TRACKS
AND TRAILS – WHAT DO THEY TELL?
Water, Food and Bedding Trails
EDITOR’S NOTE: You’ve heard talk that a
big buck is feeding in a green field, but despite watching
from dawn to dusk, you haven’t seen hide or hair
of him, just some does and small bucks. What’s
wrong? As long-time deer hunter Larry Norton of Butler,
Alabama, explains, "Big bucks, especially in the
South, rarely come to green fields in daylight hours,
even during the rut. They don't have to come out in
the open and show themselves to find a hot doe but instead
can walk along a trail 30 to 40 yards off the downwind
side of the field and still smell the does. Generally
they'll wait until dark and then move out into the fields
to eat." So, you haven’t seen the big buck
because he’s not using the same trail as the does
and the smaller bucks. The lesson: deer use several
different kinds of paths or trails. If you know what
to look for and where to look, you can take a stand
and drastically increase your ability to find and bag
deer. Let’s take a look at some of those trails,
and try a short quiz that’ll help separate rumor
from reality.
The swamp had flooded, and acorns floated on the surface
of the knee-deep water. From the numbers of cracked
acorns on the bank, I knew deer had fed in this site,
although I couldn't find any tracks. I decided to sit
on the edge of the slough all day to see where the deer
moved and fed. In the early-morning light, I could hear
acorns popping and water pouring as I made out a dark
figure in the 2-foot-deep water. Using my binoculars,
I focused on the object and saw a fat doe knee-deep
in the flooded timber picking
up acorns in her mouth, letting the water run out of
her mouth, cracking the acorns and eating the meat of
the nuts. In 2-l/2 hours, I watched l5-other does moving
along the edges or in the shallow water eating acorns.
These deer walked on an underwater path that led through
the flooded timber and their food.
Once on another flood plain, I located deer tracks
going into the water just at dark. The next morning
I set up a tree stand 20 yards from where I'd seen the
tracks going into the backwoods beaver pond. As I watched,
deer moved back and forth across the pond – apparently
on an underwater ridge only 4 or 5 inches below the
surface but yet not visible from the shore. Hunting
this underwater ridge produced two fine bucks for me
during that season. Each year since when floodwaters
have filled the backwoods, I've bagged a deer there.
Food Trails:
Most hunters consider food trails the easiest and the
most-obvious places for them to attempt to take deer.
However, your setup on a food trail determines your
success. You easily can follow a food trail that leads
to an agricultural field, because generally the deer
will enter the field at a corner, a point or some other
obvious passageway. Take a stand 20 or 30 yards inside
the woodline along the trail that goes to the field.
As Sam Spencer, retired wildlife biologist and longtime
hunter from Alabama, comments, "I set up well away
from a food plot to intercept a deer earlier, since
many deer won't enter a food plot until almost dark.
Then the light is too low for me to shoot accurately."
Often the bigger, better-sized bucks will wait just
before dark l00 to 200 yards down the trails that lead
to the green field. If you can find an alternative
food source like an acorn tree or some wild vegetation
that deer feed on along that trail leading to the green
field, you will have located an excellent spot to bag
a buck. I've watched bucks come down a trail leading
to a green field, stop under an acorn tree and begin
to feed, waiting on nightfall.
Near a particular tree where the deer feed provides
one of the best areas to take deer. Isolated trees make
the most-productive food trees. For instance, if you
find one apple tree in 500 acres of hardwoods where
deer feed or one white oak acorn tree – which
the deer prefer in my area of the country—the
deer in that region probably will come to that tree
to eat. Because several trails from various directions
lead into that food tree, you may not know where to
place your tree stand. However, you can funnel deer
from one trail to another by using human odor as a barrier
on the trails you don't want the deer to travel down.
Ronnie Groom, an instructor who teaches deer-hunting
seminars from Panama City, Florida, suggests that you,
"Move l50- to 200-yards away from the food tree,
and walk across each one of the trails you don't want
the deer to use – carefully leaving plenty of
human odor on these trails. When the deer come down
the trail you've tried to X out, they'll smell human
odor, leave the trail and move to the trail you want
them to walk down that doesn't have human odor it."
Bedding Trails:
In most areas when deer get pressured, they'll move
to their beds just at daylight. By locating a buck's
food source and bedding area, you can place your stand
and climb in it before daylight. Mark Drury of Missouri,
the creator of M.A.D. Calls, says, "I get as close
to a bedding area as I can without disturbing the deer
so I have the most light. I hunt farther off the trails
than most people I know and always on the downwind side.
Many people make the mistake of hunting too close to
where they anticipate taking the shot." In scouting
a bedding region, spend as little time as possible to
determine where to put your tree stand. As Drury observes,
"Deer won't feel secure in a bedding area if they
detect human odor. Always scout bedding sites in advance
of deer season before the bucks become so sensitive
to human sightings and smell. Also I don't cross any
bedding trails if I can avoid them and will go out of
my way to not cross them."
Clarence Yates, longtime bowhunter from Birmingham,
Alabama, reports, "You never should hunt a deer's
bedding region when the wind blows in the wrong direction.
If you hunt next to lowlands, remember air usually will
move from higher elevations to the lower part of a hollow
in the evenings. So set up on the lower side of the
trail going to and from the deer's bedding site. If
I can't get to a bedding site well before daylight and
climb in my stand with a favorable wind direction, then
I'll hunt another place that day. I've learned if I
spook a buck coming to his bed, more than likely I won't
see that animal again during the rest of the season."
TOMORROW: ESCAPE TRAILS, NIGHT
TRAILS AND SNOW TRAILS
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