 FORCE
THE BUCK TO COME TO YOU
Block Trails and Build Invisible Trails
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Many times to take a nice-sized
buck, you have to force him to come to you,” Larry
Norton of Butler, Alabama, a co-owner and hunting guide
at The Shed, says. “By blocking trails you don’t
want the deer to use, you can remove the deer’s
options of where he can walk. He’ll have to come
to you.”
 For
several consecutive mornings, Norton had seen a nice-sized
buck crossing a backwoods logging road. He found three
different trails the buck apparently had used. However,
every morning that Norton set up to bag the buck, the
deer took a different trail, each time staying out of
bow range. Finally Norton parked his truck o the side
of the road where the buck easily could see it if he
came down either of the two trails. Then he put his
tree stand 20 yards from the third trail. That morning
when the buck walked under Norton’s stand, Norton
arrowed the heavy 8 point.
Build Invisible Odor Trails:
 You
also can cause bucks to move toward you by hanging a
piece of clothing on a trail. If three trails lead into
a food tree you want to hunt, place a handkerchief or
a sock 50-yards downwind of the food tree hanging over
the trails you don’t want the deer to take. The
deer will see and smell the clothing and funnel off
the marked trails onto the remaining trail that leads
to you.
“I hunt some public land in Florida where I knew
a big deer had bedded-down in thick cover on one end
of a ridge surrounded by a swamp,” Ronnie Groom
of Panama City, Florida, an avid, longtime deer hunter
who often teaches bowhunting schools in Alabama, told
me. “To trick the buck, I walked to the bedding
area on top of  the
ridge and retraced my trail back to my stand. Then I
walked from my stand to the water, remaining on the
shore. When I headed back to the bedding region, I left
a scent trail on either side of the bedding site, which
backed-up to the water. This gave the buck a water barrier
on the back side of his bedding area and two scent lines
of human odor—one on the ridge and one against
the water—that funneled him to my tree stand.
Just before dark, I saw the buck emerge from the cover,
moving in the middle of the funnel I’d made. He
walked straight to me. If I hadn’t put down those
scent trails, the buck could have escaped over the ridge
or waded out through the swamp. But because I blocked
him with human odor, I forced him to come to me.”
TOMORROW: MAKE A BRUSH
FUNNEL
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