Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The art of the drive

In this forum there is a thread 'The art of still hunting'. Thought it would be interesting to talk about big game drives.

It is another arrow in my quiver when hunting big game and has been very effective. What are your thoughts?

The first deer hunts I was part of were drives back East. There weren't a lot of deer back then but we had some success.

I've done a few small drives where one of us pushed a little pocket of brush while another covered the open ground. It worked well in the open wheat country I used to hunt where there were scattered draws with some small pockets of heavy cover.

I've always wanted to try some drives on some of the heavily timbered or brushy islands in some of the bigger Alaska rivers. I think during mid day or warm days it might work well for moose. I always see moose tracks on those islands but I don't know that I've ever heard of any one conducting a drive on them.

A well coordinated drive is an effective way to hunt. I'm anxious to hear the stories folks have to share.

Growing up i never knew anything but the drive. Did not know how to sit and wait for deer. A lot of deer killed and a lot missed. Takes a knack to hit deer running wide open. That was for meat hunting and not trophy. ED K

The first deer drive I was invited on was a real eye opener. North MO farm country, big fields, small cover, lots of deer.

I was brought up hunting hills and hardwoods, and low deer densities.

I think I saw more deer on that one drive than I had seen in the previous 5 deer seasons and bigger bucks than I had ever seen in my life.

The second year I was invited we did one drive that ended with 21 deer tags filled.

Now almost 20 years later, the main group is older, and more interested in getting their kids a shot, so the drives are all but a thing of the past. 2 and 3 man drives that take 30-45 minutes still happen the last weekend, but no more of the 15+ men drives with the appropriate amount of piss and vinegar.

Know your ground, know your people, have a couple decision makers who make the rules. Stay where you are supposed to be, follow the declared route. Short drives usually work the best. We didn't do any yelling. Wear orange, see another of your crew, try and let them know you are there.

Drives with too many can get a little crazy and scary.

This is how I learned to hunt whitetail. At that time, there was enough land that wasn't posted that we could take two or three days of the first week and do it from daylight until dark; we literally hunted like dogs, but we killed LOTS of deer, far more productive than the stand hunting I do today.

Over Thanksgiving Dinner, I looked down the table at my two sons, my nephew and their fine, healthy girlfriends and told my brother, "It's time to start beating the brush again." My brother said, the ATV's and hand-held radios came about 10 years too late for us, we walked our tails off.

As battue stated, you or the shot-callers must have intimate knowledge of your ground. We usually had one guy in charge of the standers and one in charge of the drivers. In all actuality, battue summed it up nicely, not much I can add.

Also, if you were on stand and missed, your shirt tail was cut off regardless of temperature and your would be driving the rest of the week. Learn to shoot or walk was the motto of the day.

I usually conduct one man drives for blacktail deer. Use the terrain to flush them up an opposing hillside for a look and a shot. It works well if you know your quarry and ground.

this years-



years past-



Works better with one man but if there were two I'd place them on opposing hillsides and flush the canyon bottom up the sides as you travelled up or down the canyon in unison.

Growing up, I was the bird dog and flushed small points, knobs, brush patches, hillsides, reprod thickets, creek bottoms, anything that might hold a blacktail. Dad and grandpa were the shooters. Their favorite setup was covering a ridge point where it came down to the road. Dad would be one side of the corner and grandpa around the corner looking the other way. They shot any buck that mom and I flushed from above the road into the road.

It was the preferred way of hunting, making it happen rather than just standing around hoping for something.

It's been a long time since I participated in a drive. I hunt alone now as my father and uncles are in their 80's and don't get out hunting anymore. My cousins all moved away and don't get to camp either. I do remember the good ol' days when one or two of my uncles would drive the cedar swamp where the deer would bed down and hold tight. I shot many deer being posted along the edge of the swamp. The deer would come flying out then stop about 30 yards after exiting the swamp in the hardwoods to pause and look back. If they were worth shooting they'd get hammered. My uncles would basically spread apart about 30 to 50 yards and slowly walk the swamp. They usually plugged one too. It worked. Problem today is too many folks go to there insulated/heated shack and sit there all day and don't move. The deer figure out where these mini houses are, avoid them, and make there way to their beds and don't move until dark. If folks don't bump them they don't move and stay nocturnal. Everyone benefits from a drive. I have a family that drives their property a couple of forties south of where I hunt every season. I see a lot of action from it and appreciate it.

About all I can add is Pay Attention! We had one guy who was famous for his radio and ear bud, you could almost always count on him to not see the deer or screw up his route. But he was family so...

Most of the old gang is gone now, my buddy and I put on some small drives, sometimes my Dad will join us as a watcher. It's not the same but way better than sitting all day.

