What's the most??
 

I know all of us that hunt deer have been watching does with their fawns recently, but my question is... what's the most fawns that you've seen does in your area have in a given year?
I see the usual doe or two with one fawn because she was probably a yearling that got bred and it's her first fawn. Then I see a several does with two fawns which is typical of a 1-1/2 or 2-1/2 year old doe... but how many times do any of you see a doe with 3 or even 4 (which is rare) fawns? Last year my neighbor and I both saw a doe with 4 fawns tagging along with her on both his property and mine.
This year I've seen a doe with 3 fawns quite a few times quite close to my place so I know she's living around here and rearing them nearby. Maybe it's the same doe... she's a big ol' gal and I'm sure she's quite woods-wise and has made it through at least four seasons. My neighbor and I made a pact not to shoot her because she's so fertile... not that I won't take a doe, just not her.

BPS

I agree, three is rare but I have seen three. I never saw four fawns though.

We worry more about bears. The number of little ones with a Sow. I did once see four cubs. BUT one was so small, I really doubt if it would make it. Two is common, three is no all that uncommon.

One or two fawns are the norm in our area. Very rarely see three.

A Doe out at one of the places I hunt here has dropped trips for the past 3 seasons. Always 2 Does and a Buck. Weird how that happens. Only one around here I've seen dropping trips. Mostly singles and a few dropping twins. Been leaving the tripper alone. Her Bucks seem to be some fine examples so far. But my trigger finger does have a tendency to itch a bit when she is around. Big ole girl she is! Just may be the last year she gets away from my crock pot!

I have seen 3 a couple times ever, but mostly one or two. Never even heard of 4 around this area. I guess it could happen, gotta be extremely rare.

Never have ever seen four fawns by one doe. Have seen three fawns many times. Two is not abnormal, maybe usual. We have been experiencing a lion problem, but hunting them has seemed to help. What i really like to see is two big grown fawns with a doe in the late winter, early spring. This seems a tell; the lion didn't eat them. Hopefully the deer population is increasing, and hopefully we can get tags.

I've seen three, but never four. We have so many bears, cats, and coyotes it would be tough for four fawns to survive.

Personally, I can't bring myself to shoot a doe, or even a spike.

We are the opposite. Too many deer, not enough predators. We shoot alot of does every year and it still isn't enough. We've had seasons where we've shot 60+... seems to not make much of a dent in the overall population. The buck/doe ratio has gotten better it seems. We see alot more bucks than we did 15yrs ago.

Our unwritten rule for our club is everyone in our group should have a goal of shooting 2-3 does each, and look for a buck that will make you happy. I shoot a buck about every 5yrs. Unfortunately I don't normally see something that I want to shoot but its fun passing the younger bucks.

Its interesting to see how the populations and seasons vary by location. I wonder if the lower populations and survival rates cause the does to naturally have more fawns?

My dad had his own set of rules, and he drove them into me and my brother for the 30 years we all hunted together. One of the rules was we never shot anything but a bull, buck, or boar.

Even though i've hunted solo for the last 30 years after my dad and brother passed away. I still live by his rules. I did shoot a cow once, but probably won't do it again.

Another of dad's rules was if the hunt is too easy, it doesn't deserve a kill. A doe seems way to easy to kill around here.

I won't get into the other rules. They're pretty strict. I will say some involve still hunting with open sights.

All my hunts are in honor of my dad. I couldn't do that if I broke the rules.

We have our share of predators. A good population of bear and way too darn many coyotes. Toss in some bobcat and fisher which will both take fawns on occasion and the fact that a busy State route follows the valley I live in makes for a lot of road killed deer.

The doe we saw last year with 4 was the first and only I've ever seen with 4, which makes me wonder if the one I see now with 3 is the same one. I would have thought that after the extremely long, cold winter we had here it would cause the does to have less this spring. The deer were eating anything they could find by late winter, I say this because I had a large pile of lawn grass I swept up over the summer and left on a far corner of the yard and by mid March, they had eaten all of it and they usually won't bother with it.

We watched momma and her 3 out on the far end of the yard a few evenings ago. Those little buggers are fun to watch... running around, jumping over each other, and just raising cane like little kids!

