Deer travel in regards to swamps and creeks

[Greta&Gus]

We have a creek and a number of large swamps on or bordering our property. Natural travel for deer seems to be north/south along the creek ridge (not the bottoms) or around the swamps on the high ground. We really only see crossing of the creek done at night or the peak of the rut when things are hot and heavy.

My question is, with the use of hinging, can you do enough to change the deer patterns to go through a swamp or cross a creek? Or, will deer do what is 'natural' and find a spot through your hinging to take the high road? What are the best methods to changing deer movement patterns?

 

[sandbur]

I find where the deer travel along a creek bottom varies with how wet the swamp is, how wet the season has been, how steep the hill is. Even with beaver damming up a section or not.

It varies and I checked one place up north a few weeks ago.

Can you run a line of conifers, or even a broken line of conifers through hardwoods to focus their movements?
Or hinge, or a cut a trail through a dense stand of young conifers to change movement.

Where they walk along a creek also varies after leaf drop, especially if the woods has deciduous components.
If you hunt late season, frozen swamps are another matter, versus wet swamps, or swamps with thin areas of sheet ice.

 

[wiscwhip]

You may have a snowballs chance to get those deer to reroute their movements just through hinging, but the deer will likely find the path of least resistance and make it there new permanent route through your hinge. No amount of hinging will make them venture into an area they don't feel safe walking through for whatever reasons, be that human or predator pressure, or a natural landform deterrent like a creek, swamp, steep bluffsides, or in the case of the areas I hunt, all of the above. Crossing that creek bottom may be very noisy for them(compared to the relative silence they are used to on an upland trail), and they do not feel safe making that amount of noise until after dark. I can tell you from experience in the creek bottom on our old place, which I hunted the edges of extensively, our deer used it for daytime bedding because you couldn't move in there without making a huge racket. They had very well established trails leading in and out of the bottoms, not many running parallel to or crossing the creek though, at least not on our place, they did cross on our downstream neighbors property due to it having more dry humps to walk on and only the one jump across the main channel to get to the high grounds on the other side. I could usually hear them if they got up and moved around for any distance at all. They did have a trail that was beat to the dirt that followed the top edge of the high bank where it dropped off into the floodplain bottoms, which there bedding trails connected to, but use was either right at dawn, dusk, or mostly at night. An 8' deer fence would be about the only way to get manipulate their movements to make them go where they don't want to be, but that may cause them to avoid the place altogether.

 

[dipper]

Hunting swamps is hard. Just like anywhere though; edge, path of least resistance, hinge cuts all increase the odds of predicting deer movement.

 

[j-bird]

I think it can be very difficult to prod deer to do something they naturally avoid. Work WITH Mother Nature and not against it - you have a better chance of succes IMO.

 

[dipper]

Big swamps are just so tough because there isn't usually a destination. Lots of random browsing if that's available.
Most of the swamps in my area haven't been logged in 100 years so there is little under growth. You could make some nasty cover by felling white cedars and leaving them

 

[j-bird]

I just think deer in general are going to take the easiest and safest route they can. A wild animal is all about self preservation. As such they want to minimize the energy spent to achieve the same result and minimize their exposure to risk as well.

If you had to avoid a bear in the woods - would you prefer an area of firm ground and being able to see or smell danger from a distance, or have soggy ground with more limited vision? And yes I know I don't have to out run the bear - I have to out run the guy with me!!!!

 

[Greta&Gus]

The edges of a large swamp directs deer south right in to our neighbors. It makes half of our property unhuntable at times because anything but a south wind bumps deer right to our neighbors. Not an easy situation to hunt.

 

[Greta&Gus]

I find where the deer travel along a creek bottom varies with how wet the swamp is, how wet the season has been, how steep the hill is. Even with beaver damming up a section or not.

It varies and I checked one place up north a few weeks ago.

Can you run a line of conifers, or even a broken line of conifers through hardwoods to focus their movements?
Or hinge, or a cut a trail through a dense stand of young conifers to change movement.

Where they walk along a creek also varies after leaf drop, especially if the woods has deciduous components.
If you hunt late season, frozen swamps are another matter, versus wet swamps, or swamps with thin areas of sheet ice.

