Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
I'll just say this ........ If you want a QUIET, SNEAKY entrance to a stand in thick stuff .........
In defense of THICK cover
- Thread starter Bowsnbucks
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Derek Reese 29
5 year old buck +
haha if that was made by a button buck im gonna have to go up a few calibers....Nice looking rub for a button buck, Derek. WE .......... WE completely dismiss small sign like that!
Yep - the thicker the better. My son's biggest buck - a mature, older, massive 9 pt. - came sneaking along a tiny trail in horribly thick cover to work a scrape within 12 yards of his tree stand. If the scrape was another 3 yards back in that trail, he never would have seen him. Max distance to see in there ....... 20 yards tops. My son has to almost crawl under some pines and hemlocks to get to his tree stand - but it paid off.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
I figured you'd get a charge out of my comment!! That's a heck of a rub. That's no pencil-neck buck. Great find!
j-bird
Moderator
So I am in the "cover is king" boat as well.....especially here in farm country. The only cover of ANY kind is where the land is either too wet or too steep to farm. These areas are where the deer are....and if you can find/create a small pocket of thick nasty stuff, then you really have something. The thing is that you have to maintain it. I have a neighbor that planted trees in old corn fields for commercial purposes. The first decade or so it was great, but now the trees have grown and closed the canopy and the understory is almost gone. This holds true for when you do timber work and the like. You have to keep sunlight to the ground. A term I use and have used is "stem density"......the higher the stem count of the plants and the like in the area the thicker it will be and in my opinion the more likely it will be for deer to use it as cover. Something that Jeff Sturgis talks about in his books is also "depth of cover". Having a long narrow piece of cover isn't nearly as effective as having the same amount of space in in a block. Lastly the other thing I think some people don't grasp is that what the deer like...well it looks like the "$h1t-holes" that was mentioned. They are not "pretty"....in fact they are nasty jungles. I think some people want that "park" look and that is fine, but is sucks for wildlife. I used to be one that didn't understand how cutting down trees could make better habitat. I have since had two cuttings and look forward to the next. The chainsaw is my friend!
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Teeder
5 year old buck +
What you talking about, TreeDaddy?
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Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
Cover is great. Diverse cover is even better.
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Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
I've told this story before. My neighbor sees a guy walking out of a piece of my timber towards the road so he pulls over to see what he's up to. Said the guy was soaking wet. Asked him what he's doing, the guy said his dogs radio collar showed the dog in there, but you can't even get through there, some asshole cut all the trees down....
I love that story..
I thought about this today and literally laughed out loud....
Spike_Horn_Shooter
5 year old buck +
Agreed. Every buck I’ve ever seen was in or not far from a nasty shit hole.
Another observation:
My property in Northern NY has thickets of Prickly Ash. It grows about 6-10’ talk and is similar to a young aspen grove or hardwood regen in the 10’ regen phase - except with 1” thorns. There appears to be not much food value, but the deer are literally tunneling through it.
I cut the fence line (1200’) using a combination of a Billy Goat walk behind brush hog and heavy duty brush saw - with a skill saw blade. Max width of the path was about 4’.
I ran 16 cell cameras all year. I never caught a picture of the big guy on my cut path. Not once. Does and small buck loved it. Which is another conundrum because I need to use the path to access a stand on a south wind.
I think if I were to cut a path specifically for BIG BUCK travel / bedding - it would be a winding path - read: not straight on the down wind side of doe bedding. With maybe a couple openings of say 10-20 square feet. I’m guessing that the straight paths don’t give the big ones a sense of security, and then tend to avoid them. IMO.
Picture for reference on the tight quarters of the path I cut
Another observation:
My property in Northern NY has thickets of Prickly Ash. It grows about 6-10’ talk and is similar to a young aspen grove or hardwood regen in the 10’ regen phase - except with 1” thorns. There appears to be not much food value, but the deer are literally tunneling through it.
I cut the fence line (1200’) using a combination of a Billy Goat walk behind brush hog and heavy duty brush saw - with a skill saw blade. Max width of the path was about 4’.
I ran 16 cell cameras all year. I never caught a picture of the big guy on my cut path. Not once. Does and small buck loved it. Which is another conundrum because I need to use the path to access a stand on a south wind.
I think if I were to cut a path specifically for BIG BUCK travel / bedding - it would be a winding path - read: not straight on the down wind side of doe bedding. With maybe a couple openings of say 10-20 square feet. I’m guessing that the straight paths don’t give the big ones a sense of security, and then tend to avoid them. IMO.
Picture for reference on the tight quarters of the path I cut
Attachments
Brian662
5 year old buck +
Prickly ash is some nasty shit. It's on the same level as buckthorn for me, I try to eliminate it 100%.
On the flip side I have a friend who swears that prickly ash is the best cover he has and he has big bucks and does crawling throughout the thickest prickly ash cover he has
On the flip side I have a friend who swears that prickly ash is the best cover he has and he has big bucks and does crawling throughout the thickest prickly ash cover he has
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
Thoe ADK buck guys not only mention heavy cover, but if a deer can cross water to get to it, they feel their scent is protected.