BPS

One or two fawns are the normal here. i have seen does with three fawns. One big doe hung out near Four Mile Crossing on Ft. Sill for about five years. She had triplets every year.

Predators, mostly coyotes, get 1/3 to 1/2 of the fawns here.

Each year i kill from 4-7 deer. i have no problem with killing does.

We have loads of does here in town. People here feed them even though it's against the law. They lose their fear on humans, and it's sad in hunting season when they get killed so easily.

We have one doe with a tag in her ear that's number 420. Everybody in town knows 420, and feed her. She's like a pet now, and will take food from your hand. She never leaves town, and that's why she's still alive. I've seen her for the last 8 years.

Not a trophy hunter! I'm a meat hunter. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing and shooting a buck with a large rack!! But how do you manage a deer herd by not shooting the does??

Shooting more bucks to control a herd doesn't make any sense. The surviving bucks will kill themselves trying to service the herd does!

Now in the old days we didn't shoot does for a reason, there were to few deer in the woods. we wanted the herd to grow. When I was a kid in the '50s, it was a bragging right if yo even saw a deer in the woods during hunting season and good for a story at the camp fire!!

In some areas in my state you have to shoot a doe before you can shoot a buck!! Do any other states have this requirement also??

Yeah, there are a few states with what's called "Earn A Buck" program. You have to take a Doe to get your Buck tag. I usually take a Doe or 2 for the freezer before I even think about going after a Buck. Pete and I were both raised in the same era as you when there just wasn't that many deer in a lot of states. I was in one of the lucky states (Tennessee) where the deer population was pretty dang large even in the 50's but we rarely shot Does back then. I pretty much went after Bone till I hit my late 30's-early 40's and figured I had enough racks on the wall. Now I just fill the 3 chest freezers with all that succulent meat from slick heads or Bucks-Bulls that don't look like they will amount to anything or old and tired past their prime for good jerky and chili/stew meat. Had one of my boy's with me a few years back and he dang near passed out when he saw me let a 12 point massive 5.5 year old walk on by. He asked me "why the hell didn't you run an arrow through that monster". Told him that that monster will go on to make a bunch more monsters this year and I may just make him into some of my fine chili that you love so much next year or the year after, Depending on if he still looks like he's dominant or not. Not saying my release finger wasn't having a massive coronary because it surely was. I'd just rather let a fine stud like that one walk and make a few other fine studs for the next generation to hunt.

The most ive seen with a single doe is 2 fawns.

When i see 5 times as many doe vs bucks i tend to shoot the first fat doe i see. I cant eat horns and a doe tastes fine to me. Im allowed 2 deer depending on the county i hunt and most of the time i end up with 2 doe in the freezer.

LOL Gm, The only buck I have ever tasted that was as good as a Doe was a Mutant 2.5 year old Button buck that was 175 yards out and I thought it was a big Doe. I usually wont shoot a buck under 5.5 years unless he is like a 3.5 year old with spikes or a forker. I'll crack on those all week and twice on Sunday to get them out of the herd. But the older Bucks just seem too dang tough except for the backstrap. I use them for Burger, Jerky, Sweet Sticks, Stew meat or Chili. Especially if I took them during rut or soon after rut. Hell I don't need a blood trail if I cracked one during rut. Just follow the stink trail :deer:

That is pretty much my way in life now. I love filling my freezer with succulent venison!!! If I didn't hunt I would do so with grass feed beef.

I look at the kids today and can't believe how quick they are maturing. With all the steroids, antibiotics and god knows what else they feed them beef cows. Venison is about the best meat you can eat about now.

For the vast majority of my cooking, venison is just fine. Personally i think it makes a fantastic chilli, curry or summer sausage. There is some wild game i like better but a deer bag limit only cost me around $24 for 2 deer. I can take more does for about $7 each in some counties but two is normally enough. Going out of state for Elk or Nilgai will easily cost over $1000....I can buy a lot of grass fed free range beef for that kind of money and a lot less travel time.

sh54...

