have you ever killed a deer that was alone and when you got to it you found it to be a fawn or a lot smaller than it looked ?? i have solved this problem by placeing a mark on a tree close to my stand that is 40 inches obove the ground, a average deer hieght is 40 inches so if the top of the shoulder is close to the mark it is a adult

That is a good idea. Something else I have learned, is that a mature buck/doe will start to get a swayed back and a pot belly. both good signs of a mature deer!

Learn to draw an imaginary box around the animal, with the head in the upper corner. From the nose, draw a vertical line straight down. From the top of the head draw a horizontal line, which intercepts the line from the nose to form the first top corner, to the the tail. From the tail, draw a vertical line that intercepts the horizontal top line and to the ground. The ground is the second horizontal line and the fourth side to the box.

As deer age, their length increases improportionately to their heighth (ie, the larger deer are longer than they are tall). Moreover, fawns and even some 1.5 year olds are more "squarish", because their bodies have not elongated to overtake their stickly legs.

Try it, it works perfectly.

S&R

i always look at the head, if she has long head its probably an older doe, if its short and blocky, its most likely a button buck, which i dont shoot!
use your binocs if you can and you can tell that way too.

Not a bad idea ROHO,

Not always - but very often you will find the 1st deer on the scene(to show) is a BB!! I've seen some good sized BB's in past years.This might not be the case as the season progresses and a mothers young are shot up,leaving only mom to roam about.

Like Turkey Fan said ck out the head. It will tell you if Doe or BB.

ditto, i look at the head, most of the young deer i have watch have had short squatty faces.