Deer Travel Corridor

[roostersbane]

Thinking about making a deer 'road' across an open field to connect two pcs of cover. This is an area that the deer cross, but normally well after dark.

I'm going to take a Double Bottom plow and plow a trail between the cover then follow it back in the opposite direction to make a wide, low ditch-furrow. Then I'll plant screening shrubs along the sides. Should make a decent travel corridor. Any thoughts/experience?

[Ed Spin04]

Travel lanes, (corridors) work best if 30 feet wide. They can be as narrow as fifteen feet in width but wider is better. If the lane is 60 or more feet wide they can also serve as bedding lanes, providing the cover within these lanes are tall and dense. I beleive your thinking is based on the fact deer prefer to travel an open field using the lowest elevation route. The lower elevation thinking is good, the furrow thing I'm not enthused, but I've been wrong before. Travel lanes can be many things, warm season native grasses, WSNG, with the emphasis on switchgrass. They can be those evil phragmites, which are darn near unbeatable as deer bedding and travel uses. Take a good look at the spacing of these tall phragmite plants. They seem to be just right for deer to move easily through, but yet provide exellant screening with deer only a few feet within. No, I'm not suggesting you plant it just making an honest observation. Just the other day I seen a field of several acres and on dry land, not a ditch bank. I stopped the truck and walked through it just for the experience. As mentioned they are darn near unbeatable. Lanes can be brush as you mentioned Roosterbane or conifers or all of the above. You might want to create that lane to come alongside a camoflauged and elevated ambush blind. nothing makes a deer so at ease as when they travel in tall dense cover. Plant a 30 feet minimum swath of NWSG's, forage sorghum or tall field corn, (not sweet corn) next to woods and observe the movement of deer as they safely pass by, (or so they think). Occasionally I tell the following in my presentations. I beleive it was 1994 in late July and I was cruising my corn for evidence of the European corn borer. If the investation is high I will not plant corn there next year. This time of year the corn is tassling. The silk grows out of the ends of corn ears and is fine fair for deer. I'm walking down the rows and observe a deer around 10 yards in front of me chowing down on silk. Then I note that he is a young buck about a five pointer. The wind is up and the direction is in my favor. He does'nt pick up on my presence and moves on to the next corn plant and goes for the silk. Hmmmnn I wonder, "Can I, should I"? When he is busy silk chewing I move forward. I'm gaining and eventually within two feet of his rear. I raised my right hand over his back and dropped it within six inches of his rump. I froze at that position. He moved forward, I stayed frozen, he moved forward again. Eventually he was safely out of my area and never knew that I had made a cue. I left and not believing what I had just experienced. Deer do feel at ease in tall dense cover.

[roostersbane]

The reasons behind the furrow are:
1) I burnt 60acres last fall and to protect the switch stands we plowed around them. I saw quite a few bucks running the furrow like a train on a track!
2) As you mentioned the deer always seem to use the lower elev's at my property for travel lanes...though this may also be due to the extra cover growing there.
3) When mentioning the above observations to a buddy who hunts all over the country, he noted that some managers use dozers to cut low travel lanes and plant them up with sorg/sudan grasses.

I'm trying to get the deer to use a new travel path and get them to use it in daylight, too. The field I want them to cross is actually planted to WSG...put it in last spring...but I want them to cross at this particular spot which will quickly put them into my sanctuary area.

Thanks for your response.

[Junior Mint]

Did you ever like walking across a plowed field? The deer probably follow the furrow because it is firmly packed, flat soil that is much easier to walk across than plowed soil. Remember, deer are LAZY (when not on high alert). I usually drive a set of two tracks into chisel plowed fields to achieve the same result. If your even given the opportunity try making a cross row path about 18" wide in standing corn from one end of the field to the other, then watch them make a deer highway right past your stand!

[Junior Mint]

Hey Ed,

When you make these travel corridors, do the deer typicall travel inside, or on the edge of the corridor

[Ed Spin04]

Inside primarily, except if the travel lane is very dense, example, thick growth of spruce, too thick switchgrass etc, then sometimes they will use the lane as a dropback cover and move alongside. Again I emphasize the word, 'sometimes' deer movement can be controlled but not 100%. Roosterbane, your reasoning has much merit. Sorghum Sudan is a tall grass that works fair as a cover. I prefer Forage Sorghum Sudan BMR, which is a hybrid that has a sweet taste deer like, especially after it forms seed heads and/or becomes mature. Plant this tall, '8-9 feet' plant in early June. Deer have a hard time staying away from it. It doesn't have standability like switchgrass and after deer find it to their liking, you will find lodging, (fallen stalks) as if a herd of elephants cruised thru. Repeat, deer have a hard time staying away from this plant. Plant it alongside a wood edge in a lane of 30 feet wide and you will see. Plant it around your food plot as cover, Plant it as bedding cover deep in the woods, plant it as a travel lane leading from or too bedding areas or food plots, plant it with your seeding of switchgrass to have a first year draw or for any other reason you can think of.

[farmlegend]

If you want to create a travel corridor with precision, to the point where deer will walk right where you want them to, try this one.

In your plot of NWSG's(I prefere Indiangrass + Big Blue + Little Blue + forbs), mow a trail right through the stuff where you want the deer to travel. The narrower the better. My neighbor has a DR brand brush mower with power drive that mows a swath probably no wider than two feet, and that is ideal. Give these trails their final mowing in late September. Then, stay off of them yourself. Locate the trails strategically, so that they may either go past a stand location, or begin/terminate in desired spots. Deer can and will move right down these trails with great confidence and frequency.

Myself, I take the lazy way, my mowed trails are 5ft wide, corresponding with the width of my bush hog. They're still effective.

[hunterrep]

I have tried what FL suggests and it works. The only difference is that instead of mowing, I went in at green up and sprayed about a 24 inch wide travel lane with glyphosphate. It got beaten down with tracks.
Not to wander off of the topic but this question go me to thinking. I've often heard that switchgrass can be planted too thick to the point that deer don't prefer to use it. While I have never seen a situation of too thick of NWSG, I've wondered if a person could use the above method that I described not only for making trails/travel corridors, but how about stopping along the way and spraying some 4 foot circles that could be used as beds. Seem like they would find them and utilize them if they were put right off the trail.

[Grouse Hunter]

I, I've wondered if a person could use the above method that I described not only for making trails/travel corridors, but how about stopping along the way and spraying some 4 foot circles that could be used as beds. Seem like they would find them and utilize them if they were put right off the trail.


Hmm, now that just might work!