Doe's

[Tenbender]

The land owner where I have my deer hut wants me to kill out some doe's. I hate to do that and I'm having a hard time finding anyone to take one. I will take at least one for myself late in the season if no one steps up for some free meat. I know it is best to thin the herd sometimes. Guess I'm old school. I always waited until the freezer was empty before I killed one. :cbpour:

[PositiveCaster]

Reach out to a local charity which takes game meat, they will thank you for it. Win-win for you, the herd and the charity.



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[DerekP Houston]

Wish I was up near you, I'd love to harvest some does for meat. I'm not a huge hunter or interested in trophies just like to harvest the meat as needed.

[dragon813gt]

They are all I hunt. Not saying I won't take a buck. But a young doe tastes better. I have five tags to fill across a couple of different areas in the state. Most of my friends are the same way as they hunt to feed their families.

[bdicki]

http://www.h4hungry.org/

[44man]

Why does a deer have to have antlers? Best to eat don't have them. When the herd needs control, you do what you must. I prefer a doe any time. Got off the MAN thing long ago.

[dverna]

We have a 10:1 doe ratio. Does need to be thinned

[Tenbender]

http://www.h4hungry.org/

Thanks bdicki . I had always heard of this but never knew how to contact them. I will call tomorrow.

[Hamish]

The days of letting does walk is a recipe for disaster nowadays. 3 or 4 mild winters in a row coupled with high doe to buck ratios mean does being bred extremely early and extremely late, and bred by lesser, younger bucks. You end up with relative newborns in the late fall, fawns born too early in the Spring before good green up occurs.

Dont feel bad about killing does.

[DanLee]

Some counties in Virginia require one to shoot a doe before a second buck can be taken. I hunt in such a county and prefer to kill does, but in reality I'll pop the first deer that walks by.

Dan

[Thumbcocker]

I hope to put two does in the freezer every year. I am making meat and they are tasty.

[Mk42gunner]

I guess I'm more of a meat hunter than a trophy hunter. It always seemed to me that does tasted better and were more tender than bucks.

Besides, it is awful hard to eat antlers.

Robert

[Rick R]

Besides, it is awful hard to eat antlers.

Robert

My dogs would disagree. They think antlers make great chew toys! :)

I agree that doe are better eating and taking a few is a good way to manage a herd.

I also love the adrenaline rush that comes with seeing a big rack come thru the woods.

[Orchard6]

I usually fill 2-3 doe tags for every buck tag. If you want a challenge try hunting an older doe, they don't get old by being dumb, and they still taste better than a 2-3 year old buck!

[taco650]

Here in GA I'm allowed 10 does but only 2 bucks and the bucks have to have at least 4 points on one side that are at least an inch long. With all the deer that are road-kills around here, those limits seem fair. Anymore, I just want the meat. Not saying I won't pass up a nice hat rack but I don't eat antler LOL!

[44man]

Bucks never bothered me. I shot my share in Ohio, never liked the tough nasty meat. I will not eat goat or sheep but I like lamb.
One big, old buck had me buy a pressure cooker that still required a sawsall to cut.
I have had a buck come in with a doe, shot the doe!

[sixshot]

Doe's are fine eating & you have to keep the herd in balance. I'll be shooting a doe next week in Utah, then back to Idaho for bucks.

Dick

[ravelode]

In Mt you are allowed up to 5 deer tags in some districts but only one buck. I usually shoot 3 does before I think about shooting a buck does taste better.

[daniel lawecki]

A sportsman will do what it takes for the herd. It's not about you and your rack.

[white eagle]

deer are deer the meat is what I am after
antlers make thin soup

[TXGunNut]

I'm a guest on a trophy deer lease and my "job" is to cull dry does, spikes and inferior bucks. I love my job! I'd rather eat does and young hogs any day over a mature buck. Good management often means killing does but once my freezer is full I promote myself to fulltime camp cook. Love that job too! :-) It's hard for a single guy to eat two deer in a year but I make really good sausage and manage to give away a fair bit of it.

