Very interesting experience

I’ve been planning a new atv trail, but time and lack of ambition got in the way. I was reluctant to install it so close to hunting season, but did it anyways hoping the deer would adjust and accept it come shooting time…well that didn’t take long, less than 12 hours later, overnight, the trail is littered with hoof prints from one end to the other. Hooda thunk??

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You just made it easier for them!

Nice trail. Funny to see how quickly the lure of easy walking will overcome what must be a lot of scent and noise disturbance caused by making the trail.

I’ve really wanted to talk to the deer about this kind of thing. On one hand, yes they do like easy walking and will use trails.

But I have several places where the deer won’t use the trail and instead will go bushwacking through the thick, nasty stuff to get to the same place the trail leads. Why?

I have a field road that connects two large food plots. Sure, the deer will walk from plot a to plot b on the road, but most of them use a trail that runs through the brush and thorns and literally parallels the road. You’d think eventually one of them would say, “Hey guys, we’re doing it the hard way.” But they don’t. I’d say 90% of the deer use the deer trail instead of just walking down the field road. There’s no other factor that I can see, the field road is not within sight of a county road or neighboring place, so it’s not that the deer feel exposed. Funny creatures.

Grouse

Glad they enjoyed the new trail, did a similar thing last year and the deer use 50% trail and 50% wood from what I did.

Grouse – I’d like to ask them too. Story someone once told me that they were tracking a deer down a logging road and it would veer off the trail at random points into the woods then back onto the logging road. Deer did this like 3 times, finally he gave up and turned back. Come to find out every time the deer veered off the logging road it was 50+yds before a treestand was setup from a hunter. The deer new exactly where to go and avoid those stands behind the hunter so they never knew.

I’m kind of wondering if they were feeding on the newly and easy Pickens roots that I churned up. I mean the trail looked like a freeway of deer hoof prints large, small, and in between.

Plus, I think the local deer equate the noisy bright orange tractor with the good eats I plant for them. I’m thinking of naming the Kioti “Food Truck”.