I will kill the oldest one every opportunity I have—keep the dominance to a minimum. I have one that I know is at least 6.5 and she is the meanest, most hateful deer I have ever seen. She will run off anything around her—other does, her own yearlings (especially if they are bucks), bucks of any size or the squirrel in the tree—it doesn't matter to her....she just just hates everything that isn't in her "clique". She has been on my hitlist for several years, but she is also the smartest thing around as well and always picks me and others off everytime.

The removal of each age of doe has some biological effect, but no one age-removal has a "best" result. Much depends on what you are trying to accomplish with the current deer herd, as many posting above are doing.

Taking out the matriarch doe in a social group tends to cause the group to break up, with each doe then starting her own social group. This tends to "spread out" utilization of the habitat more evenly. Taking out matriarch does can be a good thing if you are seeing very large doe social groups (7+ members traveling together). However, the oldest does are also the best mothers and generally produce the most surviving offspring. If you are trying to reduce the doe population, you would want to target matriarchs. But if you are trying to grow the population, you would want to protect matriarchs.

If you are trying to hold the larger, heathier button bucks your improved habitat (compared to neighboring lands) on your land instead of seeing them disperse to other areas, targeting mothers of male offspring can help with reducing young buck dispersal.

Young does produce the fewest surviving offspring, so if you are trying to grow the local population, but still want some meat for the freezer (while not slowing the herd growth process much), yearling does would be a good target.

I try to kill the older ones. And there are some old does where i hunt. Several 4.5-6.5. That being because i dont kill many, but when i do i look for a mature one.