# Management harvest.. Adult doe or fawn



## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Which do you shoot? There are two lines of thought on this.

Adult doe... Theory is, by shooting an adult doe you potentually take three deer from the following years herd. The doe and her (2) potential fawns. The disadvantage to that is somewhat obvious. It is almost assured you will take a buck out of the future herd. For reducing herd numbers that is the way to go.

Fawn..... This gets real interesting.You could be taking a doe from the herd (unbred), taking a (button) buck from the herd, taking two does (assuming normal first year production of 1 fawn) from the herd or taking a doe and buck from the herd (same as above). For increasing buck numbers this one probably has the best odds.


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## holmsvc (Nov 26, 2003)

I'm just going to shoot the first decent sized doe I see. :sniper:


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

I plan on taking an adult doe but am interested in hearing from some proponents of QDM and those who think the special season is going to result in the taking of buck who have shed.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

I always try to shoot an adult doe, but this year I shot a fawn. Damn it is tough to tell how big they are when they are coming up a draw by themselves! I don't care how many deer I shoot in my lifetime.....I always feel bad when I shoot (or see someone shoot) a fawn! :eyeroll:


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

Doesn't really matter. The main thing is to fill your tag. This is the only way to get a handle on the deer herd as long as nature isn't doing it for us.


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## OneShotOneKill (Feb 13, 2004)

*Loan young deer are usually button bucks.* Look before you shoot! I prefer does and yearlings over any buck for better meat.

Fawn = A young deer, especially one less than a year old.

Yearling = An animal that is one year old or has not completed its second year.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

OneShotOneKill said:


> Loan young deer are usually button bucks. Look before you shoot!


Ummmm if you are referring to my post. I did look, it was not a button buck. Go put your self riotous somewhere else. I have never shot a hen pheasant, and I have never shot an "antlered" deer when my tag says "antlerless". Good job!


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## Ryan_Todd (Apr 11, 2004)

remmi i did the same thing except she almost ran me over comming out of the corn. i too felt bad. i'm being more selective during the muzzleloader season. i still need to get 3 does and a buck to fill my tags.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

Ryan,
On opening day, we were walking a grove of trees and posted a friend of mine at the end because he had the only buck tag. We figured we would help him with a buck and we would shoot our does when we stumbled across them. Anyways, 11 deer came out of this small-ish grove and one was a small buck and my friend literally dove out of the way! I am sure diving with a rifle isn't the safest thing in the world, but neither is taking an antler to the face!


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## backwater (Jan 29, 2003)

In my area SW Wisonsin the game managers prefer that you take the yearlings with your antlerless tag, the adult does are required for a healthy deer population and if the fawns are thined out there is a higher survival rate among the 2-4 yr animals, bucks or does.


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## headhunter (Oct 10, 2002)

The right decision would be to shoot the Adult doe...........
a, Its a female ...and you KNOW it

B, We have surplus doe tags, so common sense would tell us, kill the doe, and her little offspring too!!

C, accidently shooting a buck yearling / or fawn would be awful....and bad for buck doe herd ratio's as alot of ND has too many does and not enough bucks.

Shoot the doe, no debate there.......


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## stevepike (Sep 14, 2002)

> Loan young deer are usually button bucks.


I disagree. Lone young deer are usually orphans or seperated from their mothers for the time (she could even be laying nearby).

If you have the time to look them over it is usually fairly easy to tell the buck and doe fawns apart unless of course it is 2 bucks or 2 does. :wink: Easiest thing to do is not beat yourself up about it if you were wrong on the sex. Antlerless is antlerless and your still legal.

a. Shoot the doe for more meat.
b. Shoot the fawn for better meat.
c. Shoot and tag both because your doing your part to reduce the population.


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## OneShotOneKill (Feb 13, 2004)

*Remmi_&_I*, are you firing on all cylinders? Why are you talking about not shooting hen pheasants and not shooting antlered deer using an antler less license? All I was saying is look before you shoot and you did thanks!

*Stevepike*, Its ok you can disagree!

I have many time witnessed most loan young deer are bucks, but of course if someone shoots an adult doe and one of her female twins then yes there will be a loan young doe.

*Here is a link to Michigan's Game and Fish website.

How to Identify "Button Bucks"*

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-15 ... --,00.html


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## Quackkills9 (Oct 25, 2004)

i let the fawns go, id rather take a bigger deer than mistaken a fawn that turns out to be a button buck, sometimes i can tell if theyre females or button bucks but i still let the fawns go, let them have a little time in the woods before being taken. have a great weekend :beer:


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## SniperPride (Sep 20, 2004)

My friend and I came onto this situation, two deer, an adult doe and her fawn in a field. I persuaded my friend I would shoot the adult and then he could shoot the confused fawn. Well I shot the adult which dropped within 10 yards of the initial shot, the fawn which was about 15 yards from it ran about 25 more and looked back very confused. My friend then proceeded to shoot and miss the fawn and it escaped. Cant blame him though the gun wasnt set up for the yardage we were shooting at. So now im thinking there is one confused fawn out there that wont live through the winter acting the way it did that day.
:sniper:


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## OneShotOneKill (Feb 13, 2004)

*SniperPride,* I strongly disagree, the fawn will be just fine. All animals act confused if it the first time they have been shot at, now that fawn is educated and will not stick around next time when it becomes a yearling and adult.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

OSOK

Read some scientific studies and you will change your mind. Don't go with the gut feeling read about radio collared fawns and survival rates. I think the survival rate is cut nearly in half when a fawn faces winter without the doe. Mortality rate for fawns without the doe is higher in the northern latitudes as compared to the southern states. Where wolf or even coyote populations are high they are really facing dire odds.


