Hunting Large Rivers

[Woodsroamer]

I am used to hunting farmland, Appalachian foothills and mountains. I live roughly a 2-5 minute walk from the Ohio River. I am always see does while fishing or driving and am thinking about maybe throwing up a couple presets that I can access by canoe or jon boat. Never really hunted this type of habitat and just curious about other peoples experiences on hunting on large rivers.

 

[MSbowhunter48]

Use the river to your advantage, try and find an obstruction in the woods that funnels the deer between the obstruction and the river. Could be a slough, pond, laid over tree, or the end of a ridge if you’re in hill country. I like to access by boat as well like you mentioned, less chance to spook anything and you can usually get a lot closer to your desired area. Usually your thermals will want to pull towards the water so just keep that in mind.

 

[BTaylor]

Deer will certainly cross them but most of the rules I have seen dont allow you to shoot them from the boat.

This will be my 43 year hunting big river bottoms so yes it is near and dear to my heart. There nearly countless tactics that can be used but I am going to boil it down to 2 primary ways. Focus on food or focus on terrain. To start with food, you need a good understanding of the various mast crops, an order of preference and an order or drop. Then it is a matter of lots of boots on the ground to find as many possible sources as you can and hang when you find the smoking hot ones. It helps to also understand the types of locations where different mast trees will be located in river bottom habitat. For example, primarily persimmon are going to be in wetter type areas as will overcup oaks if you have them, white oaks will be on a little higher ground, etc.

Then you have terrain. Lots of folks look at big river bottoms as flat featureless places because they are accustomed to hills or mountains. River bottoms will have terrain too though. Sometimes that may be a "ridge" that is only a few feet higher than the surrounding ground or it may be a negative feature like a slough, ditch, lake or other drainage. Sometimes these features will be bordered by thickets and that is a good thing. Sometimes you may have or be able to find areas where storms knocked a few trees down or even better tornado tracks and those areas will create edges and thickets. Then there are the less obvious edges that are formed by big patches of honeysuckle or dewberries or other types of plant communities changes. Some of that you can find e-scouting but a lot of it will come from boots on the ground as well. The tactics here though are very similar to hunting mountains. From a deer's perspective there's not much difference between the head of a slough and the head of a draw, they are going to walk there.

@MSbowhunter48 I would like to talk about your point of thermals pulling towards the water. I agree that certainly can happen but I think there is a big difference between why thermals may pull towards water in the bottoms as opposed to in the mountains. In the mountains, it pulls to the water because the water is lower and generally cooler, both aspects that are going to influence air movement. In the big river bottoms that is seldom the case. There are certainly times when the water may be cooler or warmer than the ambient temp and that can influence the air movement in the bottoms. But I think the bigger issue at play is the thermals following the sun rather than the water. With our big rivers there is a big opening in the canopy which has the opportunity to create a thermal dynamic but the same can be true for a cutover. Early and late in the day in low or no wind conditions the thermals always seem to pull towards the sun or big canopy openings between where you are and the sun. One area I hunt is big river bottoms and roughly 6k acres that virtually all has been cut to varying degrees and over several years so it is a hodge podge of pockets of full canopy, broken canopy and open canopy. The air movements there are impossible to predict if the wind is under 8-10mph. In a half day sit it will usually hit every point on a compass. The only thing I can put my finger on there is the variance in canopy both in created temp variance and obstruction variance makes it an air blender. But even with that on those low wind or calm sits the predominant thermal will be towards the sun.

 

[SNIPERBBB]

Rivers are what I call semi-hard funnels. Especially the Ohio river, I'm just 10 minutes drive down US 35 from the silver bridge over the Ohio, because you don't get much crossing of the river every now and then a bear swims across or animals go across the bridges. It doesn't freeze up enough when it freeze in my area for animals to walk across. When it does freeze there's only a few spots where they can actually get to the other side as the ice tends to form a bowl on the sides of the bank if it's not flat and nothing can scale that in ice.

Almost all bigger creeks and rivers have these two features, and all my fellow Trappers should know about these as you'll catch every land animal in your animal on them: the mid-bank trail and the high bank trail. All rivers have the high bank trail.

So that's point one I would look at. Especially since the EPA and their state equivalents don't like farmers clearing land to the edge there's usually a lot of cover there for animals to move from one spot to another. Any intersections with other features are even better to look at

 

[Woodsroamer]

The area I am looking at is very much a large funnel down to the river. There is a large ridge that is probably 75-80 yards above the river and has several steps from the top where there is a road til you get to the bank. I don’t think there are any oaks just mostly maple and sycamore trees.

 

[BTaylor]

The area I am looking at is very much a large funnel down to the river. There is a large ridge that is probably 75-80 yards above the river and has several steps from the top where there is a road til you get to the bank. I don’t think there are any oaks just mostly maple and sycamore trees.

Sounds different than the area along the OH river I hunted back years ago. Like @SNIPERBBB mentioned, there will be a paralleling trail at the top of the river bank. and like @MSbowhunter48 mentioned if you can find a spot with a downed big tree or other obstruction that leaves a gap between the obstruction and the river bank, that would be a fine spot to pinch them down and whack the snot out of one.

 

[SNIPERBBB]

Sounds different than the area along the OH river I hunted back years ago. Like @SNIPERBBB mentioned, there will be a paralleling trail at the top of the river bank. and like @MSbowhunter48 mentioned if you can find a spot with a downed big tree or other obstruction that leaves a gap between the obstruction and the river bank, that would be a fine spot to pinch them down and whack the snot out of one.

Lot of different forests along that river. Old growth forest still has oaks but any settled areas are filled with sycamores

 

[Woodsroamer]

Lot of different forests along that river. Old growth forest still has oaks but any settled areas are filled with sycamores

There are a couple spots between Weirton and Wellsburg that have oaks and such but the area north was pretty much clear cut for mining, the brick furnaces and the potterys.

 

[SNIPERBBB]

There are a couple spots between Weirton and Wellsburg that have oaks and such but the area north was pretty much clear cut for mining, the brick furnaces and the potterys.

You can tell where a lot of the old iron furnaces are around here by looking for high concentrations of sycamore trees... And pawpaws.

 

[Woodsroamer]

You can tell where a lot of the old iron furnaces are around here by looking for high concentrations of sycamore trees... And pawpaws.

No pawpaws in my local area that I can get access too. I believe the deer are running an old road to one of the old brick yards for their middle trail.

 

[Iron_llama]

Deer will certainly cross them but most of the rules I have seen dont allow you to shoot them from the boat.

Rules vary by state. In MN you can't shoot out of a powerboat, but you can shoot out of a moving watercraft powered by oars, paddles, sails, etc. Not a waterfowler but I think powered waterfowl boats need to have the props all the way out of the water to be legal. I took my bow out in a solo canoe a few times several years ago but never attempted a shot out of it.