Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hunting Standing Corn

Does anyone do this? Seems like I've heard a few stories about surprising a buck in close quarters and having to shoot in self-defense. Danger aside, I'm not seeing an advantage. Hunting the perimeter, maybe.

Watch out for combines.

that's what prompted my question. i have hunter safety ed this weekend and want to discuss this...any reason to get in there, don't see it, but i don't have the experience many here have

I never had the op or privilege.

I understand the advantage....being a stalker or still hunter.

MUST, MUST, MUST hunt INTO the wind.

MUST go S L O W !

BE Locked & Loaded !! ON GO !!!!

Anticipation is high. Stealth is invigorating !

I've slipped up on friends who didn't KNOW I was in the county.....the closer I get...the bigger the smile.
NOT while hunting > EDIT

Jerry

Doing so with others scares the bejeesus out of me.
And while I haven't done it in probably 20 years, I've killed a handful of bucks both with bow and gun in the rows of a cornfield – all during really crappy weather w/rain & wind.

It is very dangerous. you could be shot by a sound hunter who thought he was alone in the corn field... I will never give anyone that chance to shoot me ... they are out there....

YES Scott

ONLY by myself w/in 1/4 mi.

Jerry

few of these comments are kinda what i figured. There's other lessons, too, like better communication with the landowner about what the heck is going on

sse

Not being critical. I simply took that for granted. Never trespass. Landowner understanding & agreement.

Jerry

I have experienced similar results as you, Scott, when the wind is rattling the corn or it is very wet. I walk perpendicular to the rows looking left and right. With maybe just a couple exceptions the encounters have been near the end of the corn rows and the deer facing towards the end of the row. This may speak to the theory that Whitetails like "edge" habitat.

What is really exciting is being part of an army driving a corn field. If you are a stander you can hear the deer coming way before you see them.

Yeah, I can 'hear' that ! LOL


Jerry

I used to know folks who hunted swamps like that.

This same army drives back water "wetlands" and islands.

organized and effective, as long as somebody knows how to shoot

Yes sir - in nearly every case.




That's for sure.

Back in the day, my father had seen a decent buck cross the road and into an 80 acre cornfield. There was a pretty good slope to the field so I went around to the back side and shimmied up one of the big maples that lined the fence row and could see down into darn near the whole field. Dad got a couple of his friends around the field and then a few folks went into the corn.

From my vantage point, I could see bits and pieces of deer running all over - it was actually pretty entertaining. Some of the guys pushing were getting about 10 yards from the deer before they'd move. As they worked the field down the hill and toward me, I could see 4 different bucks in the field - darting, dodging, stopping, listening. Soon three of the bucks decided to get out of dodge with the nicer of the four headed directly my way and I ended up shooting him right beneath the tree (though I'll admit to my gun being out of slugs when he was finally down LOL). Two of the other bucks busted out of the corn and after WWIII, those two were on the ground. The other buck was patient enough to figure things out and I watched him sneak back between two of the guys pushing and he headed the way they'd entered the field (we didn't have enough guys to put a few guys at the back door).

As we'd all rendezvoused in the field, talking, laughing, gutting, an even bigger buck came out of the corn, trotting right past the 8 of us – all with unloaded guns and he headed for parts unknown.

I used to love doing that sort of thing but damn, you had better know your hunting companions and trust the heck out of them.

A couple of weeks ago, a 14-year old on a youth deer hunt in norther lower Michigan was killed when he apparently fell asleep while sitting in a field of standing corn and was run over by a corn harvester. Pretty sad situation...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-hunter-14-dies-run-corn-harvester-reports

Yeah, was just about to post this !

If you do do it, don't stop for a sleep.

Something for your Hunter Ed talk SSE.

I think I’d find where they are coming and going from corn and hunt that. It would be safer.

How many corn fields do you hunt in TX?

The reason one hunts IN the corn is because they're not coming OUT OF the corn.

Clueless.