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## mr.trooper (Aug 3, 2004)

If the DNR tells me i have to shoot buck or antlerless i dont realy care. i If its a Doe, thats great! more meat for me. IF its a Buck, then Great! hopefully he will be big enough to make a decent decoration, and some jerky. But if a good Doe comes along, ill go for it! no problems. Im Sorta' Indifferent on this matter.
Hunting anything is the life to live! :beer: Just as long as the deer are still around next season.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Sure is nice to live in our own little fantasy world. Plainsman hit the nail on the head. Fawns have a significant higher mortality when they do not have the doe to guide them though the winter.

So it can be looked at two ways. Taking the adult doe means we have reduced the deer herd in two ways, one from the possible reproduction the next year, and also with the higher mortality to the existing fawn.

However one want to look at it, a filled tag is the best case scenario regardless of the age of the animal.

We have 4 different deer this year of different age class. If I was hunt for table quality of meat. The fawn is hands above the others. Will most likely continue to shoot fawns for the table with the abundance of tags available.


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## OneShotOneKill (Feb 13, 2004)

* Plainsman, Its all a mute point!* what about the mortality rate for fawns in states that allow more antler less tags than others. Wolves, coyotes, CWD and vehicle collisions and many other things are big factors in a deer life. Some loan fawns survive and some don't, plus some fawns with adult does survive and some don't. I have read about radio collared geese that die because the collars froze to the ice, what make you think the collars on the fawns in the study didn't have link to its death.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

The goose collars didn't freeze to the ice, they iced up. Some collars gained so much weight in ice that the geese couldn't hold their head up. These are rigid plastic collars. If I remember correctly it happened to captive breeding Canada geese, and would be much more rare on free to migrate wild geese. On deer they use a flexible collar that will through movement alone shed ice. Mammalian marked animals show very low mortality to marking techniques.

Of course there are other factors such as vehicle collisions, coyotes etc. A fawn with a doe is perhaps much less likely to have a collision with a vehicle, or be captured by coyotes. That is the point exactly. The subject is shoot a fawn or a doe, and shooting the doe reduces the survival chances for the fawn. Might I suggest reading some of John Wooter's research findings. The only reason the point is moot is because data has defined reality, and the reality is fawns with does have a higher survival rate.


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## mr.trooper (Aug 3, 2004)

Thats exactly why if i hd to choose one or the other, i would chosoe the Doe.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

> I think the survival rate is cut nearly in half when a fawn faces winter without the doe.


I'm sure survival rate is reduced, but cut in half might be a bit extreme. I spend a fair amount of time slogging around in the woods after deer season and see very few "lone" fawns. What I do see is groups of maybe 9-12 deer often comprised of a couple adult does and the rest fawns. This is mid-day activity not just the typical herding up at feeding sites. Right now some of those fawns are still hanging ou on their own but my experience has shown me that as winter progresses fawns tend to "tag up" with adult does. With that "adult supervision" I would suggest that survival rate is better than what is quoted above.


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## the_rookie (Nov 22, 2004)

"Doesn't really matter. The main thing is to fill your tag. This is the only way to get a handle on the deer herd as long as nature isn't doing it for us."

THAT IS THE MOST SELFISH COMMENT IVE EVER HEARD!!!!!! im sorry but if u fill ur tag just because u can... dont because like dakotashooter was saying if you shoot a doe whether its a mother or not your getting rid of potential monster buck the next year that should be a law "only one doe ur entire life" its killing the does and the population its common sense


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## BUZZBYE (Aug 31, 2005)

I Choose a young deer yearling. A small yearling has to eat twice as much to make it through the winter. The doe will drop another 2-3 deer the following season. :sniper:


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## Lil Sand Bay (Feb 2, 2005)

rookie:

It's not that simple. 
Up here, hunting isn't the determining factor, no matter what you choose to shoot. We've had five mild winters; the last two with deep snow, but no real cold temps, and you need both for a reasonable winter mortality. My home is far out in the woods and very remote. All the does I saw in early June had two fawns, which is normal.
As a result, our herd population is really very high and out of control, way beyond it's carrying capacity. If we finally have a "normal" winter, deep snow and cold temps, the big bucks who will come into the winter in fairly poor shape from their breeding activity will be the first to starve off. Secondly will be the yearlings of that year,and finally the mature does; but all survivors will all be in a starving situation by spring. The result will be the does the coming spring will have one fawn, or none, 'cause they will be in very bad shape. When the population is too high for the winter carrying capacity the population crashes, and the vast majority of the herd dies off. Beyond that, the brouse line is so high the following spring that the enviornment can't recover and doesn't really support the greatly dimished herd even the following year. You can't stockpile bucks, or any deer for that matter. 
The only thing which will change that it is to have them in a controlled enviornment (fence) and selectively havest them, or be willing to feed 'em, but you'll only feed a small percentage. Of course thats an artificial situation, and to my minds eye, supports atrificial hunting. 
We've had, in the past years, two T-seasons in Oct. for does only, and last year an Earn A Buck(shoot a doe first) situation, all in an attempt to reduce the overall population locally. All those efforts were poorly supported because of the "get my buck" tradition, or the, need a monster buck syndrome. Ultimately Mother nature will take over. 
Just down the road from my home is a good sized cedar stand, and I'm old 'enuf that I've seen a deer yard winter kill more times then I'd like to see again... it's ugly! You can't stockpile a free roaming deer herd. Reducing does is the viable solution, to the healthy management of the overall herd health, at least in this enviornment.


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