Dale

you know the drive well, sir. I would add a few small points.
We add satellite maps of the property. it helps when assigning positions and field of Fire.
Second, no yelling, waving, beating drums is Needed, the deer will know you are there when just passing through at a slow walk. Running deer are harder to shoot ethically, and the adrenaline flavors the meat. (Yes, you can taste panic).
Done right, it it should just be a gentle bump, to get them to move on to a place a little less crowded.
a deer will swim the river if it must, but it doesn't want to go in that cold water any more than you do. if it has time for an orderly withdrawal it will find the shallows, across where the trails are.
if he has a choice, he will head for the exits that he and you already know.
we have one property that we hunt as a drive, several times every hunting trip
it is the best producer we have. We just took 5 out of it. it's a tangled strip of ground between a shallow River and cornfields all hills and valleys, and cliff edges.
always know the Contour of the land, where the deer can hide out of sight, where they can travel unobserved, where they can cross the river. ( not just where food and bedding are).
if you're one of the shooters, helps to be higher up you can see further, you can see movement better, you are less likely to be spotted, and even less in the line of fire because the shooters are shooting down.
( when I can figure out how to get pictures off my phone and onto the site, I can post a few pics of the Bruiser that maxed out my game scale, with his head still on the ground. (Part unicorn)

Ah, such memories. One who has mastered the drive is a true Jagermeister.

The hunter who put me on my first whitetail is the best I've ever known. Some years later he bet me $10 that he could kill three deer with one shot the next deer season. Sounded like a good investment to me, as it assured he would let me tag along that day.

As the fateful drive opened, I wondered how he was going to both drive the deer and stand. Then I heard his shotgun.

By the time I got there he was standing over the doe with two embryonic fawns in his hand ...

When I started hunting in the early 70's our club used drives pretty much dawn to dusk as long as there were two or more hunters. You learned the value of quick handling rifles and how to hit running deer.

At our peak when everyone was reasonably fit and capable of walking all day we'd do 6 to 8 drives a day and it took about three days to cover the area we hunted. Worked best when we could field 6 to 10 or more fully capable hunters.

The area we hunt has a pretty low deer density, but we've turned in some three buck days with drives.

We still do some drives, but typically only about half days now. These days if we actually get six or more people together at the same time only about half of them can actually do the drive part. Age, injuries and ills have slowed us down!

Driving for deer is one of the most exciting action-packed ways to deer hunt.

Someday I'd love to go down south and participate in one of those big thicket drives with dogs.

There's a cool video out that is all about public land deer drives. It's about 2 hours and I enjoyed watching it.

Here's a link to buy it from Amazon- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SIE5NZC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, a couple of us had permission to hunt a farm near us. It was several hundred acres with several large corn and soy bean fields with woods in between and along the creek bottoms. The problem was they gave permission to a lot of people and of coarse we had our share of people that walked on without permission.

We used to park at the American Legion which backed up to the property. At the other end of the farm, there was "The Thicket". It was about 200 yards wide and about 500 yards long. It sat between 2 fields with open woods at either end. It was full of cedar trees and heavy brush with briars. Every opening day after our morning hunt, we'd catch breakfast at a local diner and then drive the thicket before we'd go back to the tree stands in the afternoon. Sometimes we had as many as 10 guys, and sometimes as few as 3.

We'd draw straws to see who had to drive and who got to stand. The standers would stand in specific spots on the end and the sides. We'd do a slow quiet push and we always had deer coming out of there. The drivers needed to ready for deer coming across headed for a quick exit out the sides. It was fun.

One year, there was an older guy there with his young son who wanted to go on the drive with us. He was a nice and all, but he was clueless. Luckily, him and his son were drivers, but then again, maybe not. I was standing at the end with a couple of other guys about 50 yards apart. When they stared driving, all I could hear was a bunch of yelling and hollering. I'm thinking....WTF!!! The deer came out of there like a title wave. We had deer running everywhere at full speed. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. Out of all of that shooting and deer running, we only killed one doe. I was using a Rem 1100 with 5 slugs and the gun was empty when it was all over. The whole thing lasted a total of about 45 seconds. I couldn't believe this guy was yelling like that. It's very difficult to hit a deer at full speed coming out of thick schit like that. I was pissed.

The RED part of Maryland.....You've got to be in either Garrett or Allegheny County and I'm betting Garrett.

Actually, I'm in North West Montgomery (the red part) and work in Frederick.

The first drives for Whitetails I participated in was without a gun. My brother and other youngsters were the hounds sent into the swamps and thickets of the Wisconsin northwoods. We observed a lot of action and couldn't wait until we could get a license and gun. That enthusiasm is still with me today.

Granddad's deer camp petered out due illness and age to a point where it was sold. I was in the service when it got sold and I vowed to setup my own camp after I got mustered out and have been fortunate to start up two camps.

The key to my current camp is youth recruitment and the enthusiasm that comes with it. Deer drives are a great way to involve the youth and retain their interest. Plus, some of the middle age hunters don't like to sit hours on end.

Over the years some hunters dropped out on their own or were not invited back for a variety of reasons. The main reason for dropouts is the military like discipline required in conducting successful drives.

Some observations about deer responses to a drive.

Many will move into the wind. Others will move in a direction regardless of wind. Others will not move at all. In a single drive you can't account for all and that is what makes it interesting.

The single most action that has improved our success is drive the same area subsequently from the opposite direction or crosswise. Another significant action is not hesitate to drive a large tract of woods with 10 to 12 hunters. Drive one part, move over and drive, and so forth.

What really is satisfying is to drive a woods that others had just drove and kill big bucks.

Cool.

Glad there is red East of Hancock, I would've never dreamed it existed. Maybe there's hope for that state yet, lol.

Post more standers than drivers...

That's not always true, it depends on the woods you're driving and where the deer tend to cross-out.