On another board a guy was talking about using such and such cartridge to kill a Big Doe deer. I have heard about guys killing a Big Doe all my life.

Makes me wonder, has anyone EVER killed a Little Doe? Doubtful.

Shoot yeah!

Yearling doe is as good eating as you can get!

Done it several times.

Me too. Best eating ones definitely.

So little you could hardly see it.

LOL

I try to shoot the big does

I try to only shoot the big does

No one has ever killed a wet one, either.

Actually, the big ole mature does are your best breeders.
I try to leave them alone in my herds at the Ranch.

i shot one by mistake one time that was so small i carried it out under one arm. mistook its shoulder for another one in the heat of the moment. my old man laughed and laughed at that one. i still have a pic of it hanging on the deer pole. looks like a long legged beagle.

A little doe is easier to carry out of the woods.

Absolutely correct. " I shot a big ol' dry doe" is heard frequently wherever hunting BS stories are told.

I hunt in Northern VA. All the does in my area a "little does". A "big ol' dry doe" might weigh 80 pounds dressed and yet my .223 is a sub-.243 caliber and therefore not legal to hunt deer with...

Here is a 7 year old doe taken on MCB Quantico. (Jaw bone aged by the base biologist) She dressed under 60 pounds.

"Barren Doe" is what I keep hearing.

I always ask them how they can tell?

When they've got milk on their chin you know you shot a small one

Yep. And I never shoot does at the first of the season when they’re still raising fawns.

You haven't met Deer Assassin yet.

He kills them off the teet with a 7saum. And all his little ass licking minions cheer like girls at an arina grande show.

That Sir had me laughing out loud! Thanks . Cheers NC

Tennessee got overpopulated with deer to the point that "suitcase deer" of both sexes were pretty common. "Tie the legs together and carry 'em out of the woods like a suitcase"! A 3-doe-a-day limit from September to January for several years got the population back to normal by severely limiting the bucks' breeding opportunities. 3 bucks all year- - - -3 does a day! It also allowed more bucks to grow horns bigger than a hat rack.
Jerry

For most of my hunting life I have preferred to shoot does. Specifically does with but one fawn because they are almost always < 3 years old. Once a doe reaches 4 years old around here she starts to drop twins annually. Generally, the 3 year old and younger does are much better eating. The last six years I have been working a neighborhood over population down and because of that, most of what I am killing have been the large older does that have (or had) two fawns. As I get into late December and with a tag yet to fill I will shoot younger does. Most of the does I shoot are wet. I hit one doe with my car a while back and guesstimating age by teeth and condition of the meat I guessed her at somewhere beyond ten years old. She was wet and but for the chops and tenderloins the meat was so coarse and tough she had to be almost completely grind meat.

A big fawn is my first choice, followed by a yearling (1.5 year old deer) followed by a 2.5 year old doe or a yearling buck. I shoot just for my table and make no apologies for doing it that way. Shooting fawns I get 100 lb deer and hardly affect the population since fully half of our fawns never see their first birthday.

damn thats a old little doe

Yes, absolutely!

I didn’t know there were little ones

At least 80 % of my does have twins. And most studies conclude that 90 % of the twins will be one buck and one doe.
And the older does are better mothers thus providing a higher fawn survival rate in the herd.

Neal, I have a few twins this year, but not as many as I expected with the wet winter, and plenty to eat.

Mama has a standing order every year...... a couple of young ones!

Yep. We SHOULD have had a great fawn crop this year. But I’m not seeing as many either.

We’ve had the wettest year on record for YEARS. Plenty to eat.
And the coyote population is down here too. Go figure.

Not a small doe, but, made me remember this.

I was on a guided baited bear hunt in Mn 20 plus years ago.
Guide took me and another guy out to our stands.
He dropped off the other guy first.
The guy was shooting a semi auto Browning in 7mm mag, I was bowhunting.
Just at dark the guide picked me up. I had seen nothing.
Then we went to get the other guy.
We stopped on the road a couple hundred yards from his stand, and he opens up with that 7 mag, he shot I believe four rounds in rapid succession.
The guide says to me, let’s walk in and see what he shot.
Upon arriving at the stand, the guy was so excited he could hardly talk and he had shot a monster bear.
We cautiously followed a thirty yard blood trail, and found a very dead bear that might go 40 pounds, it was really small.