There is a clear line of conifers on the neighbor's property that runs the edge of the swamp that the deer travel. It is a great highway for them. I wonder if we could create a line of conifers on our side of the swamp. It still leads to the neighbors eventually but it could divert deer travel.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

In my experience - If you have a mixed woods of hardwoods and conifers, deer will travel in or very close to the conifers ........ swamp or no swamp. It's because of the dark, shadowy security they provide. Younger conifers - or better still - a mix of ages of conifers, will give deer varying heights of secure cover to travel thru or peer out of to check the surroundings. I've seen it around the swamps up in Maine and in the hardwoods of Pa. Sandbur has said the same thing about deer traveling in or near evergreens.

As an example - I once sat on a high spot watching down into a saddle between 2 ridges. 95% open hardwoods with some white pines and hemlocks scattered in the lower saddle. At first light, about 10 deer eased up from the valley and into the saddle. They could have walked a straight line up to the opposite ridge to bed for the day, but they walked from conifer to conifer, pausing while in the dark shadows under the limbs to check the surroundings before moving to the next conifer. It was a rambling route - like connect the dots - and not a straight easy, quick one to the bedding area. They weren't eating or browsing anywhere along this route - just moving to the bedding area. The only reason they took that zig-zag, odd route was for the security provided by the dark conifers. FWIW.

 

[sandbur]

In my experience - If you have a mixed woods of hardwoods and conifers, deer will travel in or very close to the conifers ........ swamp or no swamp. It's because of the dark, shadowy security they provide. Younger conifers - or better still - a mix of ages of conifers, will give deer varying heights of secure cover to travel thru or peer out of to check the surroundings. I've seen it around the swamps up in Maine and in the hardwoods of Pa. Sandbur has said the same thing about deer traveling in or near evergreens.

As an example - I once sat on a high spot watching down into a saddle between 2 ridges. 95% open hardwoods with some white pines and hemlocks scattered in the lower saddle. At first light, about 10 deer eased up from the valley and into the saddle. They could have walked a straight line up to the opposite ridge to bed for the day, but they walked from conifer to conifer, pausing while in the dark shadows under the limbs to check the surroundings before moving to the next conifer. It was a rambling route - like connect the dots - and not a straight easy, quick one to the bedding area. They weren't eating or browsing anywhere along this route - just moving to the bedding area. The only reason they took that zig-zag, odd route was for the security provided by the dark conifers. FWIW.

That is exactly what they do and my daughter shot a 12 pointer in that situation. Stop under a conifer and peer ahead to the next conifer before moving on. After leaf fall, of course. I have some pictures of the situation on my 'puter at home.

Gand G-look at the situation and plant those conifers to your advantage.

 

[dipper]

I just think deer in general are going to take the easiest and safest route they can. A wild animal is all about self preservation. As such they want to minimize the energy spent to achieve the same result and minimize their exposure to risk as well.

If you had to avoid a bear in the woods - would you prefer an area of firm ground and being able to see or smell danger from a distance, or have soggy ground with more limited vision? And yes I know I don't have to out run the bear - I have to out run the guy with me!!!!

Deer don't care about how wet it is. If it makes them feel safe, like very wet places do, they will use it as bedding. Now they would prefer to walk in easier ground, because it's easier. But if they want to bed somewhere, they dive into wet areas

 

[Steve Bartylla]

As others have essentially stated above, my experience is that it's ALWAYS a lot easier to get deer to follow a specific path that goes where they want to go anyway and stop them from going where they don't want to go to begin with than the reverse. You can fight that with blockades, fencing, giving them as many reasons to go the way you want them to as practically possible and you can alter that behavior to an extent, but it typically takes a ton of work to get them to stop doing something they want and it is almost never 100% effective.

 

[MoLandOwner]

As others have essentially stated above, my experience is that it's ALWAYS a lot easier to get deer to follow a specific path that goes where they want to go anyway and stop them from going where they don't want to go to begin with than the reverse. You can fight that with blockades, fencing, giving them as many reasons to go the way you want them to as practically possible and you can alter that behavior to an extent, but it typically takes a ton of work to get them to stop doing something they want and it is almost never 100% effective.

What he said!