[OnHoPr]

It's hard for a single guy to eat two deer in a year but I make really good sausage and manage to give away a fair bit of it.

You must be one of those whippersnappers that got trained on fast food. Back in the day it wasn't hard for me to eat three to five deer a year with no problem. I would give a front quarter or 7 lb summer sausage sticks to a few acquaintances though. One deer is just scraping by the venison viddles menu for a year.

[dragon813gt]

It takes way more than two to feed just me. I need ten just to keep me in backstraps all year ;)

It takes at least four to feed my family. If we didn't supplement w/ beef it would take ten easy. Life is short and I like to eat well. There is meat on the table every night. If we stopped this practice it would take considerably less.

[Hickok]

When I see a nice doe I always think about the good jerky I can make!

I always try to go after the big, wise matriarch of the herd. There is always one old girl who is smarter, more cunning, and "hunter-wise" than the rest. She is the one I target. Makes the doe hunt more exciting. Shooting the first doe that comes into range isn't nearly as much fun. I like to watch them and study them, and soon the dominant female will become apparent.

After all, these wise older does are the first teachers the younger bucks get.

[44man]

That is true, nothing is more wary then an old doe and they were always harder to get a shot at. Not much escapes them.

[toallmy]

I hunt on a farm that needs little culling , but believe it or not out of a half a dozen family members not one kill permit was filled this past summer . I have only doe hunted for years and find it quite agreeable for my needs . The rules were simple doe only , clean human taking , and animals must be used for food wether it was donated to the Hunters for the hungry , or given to someone that could use it . I'm a rifle shooter in a shotgun only county but with permits I can use a rifle . I understand your feelings about kill permits seam wrong form a hunting perspective and as a nature lover but it has to be done . Be human and utilize the animal is about as respectful as can be .

[runfiverun]

once the buck to doe ratio gets out of balance your does won't reproduce young because the smaller bucks can't breed enough of them.
after a couple of years of that your really out of proportion.
this year is gonna be one of those years where pretty much everybody is gonna see lots of does and fawns and not too many younger bucks in the mix.
once you start getting out of the 4 to 1 numbers things can spiral out of control quickly.
the does need to be thinned out to get the numbers back in balance.

[TXGunNut]

That is true, nothing is more wary then an old doe and they were always harder to get a shot at. Not much escapes them.


I enjoyed watching an old doe and her yearling fawn for awhile on two occasions last year. I had trouble stifling myself when she scolded her youngster for not being more watchful while grazing. She bopped the youngster on top of her head with her front hoof when she chowed down too long without stopping to look around! Seemed any time I moved she would give me a piercing stare, pretty sure she knew I was there but seemed to know I was not interested in shooting her. Got to watch another doe with two fawns for some time, was fun watching her keep these youngsters in line.

[TXGunNut]

You must be one of those whippersnappers that got trained on fast food. Back in the day it wasn't hard for me to eat three to five deer a year with no problem. I would give a front quarter or 7 lb summer sausage sticks to a few acquaintances though. One deer is just scraping by the venison viddles menu for a year.

I'm trying to do better, ate venison for supper five out of last six nights. ;-)

[white eagle]

I remember seeing lines of does come out on a push through the brush
when buck hunting and party doe tags were the norm
many years of not even seeing a deer with antlers
glad those days are past

[Tenbender]

Guess I'm like a lot of other old timers. I only wanted a buck. When I grew up there were not many deer at all. Most of them were back in the big timber area's or the pines on Mt Rogers. If you killed a doe you were hurting the herd. Now they lay at peoples back door's. I'm all in on Hunters for the hungry. I have a freezer full now and might put another one away. My license are for 5 deer and I plan on using a cast boolit on all of them.

[44man]

You really do outgrow the trophy stuff for some of the best eating.
But I have had bad doe meat, not age that I could determine by teeth. Diet! Shoot a doe that was super, shoot another in the same spot next season, same size, etc and could not stomach it. PA forest deer. Farm country deer never had the problem. Forest deer were eating hemlock or other nasty foods.

