i dont shoot them early when most have the fawns w/ them still, if i needed the meat to feed my family thats different but i still have meat from last year in the freezer, and one more doe on my land is one more doe going into heat drawing the boys i really are out there for so i wait till late season!

I would have done the same. You did the right thing.

I hunt bow and rifle.During bow hunting I only shoot bucks.But during rifle if i have a doe tag I use it.I haven' t ever shot a momma with her kids.Don' t think I ever will.But I think we are all getting soft.Twenty years ago it was common to kill the doe the fawns and anything else moving[]

knuckle head, pull it... i would have

I don' t blame you either for not wanting to do it. I myself have had to scare a fawn away after shooting the mom; I hadn' t seen the fawn until I shot and the doe had " ducked the string" so she got it in the spine. I couldn' t get another arrow in her from the stand, so I got down to go finish her as I couldn' t stand to watch her do the " crappie flop" as we call it here lol. Once I was down the fawn came out from behind a tree.....I felt bad, but that little one got a whole lot of education in a matter of a minute. NOW....here in roughly the southern half of Wisconsin; we do NOT have a choice in the matter. If we want to be able to hunt for a buck; we HAVE to kill a doe FIRST. I finally filled my " Earn a Buck" tag tonight...WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO haha You' ll get another chance at a doe yet; it' s early and GOOD LUCK!

It is personal, you did what was right for you. Nice job.
I' d have shot her and thats personal too.

Greg

Hey you need to do what you feel is right, I won' t stick a doe with spotted fawns, but I will stick one with brown fawns, I have let more little ones walk than you can shake a stick at, I don' t know, they are just so stupid sometimes, I don' t have the heart to kill them. We all have our own soft spots!

I' m the same way- doe with a couple fawns walks. Doe alone I drop. Call me a softie, but I hate hearing fawns bleat after I whack their Mom.... I' ve had that happen enough for one lifetime. Where I live, there are so many deer that it' s no problem to wait for a solo doe. If I lived where deer were more scarce, I might feel differently.

I am leaning towards the softie side too I think.
A loan doe i would drop, a doe with larger fawns, I might drop if she is fat and the fawns look to be old enough to make it on their own.
But this year I have seen a couple of does with fawsn that BARELY had the spots off, looks like they were born late, and I wouldn' t even consider shooting them.

Yeah big softie here too.

This may sound bad to some of you, but I have not been in this situation however If I couldn' t shoot the big doe I might shoot the small one. I read an article saying that the big mature does know what there doing and if you shoot a smaller one it doesn' t have as much affect. They are the tastiest ones. I have shoot one small one and I didn' t feel guilty or anything. I feel the same with a big buck as a small deer. I thank god for letting me harvest the animal and I pray it had a swift death. Then I butter em up and throw them on the grill!!!