Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Trophy Doe Weight??

Interesting subject. I weighed every deer I shot for many years and for at least 3 decades I have shot between 4-7 deer per year with most of those being only mature adult does. I have also made it a point to specifically target only the very biggest does in my hunting area. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep any records but I can tell you that the biggest doe I have ever shot weighed 185 lbs. on the hoof. Any doe over 165 lbs. is big in my book. I would estimate the average weight of a mature adult doe in my neck of the woods to be between 150-160 lbs.

This is a picture of the 185 lb doe. I was actually hunting for the smaller 165 lb doe that morning because she was really big. Boy was I surprised to see an even bigger doe just a few minutes later! And as luck would have it, I had a chance at a third before I could get out of my stand. I passed. It was Thanksgiving morning and I already wasn’t planning to clean more than one deer LOL.

Many years ago I killed a doe on a State management area and took her to the check station. They aged her at 4.5 years old and weight 67 pounds with the guts in her. From the county just west of mine.

Agreed- the only other place I’ve seen consistently huge does was Ontario. I’ve been deep enough in the woods up there where I considered tryin to capture one for mobile transportation LOL

I've lived all the way the USA, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. The size of Whitetail deer is varied depending on location, available food, climate, hunting pressure etc.. I've seen full grown deer that were the size of a Labrador dog on up. I shot a 4x4 white tail in Missouri whose antlers were about the size of my hands, maybe smaller. My dad shot a White tail buck that after the head and part of the neck was cut off and the deer was cleaned was heavier than him - dad weighed 230 lb. Dad and I pulled him up in the air in our barn using a pulley and when I let go dad went up in the air.

The largest deer seems to be the ones being inadvertently fed corn and grain by a farmer. The smallest ones seem to be in heavily hunted areas where while there's lot of deer, there isn't a lot of nutritious food.

Where I hunt in the TX panhandle any whitetail doe over 130 lbs live weight is a really big doe. Give another 30 lbs or so it it is a mulie doe.

I do know that I grew up in CO and the does of both species were substantially bigger on average.

Around my place in east Texas, 110-120# live weight is a big doe. At my place in NW Oklahoma, I’ve killed several does in the 155-160# range, but I killed one in 2018 that weighed 167# live weight.

I don’t know about doe weights in various parts of the country, but I can tell you there ain’t no such schidt as a “Trophy Doe”. Oxymoron

You're wrong about that

I consider every game animal I take to be a trophy. That doesn't mean I will send them to the taxidermist but they are all special to me. How truly sad it would be to think like you do. Ever stop to think that every "trophy" buck gets half of his genetics from the doe?

Killed at 155# one in AL. 130# is a really big doe in my area.

I'm quite certain the thread was titled with tongue-in-cheek. That said, if it warrants a bullet - headgear or not, the wrapped and shrunk-wrapped goodies in the freezer = all trophy remnants.

Just for grins, I weigh the deer shot on my place. Heaviest buck (2016) field dressed at 150 and was a 4½ year old. Heaviest doe (2006) was 140, field dressed. Not sure on her age. She dwarfed the other does when she was next to them.

South Arkansas doe deer are smallish. Only doe I ever weighed, field dressed, was an even 100 pounds at check station- they checked her teeth and told me she was 10 years old. Don't know if she was actually that old, but she was my trophy that year .

Joe

We weigh every doe we shoot, after field dressing. 50 to 60 per year. Biggest to date was 115.8 field dressed. Average would be 85 lbs, which is around 110 live weight. They are small but we can kill 3 per day, so no real issue. And they are trophies. We have a big doe pot. Won $500 last year!!!!

Our mature does are usually around 105 lbs with a big one going 110 lbs.

Average doe is 80 lbs dressed on left. The doe on the right is 108 dressed.

Never have weighed any deer.

Here's a couple of pretty good ones, that Deb has taken;





Trophy meat, fo sho !!

nice pictures ! just wanna mention in the old days i remember deer contests for biggest buck dressed weight , biggest horns ,biggest doe dressed weight and kinda a favorite smallest dressed weighed deer too , sometimes someone got a 30 lber. and as a young hunter sure was fun looking at the board weights of deer in the bar with dad and uncles.

I have weighed a lot of deer-both whitetail and mulies. Overall, they average about 11-115, dressed. The largest one that I have weighed was was 120 dressed (white tail). I have heard of a couple larger and I have shot a couple of old mulies that were not weighed, but probably were a bit more than the 120.

I hang bucks with a pulley from a garage beam, and the rope around the antler bases; as such a 2.5 year buck's feet normally are almost to the floor. I recall one doe that never was weighed, but she was hoisted with a rope around the neck, so she was hoisted closer to the beam than the bucks, and she hung almost to the floor also. That was my biggest doe.