The moral of this story is SHOOT THE DOES.
I hunt for the quality of the meat so I am more incline to shot a doe than a buck. It may just be personal preference but I've always felt that the does tend to yield a more tender and tasty product. Once the fawn is weaned it has zero need and zero affection for its mother and I would prefer my children eat well rather than to succumb to Bambi syndrome.
Our club got a 6000 acre lease in Alabama in 1982. There were few bucks killed the first year but the ones that were killed were large. The state biologist did a survey of the herd and told us to shoot 40 does. We balked. None of us were used to shooting does. We shot ~25 does and he told us that wasn't enough.
We finally followed his directions and killed 40 the next year, then 60 two years later, then 80. Finally, it topped out at 100. Every year there were more deer not less. Does had only single fawns before, now they were having triplets. The bucks increased and we only shot trophy bucks. There were lots of does and large fawns killed during this time and our herd increased in numbers and quality.
The moral of this story is SHOOT THE DOES.
I know I told my opinion for my backyard, but this sounds a lot like when you prune a tree and it puts on a lot of healthy new growth.
The biologist said our lease was overpopulated and the deer had stripped a lot of the browse. We wanted big bucks not oodles of deer. By initially reducing the total number of deer, the growth recovered and gave each deer more nutrients resulting in bigger, healthier deer. With more food available the does produced more fawns in a 1:1 sex ratio.
Eventually, we had ~7 does for every 10 bucks. This moved the rut a month earlier and we saw and heard many buck fights as they competed for the reduced number of does.
I believe Bambi was actually an allegory of Nazi aggression prior to WWII.Bambi Syndrome, huh? I heard they made a sequel and Bambi grew up... 10-pointer. But the premise of the original, IIRC, was anti-hunting propaganda using out-of-season poaching to make hunters a villainous plot device.
Quality of meat... I'm thinking that is personal preference, and deer in general... buck vs doe, also... may show differences regionally depending on diet and other factors. So your mileage may vary.
Always shoot the doe is my mantra. Unless it's too cold, or getting dark, or I'm feeling lazy, or...Hunting tonight with two buddies on their lease one buddy passes a doe cause she’s got triplets tonight and about an hour later I see two fawns come in and one was for sure a button buck and the other appeared to be a button also. I figured if they are hanging with her and both appear to be buttons and they are twins then give momma doe a pass to pass on the genes for a few years. I also didn’t really have the heart to shoot her with having little ones close by. She stayed 50yards in the woods and the fawns fed down wind of me in the field and busted but went opposite of her and she just hung out like she didn’t care they left. I was also worried about shooting her cause my buddy passed a big doe for having triplets.
what would you have done?
Always shoot the doe is my mantra. Unless it's too cold, or getting dark, or I'm feeling lazy, or...
Seriously does taste better. It has to be a monster for me to take a buck instead of a doe.
True. But I prefer to give them a chance at getting bigger. Neighbors probably shoot half of them though.Well, a 1 1/2 year old buck has some awfully thick, tender chops and steaks. Just don't tell the "QDM" folks on the 640 acre section full of food plots and box stands next door.