How to Identify Antlerless Deer in the Field, Plus 18-Deer Quiz

Balancing a deer population with the habitat and available food requires harvesting the appropriate number of does. This may be a lot in some areas, a few in others, and even none in isolated cases. Being able to separate them by age in the field allows you to selectively harvest antlerless deer based on whether your goal is to harvest more mature does and reduce the deer herd, or harvest younger does and allow the deer herd to grow. In this video, Kip Adams shares tips to help you separate adult does from younger does in the field, and even identify whether fawns (deer under 1 year of age) are does or bucks.
The 18-deer quiz then allows you to practice what you learned by giving you a few seconds to identify wild deer in live footage from the field. In each of nine scenarios, with 18 deer in all, Kip then provides his analysis of the deer in the scenario.
This is especially pertinent when you have a group of deer in front of you during hunting season. Estimating the sex and age of live antlerless deer is a great skill for hunters and critical for the collection of reliable observation data. The ability to separate live antlerless deer into two general age groups - fawns and adults - is obtainable for all hunters with a little knowledge and some practice. The three key characteristics are body size and shape, head size and shape, and animal behavior.
“The team at The Bearded Buck gave us full access to their incredible collection of whitetail footage from years of their hunts,” said NDA’s Chief Conservation Officer and host of the video, Kip Adams. “The result is NDA’s most comprehensive and realistic look at how to age deer in the field.”
We are grateful to our partners at The Bearded Buck for their support with this project. Jerry Tibbott, founder of The Bearded Buck, is a longtime NDA member and supporter, and his team went out of their way to provide their incredible footage, to film Kip’s instruction, and to produce the final video.
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[@thomase6787]

Good info. In my experience, a lone doe in the woods is almost always a button buck. I’ve learned this the hard way and am much more inclined to wait for a second deer or pass a lone deer as it’s hard to tell the size of a deer by itself. All that being said, yearling deer are super tender, and that make for a easy drag…

[@Ruger34]

Literally just shot a button today, it was low light and I thought it was a nice doe, feels kinda bad but I always remember a quick kill from an arrow is better than being eaten alive or starving to death

[@leadpilled5567]

Post rut if it’s a single deer almost guaranteed it’s a button buck.

[@randywallace]

Excellent info. And I loved the opportunity to test your learning at the last part of the video.

[@wildgamecook]

Great video! Great resource for new(er) hunters

[@trevorkolmatycki4042]

Bravo! I am very impressed with this video. The majority of deer hunters harvest does but online the only thing anyone seems to talk about is antlers. I haven’t yet found a good recipe for antlers.

[@DeerAssociation]

Thank you very much!

[@kenweinacht7099]

If it's cute don't shoot. Always works for me. Thanks for the good info.

[@bigmike3250]

Excellent presentation, thank you.

[@tenkara4125]

I’ll take a 1 year old fawn. Easy to haul out and taste great 😋

[@taylorharbin3948]

This is great info. The public land where I hunt do not allow the harvesting of anything with less than three points or a 12” inside spread.

[@kimyoung1093]

I told my kid brother when he started hunting; if it’s cute don’t shoot

[@jayinscottsdale2001]

Very informative and great job. Really appreciate this. Awesome. Thank you

[@DeerAssociation]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@winnerscreed6767]

Great vide. My deer I.D. skills are getting much better from watching and learning what to look for.

[@DeerAssociation]

Thanks for watching!

[@HuntingCarterHill]

Agreed!

[@HuntingCarterHill]

Always awesome content here! We'll be pointing people in your direction to watch this!

[@doitdoitright5916]

Hey great presentation! One quick ID point for me after 46 years of deer hunting is the size and shape of the Brisket. Wether the deer are together or by themselves paying attention to the size and shape of the brisket is a great point of reference. Younger deer it much less developed and noticeable, older mature deer much larger and squared off so to speak. Happy Hunting!

[@markwest8960]

Thank you! New to hunting, well first time since with my grandfather as a little kid.... and going this weekend. Would the doe at 14:30 be an example of what you're pointing out here? Looks really large down low.

[@doitdoitright5916]

Yep , the 14:52 mark is a pretty good view of the brisket head on, you can see it hanging down, also a broadside view on deer will reveal how deep the brisket hangs. I hope you have much success success in the field!

