SNAG said:
My question for the old timers or anyone who wants to answer is this, do you think either one of the deer in the first 2 pics are the one in the last pic this year? If so how do you tell?
It's certainly possible, but I don't see anything in those pics to say, other than can't rule it out.
Saying this with the assumption the first two pics were yearlings last year, while your young stud is 2 1/2 this year.
If you have a lot more pics of all, and can "zoom in" looking for differences, you can often find something unique to a particular deer. Such unique markers can be things like a scar, torn ear, shape of throat patch, the edges of white vs. brown coat, etc.
Once we get to 2 1/2 and older, antler characteristics can be pretty unique markers, although many are going to be more similar than different in the case of mainframe 8-pointers. Going from a yearling 1 1/2 to 2 1/2, the antler changes are commonly so dramatic that it's hard to believe it's the same deer. But if your first buck were a yearling 8-pointer, I'd bet against his regressing on the number of points when going to 2 1/2, while going from big spike to big 5-pointer is very plausible.