Our border state New Jersey requires that a doe be taken before a buck. Not that they have more deer than PA... they just have a lot more people and a LOT of areas that are rotten with deer but cannot be hunted because of population density. As far as the "monster" you passed up... is it because you have so much uninhabited space around you that there are no highways? Or do you own/lease a vast expanse of land? If I passed on a buck like you mentioned, I would only being doing someone else a favor because he would surely be taken by someone else...probably within 1/2 mile. Not to mention that we lose some of the best bucks in the area each year when the rut comes in and they wander across the state and/or secondary roads while trailing a hot doe and get hit by a vehicle.

BPS

Na BPS, the 3 places I hunt here in Illinois totals around 600+ acres and the KY border isn't very far away. I am one of 3 allowed to hunt those properties with management control. Been managing those places for around 8 years now and have some dandy bucks. As I've said before, I could care less about bone anymore except when it comes to quality herd and genetics management. Good bone lets me know that they are well fed and have a strong gene pool which you know is the most important 2 things in a healthy herd. The properties are a little ways "off the beaten path" so to speak and we lose very few deer due to car/truck. Over the past 6 or so years we have been aggressively bringing the buck to doe ratio to 2-1 (Doe to Buck) and have several food plots planted throughout the properties. We try to let the big boys go till they are around 6.5 (yes sometimes it is VERY difficult) and we take the poor ones out of the herd. The past 3 years it's been a little harder because we don't have that many "poor" ones :biggrin: Lets put it this way, one of the "poor ones" last year was a 5.5 year old 9 point that scored around 140". The owner of the property wants to "compete" with the "Golden Triangle" counties over on the west side. I told him he would need to get up about 600 more acres to the same quality we have on the current properties to even imagine it.

I am having a problem with some of the guys in our hunt club who want to hunt trophy bucks. I try to tell them we need a lot more contengious property then we have now, which is about a little over 2000 acres.

During the rut, bucks will travel up to and beyond one and a half miles to complete the rut. Some even say the numbers may even be higher. Sometimes we have too many studies.

rafsob, 2000 acres, if properly managed, will hold a good many quality deer. The key, at least what I have found over the years, is creating excellent bedding cover, food, and not over pressuring. To put it simply, give them a home they want to stay at. Those three properties I manage hold approximately 90 deer. Of course they roam some to neighboring properties as it is in their nature but all in all they stick around. They have good food supplied by several acres of food plots, as well as natural browse, great water source and several heavily covered bedding spots. With the Buck to Doe ratio that we have finally gotten down to 2 doe per buck, they don't have a whole hell of a lot of reason to roam out during rut. Most all the "Big Boys" have girlfriends without much competition. Roaming bucks from neighboring properties get swiftly jumped and turned away from the area by the dominants. The ones that don't, believe me, deserve to stay! The younger bucks that cant compete with the dominants get ran off to breed elsewhere which helps establish a larger base. Good for us and good for the neighboring properties. I know for a fact that 2 of the big bucks taken in Northern Kentucky last year came from our line. My son has the Grandfather of them on his wall.

We have a club here, composed of basically rich folks. I think 19 members. 26,000 acres, 40+ square miles. They've been doing work on that property for decades, and still no large bucks.

http://www.drdeer.com/pages/about/wh...r/wayne-sitton

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/28/us...bovine-tb.html

It IS NOT completely fenced....

Barnes, One thing I did forget to mention, you have to START with good stock. We already had some pretty nice bucks on these properties but the age old problem of not letting the decent bucks walk to procreate kept from some really excellent bucks being seen. While yes seeing a 3.5 year old deer sporting a 135" class rack is a tempting trophy for most hunters, that deer in 2 years will more than likely have a 150-160" bone crown as well as able to make some more brutes.

I know about that club you spoke of and you are correct, they are a bunch of rich a-holes without a clue. And I know they tend to lean to the "If it's got bone it's a trophy" attitude. I've seen a LOT of Michigan hunters follow that attitude. It's like that in most states anymore I'm sad to say. Granted I don't care for trophy hunting anymore myself but I am still VERY selective of the meat deer I drop. Older, non milking Doe, Older, past their prime Bucks, or genetic screwups like 3.5 year old fork horns and such. But it all comes back to the beginning, let the nice younger bucks with promise walk and take out the older bucks or the genetic misfires. Get your buck to doe ratio where it should be and the herd to a manageable number that the property can easily support. In all reality, we have several too many deer for that 600 acres total if we relied ONLY on what nature provides but we do keep the food plots growing healthy providing additional food.

