I wanted to spark a conversation about this topic because I am very curious for myself and I would like to hear what people think. Where I hunt there is this cattle pasture that has cattle in it some years but not other years. I have never bothered hunting it before considering there was usually cattle in there but last year there wasn't cattle and I noticed that deer loved to hang out and bed in there. During the rut it became a great place for bucks to cruise and hangout so I decided to hunt it and saw a lot of deer but never connected with one of the nice bucks that lived there. This year I was really looking forward to hunting this pasture again but to my surprise, there are once again cattle in the pasture. Right now I'm debating on weather I still give this pasture a shot or if I just forget about it all together. Anyone who has experience with hunting pastures, please let me know what you think. And even if you have never hunted a pasture like this, I would still like to hear what your thoughts are on my situation.
I hunt a large cattle farm. Half of it the farmer uses for summering and the other half he moves them to winter. I feel as long as the deer have been use to them for a few years and have plenty of timber/cover, it will not have any affect.
Thanks for the info. I have always kind of assumed that myself but didn't know for sure. The pasture where I hunt has multiple pens so I may just have to put a stand in a different pen. It just so happens that the pen where my stand is is the one that has cattle in it this year.
I hunt a cattle farm and it does affect the deer on my property. They tend to never cross my fence but walk along the neighbors side. Luckily I have permission to be on that side and have had good success. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Yes but the pens are all connected. The entire pasture is only about 10 acres so if the cattle are in one pen, all the pens will likely be affected. The only reason I would move my stand to a new pen is to prevent the cattle from getting in the way while I'm hunting.
Yes, absolutely it does. One farm I hunt in Kentucky has cattle on it all year. The farm is a mix of pastures, crop land and patches of woods. Based on my own observations, Deer don’t like cattle. I don’t know why that is. Just because the cattle are there, however, doesn’t mean the deer aren’t. Not at all. I have very rarely had cattle and deer in sight at the same time. I have had cattle around me for a while and after they had moved on had deer come in. Also, when I hunt the patches of woods that are fenced off to the cattle, the deer move normally. If you’re talking about a smaller pasture, as in you can see all of it from one spot and it has cattle on it I don’t think I’d bother trying to hunt the pasture. If there are woods around it that you can hunt that would most likely work. I’ll add that year before last I was hunting a pasture on that farm and there were around 20-25 deer feeding 110 yards out. I was waiting for a big doe to get within 100 yards for a muzzleloader shot. Suddenly they got fidgety and most started trotting out of the pasture. I heard something behind me and here came the cattle. I still got the shot off and dropped one, but it just reinforced what I already knew.
Use to watch a bull run any deer off when I hunted a cattle farm. The deer would get in there, and start grazing until the bull found out. if you can figure out where the cattle are and anticipate the movements from the deer it can be a deadly combo. Setting a trail cam up and getting a pattern set would highly increase your odds of "success".
Alright thanks for the reply. I feel like I’ll probably end up running into the same problem as you this year. The deer will probably just skirt around it until the cattle are out of there.
Alright thanks for the advice. I’ll just focus on the other stand I have around the pasture. There is another bedding area just across the field from the pasture where I bet the deer will hangout instead. Sadly it’s on the neighbors property.
Yeah that wouldn’t be a bad idea. Earlier this year I did have a camera in there. The first few days it was out there were a couple does but once the cattle were put in the pen I never had a single other picture of a deer.
I hunt property owned by University of Illinois. Its a cattle ranch for educational purposes but since its state you can hunt it. Its connected to about 28,000 acres of Shawnee but the area is 400 acres or so. The cattle rotation is between 4 areas and wherever the cows are we hunt anywhere but. Back in the timber is fine if hunting intersections of travel but if concentrating on pasture its where the moo moos arent.
Ill second most of the above responses. I have yet to see deer and cattle interact together or tolerate each other. Similar to what little chief said, I have had cattle move through and not long after I have seen deer. The pasture that comes to mind the most for me, I actually did not have permission on.. Nobody did. Around the pasture hunting was permitted. What everyone noticed was the deer were using the pasture as a sanctuary. They would feed in there, bed in there etc. It was actually pretty nice knowing the deer hung out in there most of the time. It was public ground around the pasture so guys were set up all around it. Kind of felt bad for any deer brave enough to jump the fence but usually it was pretty good hunting.
That’s the exact kind of behavior that I have seen with the pasture I hunt. Whenever I have hunted it when the cattle aren’t there, the deer cling to it. They will stay in there 24/7 because they have no real reason to leave.
I hunt pasture land in Kansas and when the cows are in the deer sightings are way down. Now I just avoid the area unless I'm running low on beef. (: Hopefully it's back open next year for you!!
Myself and five other guys bought a 638 acre farm back in 2005-2006ish. We bought it solely to deer hunt so we looked for ways to let it help pay for itself. It had a farm house that we rented out and this was a good deal. It was an older couple that really looked out for things when we weren't there. We let a guy cut some trees and we did it in a strategic way for ATV lanes. What did not work out so well is we let a guy cut some hay, another grow soybeans, one guy tobacco and another put some cattle out there. The cattle guy couldn't keep his cattle out of the soybeans. They were in our hunting area and were ALWAYS in the way. They trampled up fields and ate every thing we planted for deer. The soybean and tobacco guy were always there with a crew in the way as was the hay guy. We did that one year and dropped down to old couple in house only. It maybe could've worked if we knew more about it on the front end and been smarter writing up the contract with the cattle guy but we were kinda ignorant to how it would play out. If someone was going to let me hunt their land and they had cattle that's one thing. If it's my land, I'm not letting cattle in there.
Well either way it sounds like you end the season with a freezer full of either beef or venison xD. I’ll just keep my eye on the pasture and pray for the cattle to go away.
My VT deer hate cattle. They totally avoid the cows and will not cross the fence into the pasture. It also affects where they move. The way our cow pasture is set up it forces deer around to the far edge of my property when I used to have them cut right through the middle. I will no t have cows on my property after this year. I'd rather mow, till and plant more deer food.
When we hunted farms we almost always dictated where we went based on where the cows were going in. Have to say the days the cows made an appearance we usually didn’t have much action but could have been coincidental Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
