Made your own deer funnels?

[MattMan81]

Just a thought I have had a few time. Curious if anyone has tried it. Would have to be on private. But put sections of fence up to try and funnel deer traffic thru certain areas? Maybe entrance and exits off a food plot? Or just to protect a blind side?
Something I have wondered about it it would work. I don't have the time, money, or property to give it a try. Plus keeping a fence in tack in the woods would be an almost 24/7 operation.
Maybe you did something natural? Or does it have a negative effect?

 

[Plebe]

Just a thought I have had a few time. Curious if anyone has tried it. Would have to be on private. But put sections of fence up to try and funnel deer traffic thru certain areas? Maybe entrance and exits off a food plot? Or just to protect a blind side?
Something I have wondered about it it would work. I don't have the time, money, or property to give it a try. Plus keeping a fence in tack in the woods would be an almost 24/7 operation.
Maybe you did something natural? Or does it have a negative effect?

Team WI did this during a Drury Outdoors Dream Season competition, and it did the trick

 

[thedutchtouch]

I've dreamed about this but have no land... There's a name for cutting trees off partway about 5' up so they fall over and create a "fence" to do this but I'm forgetting it at the moment. Couldn't deer just hop over most fences? Need some depth

 

[raisins]

I've dreamed about this but have no land... There's a name for cutting trees off partway about 5' up so they fall over and create a "fence" to do this but I'm forgetting it at the moment. Couldn't deer just hop over most fences? Need some depth

hinge cut?

 

[raisins]

one way is to find really dense brush that is enough to hinder movement and then open it up where you would like them to pass through.....just not open enough to scare them

this can be done with hand pruners or a machete

 

[Hunter260]

I’ve hunted almost exclusively cattle ground for years and an old trick I was taught is that if you find a fence you’re expecting deer to cross lay a big log on the top strand to hold it down a foot or so lower than the surrounding fence. It won’t take long until about every deer is jumping at the low spot

 

[NMSbowhunter]

This is about the best one I ever came up with. On that old lease I was on we had big blocks of thick pine plantation that was at various stages of regrowth. This took some serious work but paid off. The best way to do it was finding a big block of thick new growth pines and spot a tree out about 50 or 75 yard out in it, usually along a shallow creek, and chop a trail out past the tree about 20 yards to the north of it. Then continue on and then branch out making Y's until you have a bunch of feeder trails all funneling down into that one trail that passes by your stand tree. Clear a shooting lane to the trail from the stand tree. Deer from all over that pine stand would follow those trails and come by that one spot. I would chop an access trail in from another direction so I would not contaminate the main trail. Worked like a charm.

 

[Nutterbuster]

I've always wanted to run high fence in a big X with the circle cut like this:

\ /
/ \

For giggles.


Although...doing crap like that smells like work, and I've made it my life's goal to avoid falling into the grinder of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Easier and funner to find the deer where they be. I don't even like hauling corn, setting cameras, and trimming shooting lanes.

 

[boyne bowhunter]

I actually sat on a natural funnel formed from a semi-circle of fallen ash trees adjacent to some heavily laden beech trees a few yeas ago and shot a nice 10 point at 2:30 in the afternoon on public land. There was a small gap through them that the deer used rather than pick their way through the fallen trees.

I have another spot I sit a couple of times a year where there's a natural saddle that had some big maples blown over further funneling the deer onto the saddle. Two years ago I missed an opportunity at a nice buck there when he snuck up directly under me under the thick beech canopy. He saw me in the tree but didn't know for sure what I was. Bottom line is he got too close and never gave me a chance to draw on him.

I haven't done it yet but I've toyed with the idea of strategically positioning some already downed trees in some areas I know the deer travel through to create similar situations. I don't think this would be illegal on public as long as I don't cut anything. Problem is that for it to be effective I think I'd need to do it in the summer and the older I get the more allergic I get to hot weather. I'd never make it in the south.

 

[MattMan81]

I've always wanted to run high fence in a big X with the circle cut like this:

\ /
/ \

For giggles.