Water featues may be alot of work to do, but if you got a swampy area you can improve a touch, the even better.
I've never built a brushy area to travel on. However, my experience in PA forsts during flintlock season is to follow the brushier area and walk downwind of them. Some places have lines, or following blob of it to the next. Sometimes it's not the best method to harvest a deer, but altest you see them. Can be very hard to cover much ground, glass the area, and get a chance on a calm animal when the leaves are dry. Wish I had more guts on moving deer. I usually wait for them to be calm, or pass up the opportunity.
Wandering along like that has worked well for me over the years in PA as well as the endless amount of public land in the ctaskills where I live and work.
Water featues may be alot of work to do, but if you got a swampy area you can improve a touch, the even better.
I've never built a brushy area to travel on. However, my experience in PA forsts during flintlock season is to follow the brushier area and walk downwind of them. Some places have lines, or following blob of it to the next. Sometimes it's not the best method to harvest a deer, but altest you see them. Can be very hard to cover much ground, glass the area, and get a chance on a calm animal when the leaves are dry. Wish I had more guts on moving deer. I usually wait for them to be calm, or pass up the opportunity.
Wandering along like that has worked well for me over the years in PA as well as the endless amount of public land in the ctaskills where I live and work.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
I have some trails cut for the deer thru thick cover that are 4 foot wide and some are two foot. The biggest bucks have their own path that is further down wind and hardly discernible.
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Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
It depends on the type of cover and the situation. You can't get grass too thick, but briers can become so thick that a deer can't pass through them. Also, if you hinge cut the wrong way where you want deer to travel, you can block them. When bucks are in velvet, they aren't going to be bumping around in a thick clearcut until they go hard horned.
Spike_Horn_Shooter
5 year old buck +
I was hunting a buck in Ohio - a white antlered ghost (140” +) . He came crashing through a green briar thicket at sunset to check on does feeding in a corn field. I could hear him coming for about 10 minutes. I find does to be much quieter inthick cover for obvious reasons. I biffed and never got a shot. He spooked and was shot that night by someone hunting about 400 yards away.
I still have nightmares about that!
But to your point, I don’t see bucks wanting to travel through thick cover in velvet. At least not briar or whips.
j-bird
Moderator
diversity also creates a lot more "edge" and that is always of interest to deer as well. Every place you have a cluster of cedars in a switchgrass planting....that is more edge. The edge tends to create an easier path between cover types and/or food as well..... The amount of edge and stem count are two things I am not sure you can have too much of if you are trying to hold deer.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
Greenbrier is one of the most browsed plants in my place. I've never seen it get extremely thick. Even though deer will nibble on blackberry briers, they can easily get out of hand and get too thick. I've seen patches that were literally impenetrable by any animal.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
That's why I love my cedar fence rows and mow narrow shooting lanes down some of them. They are also primary scrape locations, and the honeysuckle (which deer love) flourishes there as well.
PS - I'm in the process right now of adding some more diversity. I will post some of this in my habitat thread later on. Where some of my pines got knocked down in the bad storm this spring, I'm going back with shrubs. This will be a mixture of volunteer and planted species. I will be whacking any undesirables that pop up.
roymunson
5 year old buck +
Buck I killed this year was walking out of an area we went in with chainsaws and made a mess of anything NOT timber valued.
Hunting partner's son once looked at it and said "I really hope we never have to track a deer in here"
We have logging lanes thru ours, but there are places its like a wall when it's 2 years after a cut. I think at year 4-10 is when the deer will really utilize it. Doesn't hurt that we also stay specifically out of these areas with foot traffic too. But it holds a lot of deer. My biggest concern starting now is that we hold too many does and fawns and the big bucks don't wanna be in the center of a babysitting party. I feel maybe we've made it too conducive for deer and the does and fawns keep living in there, making the bucks go elsewhere.
But maybe I'm overthinking it.
I'm with Native as well. We've got timber bedding as well as about 15 acres of switchgrass on the come, and then about 5 acres of old field that we're just letting go feral for the last 3 years. We're in teh "golden rod and thistle" stage. Briars and multiflora rose is probably next. But that area lays good for bedding, and will only get better as things thicken
Hunting partner's son once looked at it and said "I really hope we never have to track a deer in here"
We have logging lanes thru ours, but there are places its like a wall when it's 2 years after a cut. I think at year 4-10 is when the deer will really utilize it. Doesn't hurt that we also stay specifically out of these areas with foot traffic too. But it holds a lot of deer. My biggest concern starting now is that we hold too many does and fawns and the big bucks don't wanna be in the center of a babysitting party. I feel maybe we've made it too conducive for deer and the does and fawns keep living in there, making the bucks go elsewhere.
But maybe I'm overthinking it.
I'm with Native as well. We've got timber bedding as well as about 15 acres of switchgrass on the come, and then about 5 acres of old field that we're just letting go feral for the last 3 years. We're in teh "golden rod and thistle" stage. Briars and multiflora rose is probably next. But that area lays good for bedding, and will only get better as things thicken