One thing I learned about the whitetails in northern MI, is that taking out the older does isn't the best thing. With hard cold winters, those older does with experience teach the younger deer how to survive it. MI whitetail hunting has its own unique hunters and the different ways many of them think and, there are a ton of whitetail hunters in MI. The farms in MI have all been broken up and sold off in small parcels. That in itself creates a problem between hunters/property owners.
Before I retired, we had 240 acres down below (southern MI). It was quite unique, as the entire deer population to the south, had to travel through ours to head to a larger 2x4 mile section with cover. My first day hunting it, I had exactly 111 deer come by me going into the section. Of the 111 that passed, only one (1) was a VISABLE antlered buck.
The MI-DNR started giving doe tags out at a rate of one per day, starting in early Sept through the end of Dec. That's when the "great reduction" started in S. MI and I did my share. I NEVER, I REPEAT NEVER, seen a winter die off/kill there. Does remained very healthy with more browse available and all the crops they could stand to eat. With all those very healthy does, still twins were the norm and still are according to the now owner.
I had a buddy that hunted with me and a couple of his boys, all of us shooting muzzleloaders. The decision was made (voluntarily) to harvest 8pts or more, we also took out more of the younger does. It wasn't long before some of the neighbors asked me what the hell we were doing, as they were seeing more and a little larger antlered bucks. Come to find out, they had started the same practice 3 years after we started. I'm of the understanding there's 5,000 adjoining acres following the same practice today.

So in some areas, its my belief and certainly the belief of many others, that letting some of the older mature does go, is actually the best thing.

Older and Mature is one thing, Too old and not producing is another. We have more than enough mature "wise" Does on the properties. And while yes we get some pretty rough winters here in Southern Illinois, it's really nowhere near as rough as it is in Michigan USUALLY that is. I think this past winter was about freaking equal. Nasty year!

While that 8 or better rule is okay, maybe you would find it even better if you would all try to learn to judge age in the field. Dropping an 8 point 3.5 year old kind of circumvents the entire process don't you think? If you want to see more trophy bucks, then you have to let them grow up and reproduce. In some places I know that 3.5 year old bucks are about as old as they get because people see them and drop them. Then they complain about not seeing any quality racks. It's a pretty rough situation to get around until you can either get people on surrounding properties to try to do better or have a large enough property of your own that you can simply close off to everyone else that won't adhere to your rules.

They had frost that went over 12' deep under a couple roads up here and 1/2 again under the "normal" frost line every place else. We didn't get the insulating snow, yet the bitter cold. Ice in our 8,850 acre lake was 42" thick! You think you had a bad winter? :wink:

I have enough trophies hanging on the wall and all over the floor. Wife says "NO MORE!" I've taken so many deer, I really don't care about antlers any more, or rather that much. I'll take a good 1.5yo doe for meat any day.

One of the problems in MI is, there's over 700,000 hunters hitting the woods and that's with dwindling hunters. Mind sets are changing, but slow and that's ok. Deer are totally different in the different areas of this state. The northern lower has much smaller deer and smaller antlered bucks, than the southern areas. The U.P. is a disaster area, with few deer now. Multiple hard winters and those X0X0X wolves that about wiped them out. Used to be some dandy bucks taken in the U.P. Soil type, terrain, food sources play a huge difference in MI deer in the different regions. NEL has a problem with bTB. MI had a couple bad years for EHD. Now CWD has been found in the south central area.

My personal opinion is that trophy hunting of antlers is a bad thing for whitetail hunting in general. Way to much emphasis is being placed on antler size, instead of the hunt itself. I see way to many hunters arguing and fighting each other, over antler size and age. Actually it makes me sick the arguing and bickering taking place now days over trophies. If I wanted a large set of antlers, I'd head back to Saskatchewan again.

LOL Funny how a 140" rack looks so tiny on one of those Big Bruiser Saska's aint it!