Brett/IL

kickin buck just took the words out of my mouth. Nothing you, me, or any hunter does is going to change our image in the eyes of those who are already against hunting. To those people we all murdering, bloodthirsty maniacs killing poor defenseless animals. It doesn't matter to them if you are killing 8 yr. old bucks or 8 mo. old does. As to those who are on the fence, I have found that if you engage in a polite, respectful discussion, you can usually bring them around to understanding why we do what we do. Another way of bringing a non-hunter to our side is to serve them a meal of properly prepared venison. I don't care what anyone says, younger deer taste better and fawns taste best. I have convinced more people than I can remember, both hunters and non-hunters, that venison is delicious by serving them grilled backstrap off of a fawn. None of those people had the knee jerk reaction of "Oh my God, I just ate a poor little deer!" most just said they wanted more and two in particular took up the sport solely to enjoy the meat.

I too have a family of four to feed, five now that my sister is living with us while she attends college, and we go through at least 5 deer a year. We also give some to friends and family. My wife specifically asks me and my son to shoot a couple of fawns every season when the opportunity presents itself. I usually try to take a few does/fawns early season, then I hunt for a buck during the rut, and go back to filling the freezer late season. If shooting fawns makes me a cold hearted guy, so be it, but it sure makes for some good grilling!

bawanajim

Ethical might not be the proper term, "appropriate" might be better."Justifiable" maybe.

We as archers choose a weapon that adds challenge to the aspect of killing deer. Some consider traditional tackle as another step in adding handicaps to the process.
With this in mind for the life of me I can't see the killing of a fawn as fulfilling to any of the aspects that I hunt for.
An example of this would be killing a huge buck with your truck. Hey its legal ,its mature and its a free range buck not killed over bait in a pen so I'm just as proud as I can be, yea hes going on the wall baby.

Howler

Nothing "unethical" about making a clean kill. Weather or not the clean kill has antlers or not, don't matter!~!

Badger_Girl93

This didn't make a shred of sense. The question was about HARVESTING fawns...not killing just for fun.

"If we kill the small deer then there won't be any larger deer?" What?

RuttNutt

Two years ago, Good chanceyou were the kind of guy I am talkin' about..... "If it's brown, it's down" I am not bashing the guy in need of meat, that has no other means to feed his family or freinds family. It's my view that as hunters, we have a duty to make our sport and way of life as moral and ethical as possible. I seriously doubt your land is soooooo overun with fawns that you need to shoot everyone you see.........

RuttNutt

You got a point, maybe not the best choiceof words..Appropriate is better.

rybohunter

So by this reasoning it should be ethical to poach a deer to feed one's family....yes I opened that can o' worms


You don't pay attention to his posts much do you?


I think I am going to target a few fawns this year, just to get the ethics police after me


Some places.....ANY dead deer is helpful in the management of the population.

NEW61375

Ruttnut don't take this the wrong way because it is just my opinion but these fawn threads are annoying at best. Who are these non-hunters you are trying to impress with your morality and "ethical" behavior? Do you mean anti hunters or just non-hunters? One of the groups listed abovecouldn't care less for the most partbecause they are non-hunters meaning they don't hunt or have anything invested in hunting. The other group I could care less about because we will always be viewed as unethical and immoral in their eyes so I am not worried in the least about their mindless babbling on what they think about hunting. A fawn deer or yearling or whatever(a little deer out of spots) is just a deer, what makes taking one immoral or unethical? Are they cute & cuddly? They don't know enough yet? What is it about a little deer? I swear it's that darn Bambi movie. You never hear anyone saying was that squirrel mature? How old was that little bunny you killed? I can't shoot that turkey because it's only it's first year. You rarely if ever hear anything like that, now here comes a little deer and every gets all googly eyed and sentimental. Like I said JMO, I just don't get it. I hunt in an area with loads of deer and I can assure youthe farmers shed exactly 0 tears over the fuzzy little fawns, nor do I.

I'm sure all the bucks and does that gettaken every season believe we are both highly immoral and unethical for treating themthe way we do. But as long as you feel it is OK.

kickin_buck

So you only kill bucks and big buck at that? So you are the head hunter and horn collector that PETA loves to make all of us hunters out to be? You have never killed a doe? You will never kill a doe? You state that killing a fawn is against every reason why you hunt, so I can on presume that you utilizing, eating the meat is not the main reason you are on stand. The question was, is it unethical to take a fawn. It is not unethical as long and you plan on using the meat. Again, you don't have to be dirt poor to want to eat a nice tender backstarp cooked on the grill. This topic is insane and should be moved over to PETA's web site.

Rob/PA Bowyer

I have no issue shooting doe fawns (no spots) but I would not shoot fawns with spots. I however target both mature doe and bucks but does of any age are good conservation.