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ZachMarkus

ZachMarkus

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I don't know if you saw my reply to your post in the general forum but I'm curious what your reasoning is behind you only shooting momma does? I thought it was best not to shoot them because they are better at raising fawns and are more likely to get pregnant when they are bred.


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Not headhunter, but we generally try to do the same. We are limited in the number of does we can harvest and have too many deer. Older/mamma does are most likely to have at least one fawn (and often twins) the following year compared to young does or does without fawns. In theory, by killing the mamma doe you have a higher removal rate than taking a doe without fawns (since they have not proven to be successful mamas yet).
 
Also, by focusing on taking older females (which usually do have fawns), you are less likely to accidently kill a button buck.

There are typically several reasons why we're choosing to take a doe.
A common one is to improve the buck:doe ratio ---- mistakenly killing a button buck is counter-productive towards that.

Another reason is to increase the number of males that do not disperse from their birthplace areas.
Orphaned button buck fawns tend to remain in their birthplace areas, whereas non-orphaned buttons tend to disperse over a mile from their birth areas (which in many cases, removes them from the property on which they were born).
So, if you kill a doe that doesn't have a fawn, you have zero chance of preventing a button buck from dispersal.
Meanwhile older does tend to have more fawns.

There's also typically a little more tenderloin on an older doe vs. a younger one. :)
 
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Good info given. I will add that if your hunting an area with a lower population and are trying to actually grow the deer herd, killing doe fawns is the best way to use doe tags if you must. It needs to be done at close range to avoid killing a button, but will have less impact on total deer #'s vs killing older established breeder does.
 

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