[@markwest8960]

@@doitdoitright5916 , excellent info! Thank you very much!

[@HighlanderJosh]

Loved this video! I'm going to try out my first ever deer hunt this year with my best-friend, who is also new to hunting. Learning these characteristics and the physics of these types of white-tail deer is going to help us a lot on tagging the proper deer.

[@DeerAssociation]

Glad you found this useful, and best of luck to you and your friend this season!

[@daltonwinchenbach7982]

The tail is a dead giveaway too. That last one you can really see how long that tail looks.

[@timwil5350]

I second that. Relative tail length is easy to see. Nearly reaches tarsals on fawns

[@trevorkolmatycki4042]

Another Idea for a good informational video: Species and sex identification at longer ranges!… This is really needed now that long range shooting is so popular. I have found that at around 330yd and beyond it starts to get very difficult to identify with great certainty and is thus risky. Even with decent binoculars it takes waaaay more time and observation to confirm. Species, size, antlers… what gets super tricky at longer range is hunting does and determining if it’s a wee spiker. Those little spikes are darn hard to identify at distance and against a tree line… especially at lower light. I consider long range as past your MPBR or beyond 300yd.

[@charlessoukup1111]

Just a joke but you're right,! Only question can be button bucks, the stupidest deer in the woods, has the big boxy flat top head you can't miss. The way they act though is usually as much a tell as head shape. Does are naturally more wary. Other than that, size is obvious without all the minutia of body parts. Yearlings eat up, but not much yield. Year & a half doe is the best eating hands down...2 1/2 yr. is close & yield goes up in those first years. Eating a year & a half 4 point right now. Very tender. Any big buck is grind, backstrap & slow cook roasts. I have all the horns laying around I want, I see a 6 pt & a doe, comparable size, and I have a permit, doe is down, end of story maybe get a poke at the buck running off. I really love still hunting, you do get runnings shots and I'm pretty lucky on those. Yup I'm a good shot, but nothing certain about a running shot, so I take those only when the conditions are right. Fortunate to hunt on a 351 acre plot, crops, ridges, swamps, woods, meadows - all transition zones, so I have shot a LOT of deer in 60 years of hunting, all modes. The farmer gets block permits & loses 10-15% of crops every year so wants the group of us to take out as many as possible & it's still not enough to satisfy him! (We oblige...his rules.). : D. It's in Barry County, MI, so one of those Valhalla spots of white tails. Best year I got 5, my son 8. We gave the last one away but yup, ate the rest.

[@philibertorodrigo7118]

A few good signs of an adult Vs a yearling is the head and face size. Yearlings snouts will be short and stubbby.

[@leadpilled5567]

It the late seasons it gets even harder. A button buck can be about the size of a year and half doe

[@michaelmanthey9858]

Thank you!

[@DeerAssociation]

You're welcome!

[@Diffidentone]

Don't even have to watch the video, they're the ones without antlers. 😉😙

[@seanchristman9548]

Haha😂

[@donsimpson12]

There is a problem with the recommendation of harvesting Does early season to tell a difference. Depending on the Doe heard size, harvesting a couple of Does early season and you will not see the Bucks during the Rut as they've moved on. Does = #1 attractor of Bucks in the rut.

[@DeerAssociation]

This is false. Bucks don't "move on" somewhere else. They have a home range they are loyal to for survival reasons. Balancing the buck:doe ratio before the rut actually makes bucks more visible to hunters, because they must compete with other bucks for a limited number of estrous does. When does outnumber bucks, bucks don't have to move as much to find them.

[@donsimpson12]

That is why I mentioned "depending on the doe heard size. I have witnessed the disappearance of bucks with a limited number of does and then a few were taken early. The mature Bucks simply didn't stick around. They may have returned to their home range, but during hunting season when rut was in, they went after the does. @@DeerAssociation

[@cultleader3572]

Why does some states give extra anlerless????

[@Day12My]

12:12...That's not an adult doe....It's a tweener between fawn and adult..perhaps a teenager. The back one in 13:45 looks identical to this one and you called it a fawn...

[@bobbyhale4256]

The best way to Identify antlerless deer is to look for the ones that don't have antlers. Just a joke yall

[@williamfabuien1125]

Seriously?