I've never shot a doe. Illegal to kill here in California since the early 70's I think.

"Can't shoot the King's deer without permission, peasant"

FBS

Here is another from the same area that was 5 years old and dressed at like 52 pounds IIRC.

1-1/2 year old doe is good eating. Must be a Virginia thing.

Massive overpopulation... The 1 1/2 year old deer are about the same size. I take all the does I can fit in the freezer. You fill the first six tags and then pay $23 for another six antler-less tags. That is if you are not using State issued DMAP tags that do not count against your personal tags. We can take does in my county from the beginning of September through the end of April.

We totally agree!

I readily admit to having shot two that were so small they should have had collar on. Not very proud of it either.

Biggest Texas whitetail doe I killed weighed 187 pounds. Nearly broke me at the processing market.

I shoot the biggest doe in the bunch. If they come back, I shoot the next biggest doe. Self imposed limit of two per day. I'm lazy.

Generally process my own deer. Shot one the size of Haverluk's VA deer one time. Ended up with maybe ~10 pounds of boned out meat. Decided it wasn't worth the effort. I'm lazy. Not picking on Haverluk. Just try to stick with the larger doe's here in KY. In the last 26 years, have only shot a handful that were still wet when the KY rifle season opens in November.

As above, first time my wife tasted doe meat vs buck meat, I got strict instructions to only bring home does.

i always thought a 1 year old spike was mighty fine eating and never hesitated to drop when when we were allowed. the thing i hate about late season hunting is dropping a doe and then finding twin fetuses inside. kind of grosses me out. but around here thats the best way to control the population. it seems like almost every doe i see this time of year has twins and we're overrun around here because of the limited hunting area and everyone is a "bone" hunter.

Last whitetail I shot (Nov 2017) was a yearling doe. Deeelicious.

Shot with a well worn 1894 Win in 25/35 WCF.

Never have killed a doe of any size. Back when I first started deer hunting we had real short gun seasons --- 3 days in November - 3 days in December --- only one male deer with a minimum antler length was allowed a year, doe were illegal, and it stayed that way for several years. I guess some old habits are hard for me to break because when it became legal to kill doe I still didn't. One or at most two deer is all we could eat in a year anyway and even then we would sometimes have a little meat left over from the previous season.

My son has killed some does but no Big Ol' ones. He shot one once during muzzle loader season when he was about 12 - 13 years old that was so small I carried it slung over my shoulder holding it by the legs with one hand and my gun in he other hand. Didn't get more than 12 - 15 pounds of meat from it butchered. And, honestly to me it was the absolute worst tasting venison I've ever eaten.

You mean the ones that you can carry out of the woods by just throwing it over your shoulder like a coat? 😊

Or bone it all out and put it in an empty bread sack.

I think some of these qualify for Pope and Gerber. Way harder to hit than a nice big buck. Ed k

Some of you guys are posting pictures of "deer" when we all know they're just jackrabbits.

I like them so they fit on a pig smoker.

The biggest doe I ever shot was a 8yr old dry doe that was 135lbs. She was fat and tender too.I like to shoot does without fawns.Besides the older dry does,I think your better off shooting the 1 and 2 year olds.The 1yr olds usually won't have a fawn,usually the 2yr olds are able to keep one fawn and the 3-6yr olds are usually your best breeders and usually will be able to keep both fawns alive.So if all your does do have fawns and you have to shoot one with a fawn,I'd go for the one with only one fawn.If range conditions get really bad,those 3-6yr old does are usually the only ones that can keep even one fawn alive so you really need to think about that.

One year in the late 1980's I was running out of time to fill my doe tag and had a doe less than 20 yards away barely visible through thick brush. Had one small opening to shoot through if it moved forward a few feet. It moved, I shot....... Then discovered I had just shot "Bambi"........ A small button buck. I was embarrassed but had filled my antlerless tag. When I got it down to the road a buddy took my picture with it. A week later after some friends had seen the picture I kept getting asked if I had shot a dog. Not to mention my embarrassment when I took it in to the processor. That was one experience that helped me become a better hunter and less trigger happy.

If we could just get them to change up the .23 caliber rule!