[fastdadio]

We have a 10:1 doe ratio. Does need to be thinned

Where are you located? Are doe permits being sold over the counter for state land? No state land does down here this year.

[rondog]

I have no use for antlers or any desire to have the head of a dead animal on my wall. I have no problem with it, I just have no DESIRE for it. Not to mention the taxidermy costs. Perhaps, someday, a nice European mount in the garage or basement.....someday. Otherwise, I'm after meat.

[sixshot]

TxGunNut, that's one of the things I really liked about Texas when I lived there, the sausage! never learned how to make it but I sure learned how to eat it. I make a fair amount of jerky using my smoker but sure wish I would have watched a few of my friends when they were making sausage. A few years back when we wintered in Bandera, same thing, everyone was eating venison sausauge & it was great.

Dick

[richhodg66]

We eat a lot of venison every year. The deer here live on milo and soybeans it seems. Never shot a deer here yet that didn't taste good.

I'll shoot does in a heartbeat. Kansas manages its deer heard pretty well, the buck to doe ratio stays pretty good because they make doe tags pretty easy and inexpensive to get and nobody can kill more than one buck a year.

[leeggen]

Several years back, here in Tn., we had areal bad out of ratio of does to buck and deer per acear You could walk from the front to back of the 200 ac. and see around 30 to 35 deer. The next summer we had sever deer disease kill all over TN. We lost 65 to 70 % of our deer herd on the 200 ac. I think that was 5 yr ago and we are just now recovering from it. But the herd is out of balance too many does to buck ratio. We try to get as many does out as posible but we can only shoot them during bow and muzzle loeder season. On our property we need to remove approx. 30 does just this year, not going to happen unless we open it up to unknown hunters. We did that at one time and found several big buck that were shot and lost. Hard to track in heavy woods and high hills. I can do it but the other hunters did not want us to know they shot bucks. We are not allowed special permits to remove extra does.
Just a hard problem to balance the ratio. I have not rack hunted ever, not saying I won't shoot a buck but I just don't big rack hunt. That is the breedinng stock for the future.
CD

[rondog]

That's a good point I forgot to mention but think about often - while a magnificent buck or bull elk or bull moose is a helluva trophy, I can't help but think about what a shame to remove that stud from the gene pool......

[taco650]

Where are you located? Are doe permits being sold over the counter for state land? No state land does down here this year.

Here in GA I'm allowed 12 deer per season. 10 of the 12 are required to be does and the two bucks have to have at least four points an inch long or longer on one side of their racks. This can include eye guards.

[44man]

Here in my WV county we have been cut back. 3 doe and 2 bucks. They base it on road kills but I have not seen it diminish. Crop damage is also an indicator. Trouble is land is sold off fast here for developers. We lost most apple orchards and farms. Nobody can afford the prices so many houses sit empty but they keep building. You don't want to be in real estate, seen houses for sale over 5 years. The only ones that buy here work for the Fed Gov't with pay outrageous for what they do but they want to escape high taxes. It has driven up our taxes. They want better services and complain about deer but will not let any hunting either.

[white eagle]

They want better services and complain about deer but will not let any hunting either.

there was alot said in that sentence.It seems more people these days think that food
has to have plastic wrap on it .Shame we as a society have lost some of our ways.

[taco650]

They want better services and complain about deer but will not let any hunting either.

Sounds like Oregon in the early 1990's. Californians were selling their 1100 square foot house for 900K moving to OR and bringing their SoCal liberalism with them. Ruined the state IMO.

[Texas by God]

For years we weren't allowed to shoot does at all and only one buck. A trophy buck was rare. When does were added and antler restrictions enacted the quality of bucks improved dramatically. A lot of the old mentality remains but hunters are realizing that we need to shoot more does. They are better eating. I like to use alternate guns like BP, handguns, shotguns and then hunt bucks with scoped bolt actions. Hunters for the Hungry is a great option if you want to donate. Opening day- let's get some does, hunters! Best,Thomas