 SECRET
MAN-DRIVE TACTICS FOR TROPHY BUCKS
One Day, Five Bucks, Five Drivers
EDITOR’S NOTE: The most-successful man drive
I know of took place when five hunters bagged five nice-sized
bucks in one day of driving. One of the bucks taken
scored 140 on Boone & Crockett. On a bitter and
cold day with bright sun and a clear sky, Eddie Salter
of Evergreen, Alabama, longtime deer hunter and a member
of Hunter’s Specialties’ Pro Hunt Team,
and four friends decided to hunt several 3- to 5-year
old clearcuts. They used a tactic that also will work
for you.
 “Two
drivers put pennies in plastic milk jugs,” Salter
recalled. “They tied the milk jugs to their belts
and walked through the clearcut. When they saw places
where deer had bedded down, they shook their jugs to
create noise. The sound of those pennies hitting the
plastic jug caused everything in the clearcut to run
out of the thick cover. Even rabbits and quail flushed.”
According to Salter, they put one stander behind and
above the drivers in a tree stand. Then they placed
the other two standers in tree stands on the sides of
the clearcut. The three standers above the drive could
see any deer moving in the cover or breaking from the
cover.
On this day, the biggest buck taken attempted to sneak
out the backside of the drive before he was bagged by
the back stander. The 7-point buck Salter took jumped
up in front of him as he drove. Side-standers bagged
the three other deer taken.  “We
never place a stander in front of the drives,”
Salter explained. “We want the drivers to shoot
a buck if he jumps without being concerned about standers
in front of them. But, we’ve also learned that
most of the time the only deer going in front of the
drive are does and yearlings bucks, not the big bucks
we want to hunt. You’ll most likely see a buck
behind the drivers or one escaping out the side of the
drive. Driving 3- to 5-year-old clearcuts is one of
the most-effective ways I know to take big deer.”
For an effective clear-cut drive, drivers must willingly
battle the briars, thorns and bushes. Salter recommends
hunters wear either briar-busting britches to plow through
the thick cover and force the big bucks to move.
Mickey-Mouse Drives For Big Bucks:
Many years ago, I learned a tactic from a young man
who brought a trophy 8-point buck by my brother’s
taxidermy shop for mounting. The hunter told me he had
bagged both bucks over the weekend, and his other two
buddies each had taken a buck. “We usually get
one to three bucks  every
weekend we hunt,” the sportsman told me. “We
put on 15-Mickey-Mouse drives each day we hunt. We don’t
drive any area more than 100-yards long and 50-yards
wide. Two standers will take up positions on either
side of the thick cover we drive. One driver will go
through the middle of the cover. The standers can see
any deer that breaks out of the drive, which rarely
takes more than 10 to 20 minutes. We move into an area
and drive it quickly. If a buck holds there, we’ll
take him. If not, we move to the next area. We call
these drives Mickey-Mouse drives because when we take
other hunters with us, they often look at the small
head of woods we plan to hunt and tell us what a Mickey
Mouse kind of place it is and that we’ll never
find a big buck in a spot that small. But these Mickey-Mouse
drives consistently pay big-buck dividends for small
groups of hunters.”
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