Although...doing crap like that smells like work, and I've made it my life's goal to avoid falling into the grinder of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Easier and funner to find the deer where they be. I don't even like hauling corn, setting cameras, and trimming shooting lanes.

Agree with that. That's why I noted it plenty of time and money to burn.

 

[raisins]

deep, sticky mud makes funnels if wide enough that they can't jump over it

the type of mud you'd lose a boot in the deer also walk around and find the area that they can cross without sinking up to knees and getting stuck

in my area, you can find this at the bottom of ravines or topography that funnels water but doesn't create a stream

 

[Still Kicking]

I've piled dead tree limbs at areas where there are several branches of trails to direct them to the trail I want them to use. It works well on younger deer but the really old ones usually go way around for a long time.

 

[MattMan81]

I actually sat on a natural funnel formed from a semi-circle of fallen ash trees adjacent to some heavily laden beech trees a few yeas ago and shot a nice 10 point at 2:30 in the afternoon on public land. There was a small gap through them that the deer used rather than pick their way through the fallen trees.

I have another spot I sit a couple of times a year where there's a natural saddle that had some big maples blown over further funneling the deer onto the saddle. Two years ago I missed an opportunity at a nice buck there when he snuck up directly under me under the thick beech canopy. He saw me in the tree but didn't know for sure what I was. Bottom line is he got too close and never gave me a chance to draw on him.

I haven't done it yet but I've toyed with the idea of strategically positioning some already downed trees in some areas I know the deer travel through to create similar situations. I don't think this would be illegal on public as long as I don't cut anything. Problem is that for it to be effective I think I'd need to do it in the summer and the older I get the more allergic I get to hot weather. I'd never make it in the south.

You would bust your back, over heat your self to do it, and only to come back in the fall to find some yahoo on a 4 wheeler ran it over, or someone else is hunting it! Lol.

 

[skydoc]

I ran a fence along our food plot. Left top wire off for an 8 foot section. Come back a few months later and the deer path looks like a dirt bike trail leading to that section. Had enough deer hair on the barbs to make a real nice sweater. That’s always one of my rut sits. Not too bad to maintain, doesn’t have to be super taut like an actual livestock fence.

 

[boyne bowhunter]

You would bust your back, over heat your self to do it, and only to come back in the fall to find some yahoo on a 4 wheeler ran it over, or someone else is hunting it! Lol.

No doubt, and in reality I don't repeat trees very much throughout the year so all the work would only be for two, maybe three sits a year. It's better time management to find pre-existing funnels.

 

[jiwhite86]

Actually did some “blocking” earlier this week. We prepped a bunch of saddle trees and put up two semi-permanent sets. Needed to block one trail and just piled up tree tops and limbs we cut over the trail. Should work…we’ll see.

 

[MattMan81]

Actually did some “blocking” earlier this week. We prepped a bunch of saddle trees and put up two semi-permanent sets. Needed to block one trail and just piled up tree tops and limbs we cut over the trail. Should work…we’ll see.

Public? Private? Can you follow up later with How that worked out?

 

[neonomad]

I’ve been working / tweaking a funnel setup since last year, and right now I think it’s the most promising thing I’ve got going, pics attached. In this case its a river bottom power line clear cut with log piles lining the sides and vegetation so thick it’s very tough to get across. Ultra thick woods bedding to the west and crop fields about 400 yards to the east. I carve a path through the clear cut with big hedge trimmers right at a gap in the log pile. Last year I think I was getting greedy and setting up too close to bedding, but this year I plan to go up the river, climb the 8’ bank and set up where the funnel dumps east, with very little ground scent. Cam is pink dot intended ambush point is yellow dot… another nice thing is river pulls my wind scent. Just got this years cam there and the traffic is heavy.

 

[neonomad]

Same funnel last year, doing its thing. My main point is that one approach is big effort funnels, another approach is always looking for natural setups that can be made better with easier tweaks.

 

[krub6b]

If you hunt a private property with fences on it just lowering the top strand or raising the bottom strand is enough to make deer use that spot to cross a fence, they are lazy creatures whenever they can be.