hi my names josh and I live in west missouri and I was given permission to hunt a sixty acre cattle pasture. And there was deer and coyote tracks everywhere so instead of hunting deer. Iike a moron I hunted and trapped coyotes instead. Now their isn't a deer track on the property but I know that they used to use this property to get between a bedding area and a crop field. So if I didn't step foot on this property would the deer come back?
you need to come here, during rifle season i see standing with our cows in the middle of the day. mooooooo.moooo.'' im a cow cant shoot m'', it's funny to see. also i have seen horses chase a nice 8 pointer across the pasture, not sure what they thought?
I think you're chances are better now that you got all the coyotes out of there, they raise **** with our deer, chase em everywhere. My advice to you would be to stay off the property as much as possible, give whatever deer that were there a chance to feel safe without any human sign around. The cattle thing is another problem, around here the deer stay clear of them, but if they were there before, they'll be back.
I think the real problem is the human factor with cattle, they are high maintenance they have to be fed and counted and fences have to be walked and maintained on a daily basis, if a cow get thru a fence you can spend all day getting it back and repairing the fences and thats a lot of human intrusion in a deer hunting woods.
This is a very common misconception! I have seen/have deer that bed in cattle pastures where there is just ditches of timber no more than 10 yards wide and the deer bed in there and walk among them. It all depends on the human intrusion and interaction with the cattle. Every situation is different.
Deer don't like the cows where I hunt. They will definitely avoid the pastures where the cows are hanging out. Where I hunted up in Wisconsin, the deer didn't seem to mind the cows at all. Maybe IL cows are meaner? Come to think of it, the cows in WI were dairy cows and the ones down here are beef cows.... maybe that makes a difference???
I think there is some truth to that... Think it's more the fact that deer don't like the extra noise (for example - being bedded down in tall grass and having a bunch of cattle walk past them) and also that cattle seem to really knock down the cover... I've had hunting spots go from prime cover to worthless in less than a week - the cattle simply trampled everything in site.... Cattle also tend to 'attract' people - for example I know the farmers I hunt on often check their cattle once per day - driving their ATVs or trucks all over checking things out... Now if the cattle didn't affect the quality of cover and human traffic was kept to a minimum, I wouldn't think it would affect deer movement much.... One thing to consider is that even if cover isn't the best, there may be some spots the deer like to use as travel corridors between other areas that could provide decent hunting...
Were cows there when the deer disappeared? I don't think it was you that ran them off. You wont see too many deer if cows are around. The deer may just be traveling through the property during certain times of day. Do you have trail cameras on the property? I hunt some property that holds cattle about 6 months out of the year. I never get pics of deer when the cows are there but once they are gone the deer are everywhere. Good for me the cows are gone from about August to February.
I have taken deer with cows and calves being fed. They walked right up to the fed bunk and eat with the cows. Just some food for thought.
