Good morning all! It is September 1st! One more month! I have a question for those with experience traveling creek bottoms/waterways between fields to get to their stand. I picked up a new farm to hunt. I found the bedding area and where I believe they are staging. I'm trying to find a good route to a stand in that staging area without bumping deer from their bedding. One route I'm thinking is a shallow creek bottom that traverses between fields straight to where I want a stand. Anybody else use these as access routes? I apologize in advance for the horrible artwork! Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
I use creek bottoms exactly as you plan to. One thing to keep in mind is not only wind direction of your approach. If there is little to no water in the creek bed and it is a high pressure day with little to know wind, your scent is still going to travel up out of the creek bed and hang around in the vicinity. Water in the creek bed will pull the scent down if the water temperature is cooler than the air temperature. However, if there is no water, or, the water is warmer than the air temperature, your scent will still drift up and linger in the area if there is no breeze to push it away.
Got to be careful of using a creek like that for entrance. From your map it doesn't look to bad depending on the direction the creek is flowing. Deer also love bedding and traveling creeks for one reason. Thermals. All scent gets pulled to lowest part of the land and usually a creek is that. Once it hits the water it flows with the direction of the water movement. Deer can scent check an entire field, woods or ridge just by laying close to a creek. Got to figure how to setup just off wind and out of the thermals. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Thanks for the advice guys! Didnt even think of thermals being an issue with that. I'll have to keep that in mind when I do more scouting Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
I should also add that this creek is dry. Only time there is water laying in it is springtime or after a heavy rain. Most of the time it's just a grassy depression Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
You definitely need to a make sure there is blowing wind in your favor then. The worst time to get in there using that to access that close to bedding would be a clear blue sky day with no wind. Going in with a light rain and the wind in your favor is going to be the best time to access that.
I use a creek to access a few spots and have nice tree picked out over it (RIP phone), although, I never really thought about scent following it down stream. I may need to rethink how creeks work.
My experience is that deer love using/traveling/skirting dry or minimal water streams/creek beds and/or especially those wide-deep seasonal ditches. My opinion I guess differs with some of the other responses, but if possible I would advise targeting these corridors vise traveling through them unless there's no other way to get to those inside/outside corners where woods meets field.
