ronlaughlin

It would be helpful, if fawns still had their spots, during hunting season.

Oldtimr

Really not hard to tell a fawn from a yearling or older in hunting season. just take a good look at the head and face, much shorter than an adult deer.

ronlaughlin

Yes, a fawn has a fawn face.














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bronko22000

Also a fawn, like Oldtimr says, has a shorter snout and a more rounded head. That's what you need to look for. A fawn's size when seen alone can be deceiving and can result in quite a bit of ground shrinkage when you walk up to one you just shot.
I must confess that in my much younger "anxious" years I did harvest a couple of these little deer. It made me want to kick myself in the butt. But I never had any coaching on this. My uncles would take me out, sit me by a tree and tell me to stay there until they came back for me. So being young and eager, any legal deer that came by got in my sights. But once I grew older I learned to take my time and look over the animal closely before I pull the trigger.

ronlaughlin

Doe is about the only deer i will kill. Spike bull is what we looked for when elk hunting.















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Semisane

By late November a doe fawn will weigh in at 70+ lbs. That's a fair amount of tender veal-like meat. If you shoot it you're taking one deer out of next year's herd. If you shoot a mature doe instead, you're taking two and likely three deer out of next years herd. So a lot depends on your deer population, your state's harvest limits and your personal meat needs/desires.

As for me, our club limit is two bucks and one doe per member. So if I decide to take a doe I'm looking for the biggest fattest one out there. However, if we begin to see signs of overpopulation on our lease and increase our doe limit I would have no qualms about taking a 6 month old doe.

hunters_life

That makes no sense Semisane. If you are having an overpopulation problem, you would want to take out next years fawn bearers not a six month old that wont be breeding this year.

Semisane

I understand what you saying H_L. And I agree with you if you're dealing with an overpopulation problem.

But there's a population level below the "problem" level where the herd is very healthy and the habitat is just beginning to show signs of stress. In that case you may go from the type of very limited doe harvest that our group had adhered to for the last few years to one that is more generous. In such a case there's nothing wrong with some of the does taken being in the 6/7/8 month old class.

Oldtimr

If your habitat is starting to show signs of stress, you should be taking more deer, not less.

Semisane

Yep. I agree.