HOW TO HUNT CLEAR CUTS

Drive Them Out

Editor's Note: For most of their lives, Larry Norton of Pennington, Alabama, and his cousin Ray Moseley either have been members of hunting clubs or operated hunting clubs. In 2002, they decided to lease some property and allow individuals to hunt on the property known as the Shed Hunting Lodge near Butler in west/central Alabama. All this property lies on either private or timber company lands, with the majority of the land clear cut. Most deer hunters have difficulties hunting clear cuts and uneven-age-stand plantations because they don't know the secrets for hunting these areas. But the six hunters who hunted at the Shed last year all took deer, with four of them harvesting bucks that scored 130 points or better on the Boone & Crockett scale. This week, Larry Norton, who avidly hunts deer for more than three months each year and also is a World Champion turkey caller, will tell you secrets for hunting clear cuts and uneven-age pine stands.

* Use man-drives, a particularly productive tactics for hunting pine plantations. If you drive in a hollow, make sure you put standers on the tops of each hill or mountain. Then they can see the deer when the deer get up in the bottom and/or start moving down the draw or up on either side of the mountain. If you're driving a flatland clear cut, then put standers in tree stands so they can see down firebreaks and woods roads that surround the clear cuts. Also when you're driving a clear cut, remember to drive with the wind at your back. You'll want to use human odor to push the deer out of the cover rather than to use a lot of noise to frighten the deer out of the cover. There's a big difference between pushing deer and driving deer. When you push deer, the older-age-class bucks will try to sneak out of the clear cut without making any noise and without being seen by the drivers. When you drive deer out of a clear cut, the bucks will come running out of the clear cut and past the standers like their tails are on fire, and your standers won't be able to get a shot.

* Watch the edges of a pine plantation. Deer will usually create scrapes on the edge of a pine plantation. Deer like to travel edges, and most of the bucks and does that bed down, feed and move in a pine plantation will travel along the edges of the planted pines throughout the day. So, the bucks generally will make a scrape line either along the edge of the pines, along a road or a firebreak that goes around the pines or just inside the hardwoods on the edge of the pines. The best time to hunt a scrape, once you find a line of scrapes, is immediately after a rain. Generally I watch the weather channel to see when and where a line of thunderstorms may be in my area and about how fast that line of thunderstorms is moving. I want to time my hunt so that I can go to a scrape line and set up a tree stand while the rain is still falling. I want to be in my stand and looking for a buck as soon as the rain stops. I've learned that a buck will run a scrape line and freshen up the scrape as quick as he can after the rain stops. And, that's the best time to be on your stand looking for the buck.

TOMORROW: GET HIGH DURING THE RUT IN A YOUNG PINE PLANTATION