Discussion: Creating trails

How do you 1. go about creating trails/roads for your travel both by foot and atv? 2. go about creating game trails? How do you funnel movement of deer and keep your trails from crossing typically used trails by deer?

Find the bedding area and food source. Then look for travel routes between them. Cutting a shooting lane between them or simply thin it out enough for you to shoot. Try to keep it as natural as possible. And make sure your approach to your stand doesn't cross it.

Blahblah keep it up. Love your discussion topics in the off season.

I've funneled deer into green fields by hinge cutting, and making certain areas impassable and leaving "fence openings" at desired areas.

But I've also cut trails in cutovers. I start by using my Brush blade attachment then followed by round up. Do it mid summer and it should last until winter

Ok, I'll bite. Why not simply hunt existing trails? When you find them you know the deer are already using them don't you?

lol i didn't realize his screen name and thought you were being a jerk.


I always just hunt existing trails. Do you just create new trails to get them closer to your stand or something?

Yeah I tried like 5 screen names and got tired of it and just typed blahblahblah and boom it accepted.

Smells, I do hunt existing trails. My biggest problem is that they hardly ever use the same one I'm on. So I mainly don't create deer trails, I really like to redirect their trails. I block a couple and sit on the other.

Gotcha. Can you find any places where 2 or more intersect anywhere close to a funnel? I guess I'm lazy and don't want to try to create terrain features with no guarantee that they will do what I want them to do.

We cut some trails to access some shooting houses from the back. The deer started using them too.

bambam, I have had that too. Most of my stands that can be hunted in multiple winds I cut two trails to the stand. I often put something up to block them from coming onto the trails unless I am able to hunt the trail.

well if you aint got alot of trees to choose from or if you want to attempt to force a deer to take a different path with a better tactical advantage for the hunter. But mostly folks doin it for hunting purposes and not traveling purposes are just tryin to create places to place stands maybe with a better prevailing wind direction or ease of acess. If you wanted to get real serious with it you could create your own bed to feed pattern so to speak clear an area in a way that it get ample sunlight let it grow up an get thick then find your easiest accessible edge and nearest point of acess to a food source that you have established and create a trail from bed to feed with stands posted at various strategic points. They do this quiet a bit actually in places like kansas and other states that produce large deer and lack easy huntable cover. I actually guided some gentlemen a few years back who had a company that did just this, i believe they called themselves Buckbeds. An you would pay them to come to your property and do just as ive described. Tho i dont know how it went for them.

If you have a wide SMZ or another type area and you want to get the deer more concentrated just take some hog wire and run a fence across the SMZ area and leave a 40 or so foot opening in it. Deer are a little lazy and will use the opening rather than having to jump the fence.

Deer will most always take the path of least restistance. Making trails also creates browse. I use a gas pole saw and hedge trimmer.

I've had a bulldozer cut lanes thru our thisk stuff, so you could actually see a deer. Keep them maintained either with a bushhog or a sprayer.

That is an interesting idea. Thanks for the tip

I use a tractor and rear blade to make trails

My uncle used to bush hog paths in grown up crop fields for rabbit hunting. I learned real quick that the deer loved to use some of them for travel. Normally it was the paths that connected one wood line to another. I killed a couple of nice bucks in those strips.

I found a deer trail that was parallel to the woods about 40 yards from open hardwoods in 8-10' tall pines. I blocked the trail with some brush and then opened up a "bypass" around the blocked trail. I brought the new trail about 10-15 yards from the open woods and thinned just enough to shoot into it. Worked like a charm.

I raked a walking trail in some open hardwoods after all the leaves fell for me to be able to slip into my stand, backfired on me. The deer started using my trail and I would either bump them on way in or they would smell me where I walked in.