John's Journal...

Click to enlargeFORCE THE BUCK TO COME TO YOU

Cut a Path

EDITOR’S NOTE: By providing the buck a place to walk, you can lead him out of thick cover with little trouble.

If you hunt a 2- or 3-year-old very-thick clearcut, visit the area during the summer. Cut a 2-foot wide trail through the clearcut in the direction of the Click to enlargeprevailing wind. For instance, if your area primarily has a northwest wind like much of my home state of Alabama does, cut the trail to go north-south or east-west. If your trail runs north-south, place your ground blind on the southern side of the trail. If the trail runs east-west, put your ground blind on the eastern end of the trail. Then, if the prevailing wind comes from the northwest on the Click to enlargedays you hunt, you’ll have a favorable wind to hunt these thick-cover trails.

Often you’ll find and bag a big buck in a cane thicket or a berry thicket along the edge of a creek or a river. Usually hunters won’t penetrate these thick-cover bedding areas. But Larry Norton of Butler, Alabama, a co-owner of and hunting guide at The Shed, has developed a tactic for hunting cane that will allow you to take big bucks from these hard-to-hunt places. “I look for spots along the edges of the cane where deer trails lead into the cane,” Norton mentions. “I walk 8 or 10 yards into the cane along the trail before I begin to cut a path along the trail with ratchet Click to enlargecutters. I want to clear the trail to allow the deer to move easier through the cane and to see them better. I try to pinpoint two or three different trails that enter the same patch of cane. Once I get a trail cut through the center of the cane patch, I connect all the trails with one long trail 2-feet-wide in the cane. Next, I cut a trail that I can enter and exit from at the end of the trail without making any noise and that other hunters won’t see.” Like the deer he hunts, Norton has learned how to get in and out of thick cover without other hunters spotting him. He also has learned how to take the deer other hunters never see in thick-cover areas.

 TOMORROW: BUILD A HONEY HOLE


Check back each day this week for more about FORCE THE BUCK TO COME TO YOU

Day 1: Block Trails and Build Invisible Trails
Day 2: Make a Brush Funnel
Day 3: Cause a Buck to Come Out of Thick Cover
Day 4: Cut a Path
Day 5: Build a Honey Hole

 

 

Entry 332, Day 4