involved in deer management and deer herd monitoring.  Do you age your harvested deer by removing the jawbone and estimating age via the tooth eruption and and wear technique   It would be interesting to compare the age estimates on the hoof and after harvesting.  There are many great deer photos posted on the Trail Cameras Photos forum with estimates of age on the hoof.   Happy Hunting, [size="4"]Tom Mac[/size]

[buckhunter21]

Personally I've never taken the whole jaw out, rather just opened their mouth and looked that way.  I guess eventually I'd like to get 'deeper' into aging a deer so it's on my horizon...

[ranwin33]

Anyone ever try one of those jawbone removal tools, and if so, how'd it work?
 
http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=5163

[hunt4ever]

I have used the jawbone removal tool and it works fine once you get the hang of it.  I purchased mine from QDMA and initially, I did not pay much attention to the details in the instruction on how to use it, so I was very slow and sloppy.  I had seen guys use it before and they removed the jawbone in less than 5 minutes.  So my attitude was, "this is simple and I know how to do it.", wrong  - follow the instruction  I have a QDMA poster that I hang at the weighing station that has a 5-step instruction (words & photos) on how to remove the jawbone. The poster also has how to age the deer by analyzing the jawbone.  IMO, if you follow these instruction, after a few times you should be able to remove the jaw within 5 minutes.   I do deviate from the instruction slightly by after I cut the back of jawbone with my pruning shears, I use my knife to cut the underside of the jaw rather than the small end of the removal tool.  Some of the guys prefer to give me the head for removal of the jawbone and that takes a little longer, since I can not hold the jawbone steady by stepping on the neck,  it is like stepping on a Jelly fish[font="verdana, arial, helvetica"]  I noticed the jawbone removal tool shown with this post, required "jawbone removal loppers".  The loopers must replace the small end of my extraction tool for cutting the underside of the jaw.  As indicated above, I prefer using my knife for this.  Happy Hunting, [size="4"]Tom Mac[/size][/font]

[kykevin]

There is a good little article with deminsions for a jaw seperator/remover in the 2010 deer Hunters Almanac. Very informative.