Terrain Trails and Mating trails

EDITOR'S NOTE: Simply finding a deer trail won't provide enough information to make you hang a tree stand and plan to hunt that trail. Many ingredients make some deer trails better than others. To effectively hunt trails, you need to know ..
* why and when the deer use the trail,
* where the deer will go and
* what time of day or night the deer will move down the trail.

With this information, you can hunt trails and take deer more productively than a hunter who simply finds a trail and hangs a tree stand. Let's take a closer look at some different types of deer trails and what you can learn from these trails to help you hunt more effectively.

Because terrain trails concentrate deer coming and going from two different directions onto a very narrow path, bowhunters often have success on them. You may find a terrain trail in a saddle between two mountains, because deer will cross the mountain range in this saddle -- the lowest place. By taking a stand on either side of the mountain, the hunter has the best chance to bag a buck.

If you place your stand in the middle of a saddle and spook deer, the animals may run back the way they've come and spook other deer coming up the trail. However, if you take a stand on either side of a saddle, if a buck does spook, he either may run to the left or the right instead of back up the trail from where he's come. Then you'll have an opportunity to shoot at deer coming down the trail all day -- even if your spook one or two animals.

Deer often will utilize a terrain break in flatlands by walking a creek bottom or a wash through thick cover. As an avid deer hunter who has taken more than l00 deer with his bow, mentions, "Deer like the path of least resistance just like humans do. For example, a small creek crossing that is grown up on each side and has an opening in the brush will be where deer usually will go through -- just like people will."

You can easily identify a terrain trail that follows a path along the edge of a creek or a riverbank. Traveling along the edges of water gives deer an instant and immediate terrain break they can use to put between danger and themselves, particularly if hunters or other predators spook the deer.

Depending on the position of a trail along a creek or a pond, you may find either wading the water and hunting from the water and/or if possible, putting up a tree stand on the opposite side of a small creek from the trail the most productive. Or, when hunting a backwoods pond with flooded timber, place your tree stand in one of the trees out in the pond. Then you can approach and leave your stand by wading the water and eliminate the human odor you normally will leave on the ground.

During the rut, deer often will walk mating trails. As a buck expands his territory to try and service more does, he probably will have a regular route he travels in search of females.

Tomorrow: Water, Food and Bedding Trails