OT: Not a trophy but cute
 

Went out and switched out my SD card on my trail cam and after looking through them I got pis of all doe and fawns. I just had to post this after cropping because its just too cute not to share.

To think some jerks shoot fawns like that. It makes me puke!

If they all looked like that we would never shoot one. I took care of several fawns that people drug home because they thought they were abandoned. Used to keep them in my family room bathroom at night and in a circular enclosure in the yard during the day. Not sure who missed them more when they went to Penn State deer research center, me or my little daughter at the time

I hope you told them to leave them alone next time? The doe is nearby.

Oh yeah, I told several of them in writing in the form of a citation!

LOL...good deal.

Nice photo!


You mean out of season? That would make me upset too.
In season and legal, shoot what makes you happy.

Even if legal, shooting a fawn still in spots is just disrespectful to hunters and nature. Even the deer around here, you aren't getting enough meat from it to make it worth while of a tag.

By the time hunting season rolls around, fawns don't have spots. It can be a real chore for me to avoid shooting a fawn standing alone. Before i shoot any deer, i have to take time to examine whether it is a spike or a fawn, before i pull the trigger. Shooting either a buck, or a fawn is a big problem for me. Shooting a buck means i can't tag it, and shooting a fawn means we get little meat.















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Don't forget about archery season ronlaughlin. I've seen many spotted fawns around the first of archery. Especially around here. We tend to get a good number of late born fawns around here for some reason. Not so much in Tennessee and Kentucky where I hunt but here in lower Illinois I've been seeing a higher percentage of them in the past 3 or 4 years.

It would be helpful, if fawns still had their spots, during hunting season.

Really not hard to tell a fawn from a yearling or older in hunting season. just take a good look at the head and face, much shorter than an adult deer.

Yes, a fawn has a fawn face.














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Also a fawn, like Oldtimr says, has a shorter snout and a more rounded head. That's what you need to look for. A fawn's size when seen alone can be deceiving and can result in quite a bit of ground shrinkage when you walk up to one you just shot.
I must confess that in my much younger "anxious" years I did harvest a couple of these little deer. It made me want to kick myself in the butt. But I never had any coaching on this. My uncles would take me out, sit me by a tree and tell me to stay there until they came back for me. So being young and eager, any legal deer that came by got in my sights. But once I grew older I learned to take my time and look over the animal closely before I pull the trigger.

Doe is about the only deer i will kill. Spike bull is what we looked for when elk hunting.















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By late November a doe fawn will weigh in at 70+ lbs. That's a fair amount of tender veal-like meat. If you shoot it you're taking one deer out of next year's herd. If you shoot a mature doe instead, you're taking two and likely three deer out of next years herd. So a lot depends on your deer population, your state's harvest limits and your personal meat needs/desires.

As for me, our club limit is two bucks and one doe per member. So if I decide to take a doe I'm looking for the biggest fattest one out there. However, if we begin to see signs of overpopulation on our lease and increase our doe limit I would have no qualms about taking a 6 month old doe.

That makes no sense Semisane. If you are having an overpopulation problem, you would want to take out next years fawn bearers not a six month old that wont be breeding this year.

I understand what you saying H_L. And I agree with you if you're dealing with an overpopulation problem.

But there's a population level below the "problem" level where the herd is very healthy and the habitat is just beginning to show signs of stress. In that case you may go from the type of very limited doe harvest that our group had adhered to for the last few years to one that is more generous. In such a case there's nothing wrong with some of the does taken being in the 6/7/8 month old class.

If your habitat is starting to show signs of stress, you should be taking more deer, not less.

Yep. I agree.

I was stalking a big doe one time in a cedar thicket. I was at full draw for about 10 seconds. She looked straight at me and got nervous. I was about 20 yards away. I fired at her broadside and she dropped faster then I have ever seen a deer drop. I shot right over her back and straight thru a fawn that I never saw the whole time I was stalking her.The fawn dropped like a rock. I felt terrible for some reason. But, without a doubt no deer I have ever eaten came close to how good and tender that deer was. About 4 of of ate that entire deer in 3 days it was so good.