UPDATE - So I got a call back from a nice young woman working for PGC out of College Station today about those ear tags. I gave her all the information she needed and then she filled me in on the trapping program and this particular buck. Turns out he was trapped and tagged on May 18th, 2017 as a newborn fawn as part of an ongoing fawn survival study being conducted by PGC. So that would make him 3.5, much more believable than 6.5. She said according to the data she had that he was trapped within 24 hours of being born. I asked how she knew that and she said it's mother was also tagged and wore a GPS collar and had an implant that could tell them when she was giving birth (by body temperature). I asked about the 2 different tag numbers and she said that he was never re-trapped, but rather they don't sedate the fawns that young when they are trying to get them tagged, so they just grab 2 tags out of the bag and don't worry about matching them up as they want to release them ASAP.
What I did find interesting was that where he was trapped and where I shot him were only a couple miles apart. I had always been told that young, 1.5 year old bucks get kicked out of their mother's home range and need to find their own new territory. Sort of nature's way of preventing in-breeding. Apparently that is not always the case.
Anyway, she did say I would get the $100 reward for participating. I thanked her for the basically free deer tag this year and promised to reinvest it in next years tag. She told me there were plenty of tagged deer in that area so maybe we would talk again.