I've pulled this off a couple times on an 18 acre field that has some pasture around it. There's CRP on both sides of that and a river on one side. It wouldn't work if there wasn't good habitat on both sides. I've done the perpendicular to the rows thing. Deer seem to prefer the upwind side.
I set up a deer stand on a telephone pole in a corn field a couple times just to prove it could be done. I took CNS shots because I didn't want them running. One year I combined the inside headlands leaving 12 rows all the way around then did a couple 6 row passes. Some of the deer kept circling back at the end. We punched 3 antlerless tags there.
When it was just me my brother and my brother in law we used to push corn fields. My oldest nephew isn't disciplined for that and he's mid 30s so I don't like the odds. There are 5 other nephews and a niece who show promise but we have a weak link. The drivers don't have much of a chance at a safe shot at a deer. The standers usually get the deer.

during archery if its windy and rainy ill look for standing corn to still hunt.

On windy and rainy days you would surprised how close you can get to a deer bedded in standing corn. Fresh soft snow or a snow storm works well too. Walk into a row, slowly per your head intent next row and look up and down. If see one back off a few rows and try and make your way down to them. 2 to 3 man drives with archery in the winter is fun too.

Ive shot about a doz over the years in the corn with a recurve


trying to stand hunt or ground blind hunt exit and entry trails is a crap shoot in the corn

Well. I didn’t know. I guessed they leave the woods to feed in the fields like they do here. I have hunted many milo and winter wheat fields. They leave the brush at dusk to go out in the fields. I’d move a tripod to bow hunt where they came out.

They don’t leave the fields to water??

Our deer seasons are cold enough that they can take a drink at night and be good for the day. If it's been a rough harvest there can be snow in the corn and they don't need to leave for anything.

I did this back in my early thirties when corn rows were 2 1/2’ wide here and the stalks within a row were, say, a foot apart.
As Skane said a late fall rain or soft snow (before harvest) quieted your working down the row but you also needed wind to cover your sound. With the wind right you could shoot across rows and a little ahead as you spotted a buck peacefully bedded, maybe ten yards away

This is where quality wool clothes really worked. I used KOM in that Blowdown Grey. Worked perfectly.

The way corn is planted now it would be impossible to get down a row quietly unless you’d be 4’ thirty pound midget.

That makes sense, most always hot down here. Deer are in the shade most all day, come out near dark. Watering holes are good places to hunt. The deer here wouldn’t have a clue what snow was. I’ve raked up baskets of Live Oak acorns, taken them to west Texas. The deer wouldn’t touch them,cause there is no oaks, but I’ve carried them to east Texas, ate hell out of them.


All the corn here was combined six weeks ago, the fields shredded and plowed under already.

Looks like they're about done cutting silage but they won't be combining for a while yet. If the weather holds most of it will be by opener. Last year some of it didn't come out until March. Once it snows the snow plugs the seives and you don't have to wait for it to settle.

I mistakenly spoke above. One doesn’t go down the rows but across. You need a quartering wind so it blows your scent where you’ve already been. And you need quiet clothes and noise reducing conditions.

When you got to the end of the field by crossing rows, you move upwind as far as you could glass down the rows on your first pass.

I did it in dry snow — seems rarer now — and some wind, but a rainy-damp day would work too.

However, I don’t know how you’d do it today, at least in my corner of Iowa, as the rows are planted so close together and the corn stalks in a row are so close you couldn’t move between them without knock them down.
And I doubt you could shoot across even two rows, they are so close.

As stated, I’ve been a few feet from pheasants resting in the sheltered rows and within ten yards of bedded deer. I was a traditional bow hunter at the time and didn’t take a lot of deer this way because the conditions were only rarely conducive to this kind of hunting. Iowa doesn’t often have powder snow but usually wind-whipped snow that‘s crusted in a day.

A few years ago a local pastor got busted for hunting standing corn. He was waiting at the end of the field as a combine was driving through the field.

Best way to hunt standing corn is to start upwind of the field. Pour 5 gallons of gas along the upwind edge of the field. Put watchers on sides and down wind edge and set the [bleep] on fire. This tactic works best when the farmer who farms your hunting land is a A hole

I've bow hunted standing corn. If it's still standing in rifle season we drive it out.

I get some of the best "sound shots" when hunting standing corn. Only works with a handful of doe tags

I hunt standing corn, about 3-5 ft depending on the level in my feeder.