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How many of you do this?

2K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  miles58 
#1 ·
I was never taught to do this, and I just sort of learned how it works so well and is so easy.

I "guide" deer and their attention where I want it. Deer almost always move very predictably through the woods. Just a small thing in their way is enough to redirect them though. If I am sitting over a trail that they normally use in just one direction, when I have them at the place I hope for a shot I like to take from 1-3 or 4 little pieces of brush, maybe 3/4 feet long or so and "plant" them into the ground and leave an opening I want them to move into so as to provide me a perfect broadside shot. or similarly just block their trail and make them walk around a couple branches giving me my shot. I have redirected them more than 100 yards to move them past me in some places. In rifle season which is short by comparison, I like to very similarly place something new in their way. That will stop them and while they are looking to see what it is, if they are the one I want they die.

I am convinced from doing this that deer know their territories well and that something new or out of place gets their attention and can hold it for long enough while they decide whether to worry about it or not. Watching their behavior over small little things like that teaches me a lot about when to break the trigger.
 
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#2 ·
Funnels work great as long as you pay attention to the wind direction. Been hunting either natural or created funnels for close to 50 years now.
Hunting a funnel on an un-favorable or worse yet, still wind, tends to educate deer, so choose your time there, as well as the wind direction, wisely.
 
#5 ·
I hunt with both rifle and bows. I tend to think of funnels in a more macro fashion like a neck of high ground running through a swamp and these micro adjustments I make as maybe like a RR track switch to turn a deer off a trail onto a shooting lane with me in the stand at the end of the lane. I learned about doing this with a bow at about 12 YO trying to make Bambi turn to give me my shot on my first bow deer. The next year I applied what I learned and set up stand where a particular deer had been crawling under a 3 strand and that worked too. I've been a believer ever since. More than 60 years later it still surprises me how easy it is to turn a deer, or to focus it's attention away from me while I do my thing.

re: Wind... From back in my smoking cigarettes days I noticed that as I walked back the smoke always seems to drift into the woods as I walked along fields and it didn't seem to make any difference which side of a field I walked on. Pretty soon it dawned on me that the wind rises in the morning with the heat of the sun and dies down at night The woods stays warmer for a while and the warm air rising out of the woods draws the faster cooling air off the field. It didn't take so long to make sense out of Bambi not seeming to smell me so often at the end of the day.

I think this all tends to make me wonder about how when I am rifle hunting I tend to shoot more deer in the morning and when bow hunting more in the evening. I doubt I will live long enough to sort out whether that difference is related to or has any basis whatsoever in the atmospheric conditions or maybe it's just all in my head.
 
#6 ·
People just accept what is given to them. A little adjusting of the brush and saplings around your stand can make a big difference in your shot opportunities.
 
#7 ·
I have never, i hunt natural bottle necks, and seek them out. But to try and make one no. I have watched deer jump fences jump over fell downs and walked through things i walk around.

I have to put a stand up now its a blind. I can't get out of that, and if i'm forced to cut something i do it after Turkey season or over the summer well before bow season. Other than that i'm the most standoffish hunter you have ever seen.
But if its working for you and your killing the deer you target. Thats great :).
 
#10 · (Edited)
Ive found that deer like to walk the path of least resistance. That being said...Ive opened up some trails thru briars and such leading to/from my plots and it works every time. Just removing some down limbs is all it takes sometimes. In the woods when I'm clearing shooting lanes for new prospective stand locations I'll use the cut limbs to put near the tree I plan on climbing so deer cannot just walk right up to my tree I'm in for a sniff. If at all possible I wanna keep 'em back 10 yards or so. Works for me.;)

I should mention that 99% of my "trimming" happens AFTER deer season ends.
 
#12 ·
At deer camp we have close to 4 miles of trails for 4 wheelers. The dee use them too. A lot. I always incorporate those 4 wheeler trails into my shooting lanes when I build a new stand. Sometimes the shooting lane and deer trails get to be deer 4 wheeler trails. The deer are used to 4 wheelers coming and going all year round and pay them almost no attention as long as the just move along at a steady pace. They will let you drive by within 30 yards and at most sort of watch you roll by.
 
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