Man Made Deer Trails

[Hortontoter]

Whats your opinion of deer using man made trails in the woods. I'm talking four wheeler trails, tractor paths or just trails mowed with a lawn tractor. I have trails I keep mowed in my woods. I place stands near the intersections of these trails. It seems the deer use them frequently. I noticed in some of Jesse's threads he hunts near trail intersections also. Do many of you hunt near man made trails? If so, how successful have you been?

 

[uglykat26]

deer will always use the path of least resistance , at least around me the do , i like hunting old loging roads if i can find them

 

[moundhill]

I'm a fan of them, a few years back we put in some trails around our land with a skid steer, and after a couple years those were almost the only trails they used.

 

[cotty16]

Yep, I've seen them use trails that I scrape leaves from to my stand as well.

 

[camofry]

I use them all the time for snaring coyote and fox. Critters are just like us when it comes to walking, we look for the easy way.

 

[Huckleberry Finn]

Yes, I use them when placing stands.

 

[RedCloud]

Man made trails are great. I have deer that use old quad trails that run all over the one set of woods. They use them even more if you can keep the leaves off of them or at least crunched down. They don't like to make noise walking in the woods anymore then we do. Predators and Prey like to have stealth whenever possible so they don't draw unwanted attention to themselves. The best time of year I have seen these small man made trails be really effective is in the winter. Food isn't as abundant and so they will go out of their way to find the easiest trail that uses the least amount of effort to save from burning precious calories. Last year I had 27+ deer on trail cam in the same pic all using a quad trail in late season.

Now, do I setup on these trails. not usually. I much rather look for trails that split off of the man made trails. As stated above these man made trails are easy to use and less effort but the trails that split off are much better to hunt over IMO. It shows me that the deer WANT and NEED to use this type of trail that breaks off to get to where there going. I will usually hunt the first intersection of these types of trails. I figure if the deer are going to go through that much effort to abandon the easy way, then the draw for food, water, or cover is high and plus some of the older deer have been there and done that and kind of stay away from man made trails. For those older deer that have busted a hunter or have been shot at using the man made trails you may never seen them if you don't go off into the woods a little ways on game trails.

Overall, the man made trails are great and can be advantageous to the deer and the hunter most times but don't forget to look at those other breakaway trails too .

 

[jagermeister]

I see them using man-made trails on occasion, but if the man-made trail isn't a shorter walk than a "normal" deer trail it's useless IMO. It may be a quieter walk, but if it's a meandering path they're not going to use it frequently. Keep in mind too that, if it's an ATV or tractor trail, it offers much less cover than "normal" deer trails. IMO, it's because of this that I've noticed many more doe groups using man-made trails than mature bucks. Some of the best buck trails I've found look more like tunnels than trails.

 

[saddlepants]

Back at my "good spot" I used to go out and leaf blow the path to my stand....the deer used it more than the path they made where I chose to put the damn stand! pretty soon the other guys got the idea and we would have a leaf blowing party once in awhile.

 

["J"]

We take a quad and make a trail through the tall weeds leading right too one of our stands, the thick cover around the trail still offers them planty of concealment and they just browse their way through.... Been doing it for years with good success so far.... UK was right about the path of least resistance as long as they feel safe and cover is available.... We moved a stand yesterday and I will be hunting it Friday so I'm post the results.....

 

[Hortontoter]

Thanks for all the comments. I think you may have the right idea RedCloud. Hunting the deer trails that connect to the man made trails is probably a good tactic.

 

[RedCloud]

Thanks for all the comments. I think you may have the right idea RedCloud. Hunting the deer trails that connect to the man made trails is probably a good tactic.

Another thing to watch is a trail that runs parallel to the man made trails. Seems the bucks use those more often then not. They are usually about 10-20 yards to one side or the other. They can still see and smell the other deer that use those trails but still stay in the cover.