[MeekandMild]

Which is your favored target, little bucks, big bucks or does? I must profess that I've never shot a doe until last year, but I find them much better eating than bucks. My second choice is a fat yearling buck with the big bucks being much less desirable. A big buck, especially one which is in the rut, is really nasty tasting, akin to eating shoe leather. Forget horns. Mrs. Meek won't let me put any deer heads up on the mantle.

[Kingcreek]

I HUNT big bucks.
But while hunting big bucks, I have opportunities to kill nice fat, tasty, and not very savvy, yearlings.
We have no limits on archery permits and the deer are overpopulated. Last year, first afternoon in my stand I had 11 does and fawns within bow range. I killed a fat yearling that day and had the freezer mostly full by the 1st firearm season. I hunted a big buck until the last day of the season in mid January but never got a shot at him. He was standing in the road when I drove out in my truck 1 hour after legal shooting time.

[techmike]

At least to me. If I see a Big Buck I would take him, buit that's not my plan when I head to the stand. It's all about the meat!! Nice young doe please!
:p

[Art Eatman]

Seems to me it varies with where one hunts.

When I hunted around central Texas with the over-population of deer, I was happy to kill does, just to help maintain some sort of stability in the numbers of deer.

Where I live now, the deer are rather sparse. There's good reason for a bucks-only season. When you're in the middle of nowhere in canyon country, you might as well save your shot for Ol' Biggie. A little piddly-diddly buck is just as much hassle to bring out as something you could brag about.

I've never had a problem with the flavor of older bucks or does. The choice cuts, cooked properly, are yummy. The rest of it makes sausage or deerburger...

I've never bothered to have a head mounted, but I have some pretty nice horns around...

:), Art

[dakotasin]

they all taste the same to me, so i hunt body size. this usually translates to big bucks, but, my biggest deer to date is a mulie doe... she dwarfed my brother's 4x4 whitetail that dressed in excess of 220 pounds (comparison to his deer because the 2 were shot in the same day, same spot, within 15 minutes of each other, and they fell about 15 yards from each other)...

i keep all the racks i get... i am short one, though... had a couple racks outside last winter, ridding themselves of 'stuff', and one disappeared. had to be a dog because it left the bigger one, took the smaller one...

[NRA4LIFE]

I'm with Art. It largely depends on where I'm hunting and what. I'll be muley and pronghorn hunting this fall in Montana where the critters are very plentiful. As all the mule deer tend to taste about the same (not as good as whitetail or pronghorn, IMO), I hold out for the larger bodied does and bucks. Not too hard to do either. I have killed 2 near record book pronghorn so it would be extremely difficult to top them on the public land we hunt. So, I generally try to get something decent but filling my tag is more important than waiting for a monster. Now, on my land in Missouri where I hunt, that's a totally different story. The deer are all corn, soy bean, and grass fed. Yummmmmmm. The policy there is simple. See deer, shoot deer. See another deer, shoot another deer. The northern part of the state has unlimited tags so you can shoot as many as you want. If they got horns, that's great, but that is not a requirement. Problem is, if we DON'T shoot them, one of the neighbors will.

[Newt]

I'd say you left the option out "Bucks period, unless ol' mossy head walks out in front of me". Since there isn't a doe season around here, we're limited to bucks only with the 3-point-rule in effect. If it's a legal buck, it goes down. I'm not a trophy hunter, especially since the herd has thinned down the last couple of years. It's not uncommon for someone around my parts to go the first 2 weeks of season without seeing a deer, let alone a legal buck. I was lucky enough to tag out last season, but that's rare. One was trophy size and the other a basket rack. Then again, you can't eat them horns. :D

Newt

[Lennyjoe]

I hunt for meat first. Gotta fill the freezer. Once I get that done then I become selective.

[Mike Irwin]

Wow.

I really thought I'd be one of the few people voting for doe...

That's surprising!

[Keith]

I like spikes and forks because they're fairly young yet still have plenty of meat - the best eating! I usually pass on big bucks and does. You can't tell how old a doe is and you know a big buck is fairly old.

Maybe it's Murphy's law, but this year my twelve year old wants to take a "trophy" buck and because we're actually looking for big bucks, we can't seem to find one!
We usually see (and pass on) quite a few big ones following opening day (August 1st) because they're still "relaxed"... But this year we're not seeing them.

Keith

[Brian Dale]

I like does; they're delicious!

It also makes sense from a game-management perspective. I've even heard hunters in areas with a lot of deer say that people there should be required to fill a doe tag before they could be issued a tag for antlered deer. We have a BIG population of deer here in North Carolina. That's also true in the part of Wisconsin where I have family and have hunted before.

I took a hunter safety class last weekend. I'm 43 and was never required to show the card before; Dad was a stickler for safety. Now I'm told that all 50 states require the card for out-of-state hunters. No problem. Another day of the year to get together with a bunch of people and the topic is hunting? Fine with me!

The game officer teaching the course here asked us all to try to get our limit, and to favor taking does. My take on it: shoot it now, or hit it with the car later. I'd rather have it in the freezer. This guy wants me to put MORE of that delicious doe venison in my freezer, because more does in the population mean more excess deer over the area's carrying capacity? OKAY! :D

Did I mention that they're delicious?

[5ptdeerhunter]

I voted for does only because I am hunting not for the trophy but to put meat in my freezer. If I have a choice I will take the buck, but if it comes down to it I have no problem shooting a doe.

[H&Hhunter]

Where I hunt in TX we get two does and a buck so I like to harvest the does then look for a nice buck.

In Co if I have an either sex ticket I'll usually spend the first half of the hunt looking for a nice buck then a leagal buck then a doe.

Who says you can't eat horns the Chinese spend billions of dollars buying horns to eat every year. Something about libido. Have you ever noticed that the Chinese really seem to need alot of aphrodesiacs??

I just came up with a new slogan for the WWF save the tiger save the elk send your unused viagra to China!!

[labgrade]

I have never been able to tell the difference between any deer, or any elk - buck/doe, or bull/cow - assuming proper care is taken of the meat.

Obviously, the older deer/elk (bucks/bulls esp) are larger & give a bigger bang for the tag & is a no brainer, but many a time, the only opportunity on a 5-day elk hunt is what you get a choice of first. I'll take whatever presents itself unless the woods are just thick with critters. A 450 pound cow elk is nothing to sneeze at.

We've either sex rifle elk & either sex archery deer this year. Had 5 does out front this afternoon (two with twins & the others with singles) ... was kinda going "Hmmmm .... " Still a month to go, so have some time to play & decide.

Last year elk season sucked for us, so I betcha it'll be whatever presents itself - unless the woods are just thick w/'em.

Had a chance to taste another's 7-point elk a couple years back & could not tell the difference between that & a yearling cow. Same-same for any deer to date.

Every one of them eat very well.

[Keith]

Well, maybe it depends on how you cook them. You can take a hindquarter roast off a young deer and leave it medium rare and it'll still be tender.
You really can't do that with an older deer. It's still good, but the meat is grainier and tougher.

This is particularly true late in the year during and after the rut. Bucks stop eating and and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of the meat. This doesn't seem to affect young bucks much, maybe because they aren't really eligible breeders yet.

We have a generous season here that lasts from August first through December. When you shoot a number of deer through the year you can really compare the taste and quality of the meat.

The toughest deer I ever shot was an old barren doe. She had almost no teeth left and the meat was TOUGH. I cut up the roasts as chili and stew meat.

Keith

[JeepDriver]

I'm in it for the food! I've yet to take a Buck, it's the Doe's that get put in my freezer.

One of these day's I'll take a trophy buck, but it's not an animal I'll go out a hunt for. It will be that one that walks by my stand that I just won't be able to resist.

[plainsman66]

I see alot of other folks like to hunt to eat also-gimme a big mature doe anyday,with taters and gravy of course!

[labgrade]

& worst case, a decent marinade & a few in the pressure cooker (crock pot = the same for longer time) makes even a boot tender.

A time or two in the proper "modern tenderizer" first & then on the grill makes literally anything edible, if not downright tasty. ;)

[scout26]

I get two tags each year, either sex and anterless only. I fill the anterless only tag first to make sure there's something for the freezer. Unless, of course MR. BIG comes wanderin' by. Then it becomes as a trophy hunt, but as the days pass it then slowly comes down to filling the tag and the maxing out the freezer. :D

[V-fib]

Here in MI does are abundant and I’ve always been a meat hunter so I vote does. I like the yearlings the best. I got my first one of the year 2 nights ago coming home from work at 2am. Don’t think I killed it but it flew into the ditch and got up awfully slow. Luckily I only had grill damage and no body or mechanical damage to my truck. However, I usually get one doe per year, but this season I’m going to take at least 2.

:cool:

[MeekandMild]

I have never been able to tell the difference between any deer, or any elk - buck/doe, or bull/cow - assuming proper care is taken of the meat. I have always thought it was hormones. I used to work for a hog farmer and part of the job was castrating the piglets. He sold most of his hogs but from time to time killed one for consumption. Also sometimes a pig would get away and run off into the woods so there was a supply of yearling hogs we had to 'harvest' to keep from establishing a wild population. Comparing the taste of castrated hog and noncastrated boar hog there is a distinct aftertaste with the latter. Garlic seems to help.

[labgrade]

Yeah, but M&M, we're talkin' kosher here .... :D

[MeekandMild]

:confused:

[C.R.Sam]

assuming proper care is taken of the meat. A biggie.

Best I have done was three year old barren doe in good health, late fall. A lot of the good probably due to she only a few yards from the house and hangin locker. And dropped in her tracks.

Yeah....first choice doe.

Sam

[Chuck Dye]

I hunt for meat and have little interest in the whole trophy scene. Younger and smaller deer have always seemed tastier to me.

How the meat has been dealt with, from field dressing to cooking, means a lot. I think hunting skill (or ethics) means a great deal. When I was a kid, I was treated to a blind taste test in which we all had no difficulty choosing between samples. The choices turned out to be between deer of both sexes and mixed ages, one class having been killed instantly while unaware of the hunter, the other dying after a drive, wounding, chase, and coup de grace. The metabolites and hormones built up by panic, pain, and exhaustion made for almost perfect discrimination between the two classes. That taste test and dealing mercifully with deer wounded by others made me a lot more cautious about my shots.

[zahc]

First year, anything.
next year, does.
Then, big bucks if you wish

[mohican]

I shoot both bucks and does

I let the little bucks pass

We have too many does in my area now, which compounds itself.