Or like Lee and Tiffany Lakosky say…. BBD.

Bowhunting whitetail during the pre-rut in 2009  had a lot of bowhunters frustrated because of all the corn still standing in the Midwest. And for my two sons-in-law Joel and AJ and I, we were no exception.

Only 16% of the corn had been harvested by the first week of November according to the Ag dept. That’s the lowest number on record. We sat on stand (or in our treesaddles) 6-9 hours a day the first week of November and saw very does being chased. The standing corn was everywhere. It actually messed up our funnel situations we had planned on all year Bowhunting Whitetail.

So we had to change gears and go to the harvested soybean fields because we had heard a neighbor who had 52 deer in their cut soys a few nights after they harvested the whole field. That’s a crazy number of deer no matter where you live.

Bowhunting Whitetail So after prepping a new tree near the soys a few days earlier, I settled into my treesaddle around 1am for the rest of the day. Bowhunting Whitetail Nothing showed until four does came out from the other side of the soybean field on my left 150 yards away. They moved my way and I decided to take the lead big doe at 25 yards.  When my 2-blade Rage went though both lungs, she just wheeled around and stood there. I had never seen that before. She started wobbling and then just tipped over Bowhunting Whitetail.

Only 15 minutes of shooting light left when two more does came out from the same area and spotted the dead doe lying there. They walked over to within 2 feet of the dead doe when I heard footsteps coming from the woods on my right. I strained my eyes through the twilight to see a deer with a couple big white mainbeams. This was a shooter.

Bowhunting Whitetail

Once he crossed the fence row into the cut soybean field, I could see him a little better. I just tried to focus on his body making it to the next shooting lane through the branches. As he walked toward the two does, I put my 30 yard pin on him and let it fly.

I watched him as he took off across the field hoping he wouldn’t make it to the other side. He slowed down and tipped over about 15 yards short of the other side. Whew!

Bowhunting Whitetail When I walked up on him in the dark, there was no ground shrinkage  at all. My best buck with a bow. He was a 3 1/2 year old and I figured his rack would score in the 130′s. It came out to 137.

Bowhunting Whitetail The next day AJ saw a shooter buck similar to mine from the same tree but couldn’t get a shot off. Then Joel hunted from that tree the next day and saw an even bigger buck. Talk about a hot tree Bowhunting Whitetail.

We will definitely be going back there in the spring to prep several more tress giving us multiple options for bowhunting whitetail in different wind. directions Bowhunting Whitetail.

What is a defined deer travel corridor? It’s a high traffic route between a bedding area to a deer food plot, deer food plot to deer food plot, or bedding area to bedding area, basically between hot spots of deer activity. These travel corridors, or lines of movement, and the integrity of those lines, are critical to your land’s ability to hold deer and hunting success.

Random travel routes on your property are a major stumbling block to your hunting success with hunting equipment. An example of this would be taking a large piece of property and making it all sanctuary by doing a large scale timber harvest. Another example of this is the wildlife approach by attempting to improve every square inch of your land for deer or other game. The end result of random travel corridors is a property that is almost impossible to hunt! Great if you never hunt the parcel, but not for hunters. You don’t want to be left with land that evenly distributes the deer herd across the entire property, making it impossible for you to walk in from any direction without spooking deer. This is less noticeable on several hundred acres, but on a small parcel you are setting traps for yourself by spooking deer through random, undefined patterns of movement which can ruin your deer food plots or other high activity spots on your property in the first couple days of trophy hunting.

Travel corridors within the property can be anchored and enhanced by larger hot spots and can be better defined in a few ways such as:

1. Creating small whitetail deer food plots.

2. Creating bedding areas, which usually attract the female portion of the local herd due to the high-traffic location.

3. Creating brush, hinge cut, debris, or timber cutting lines that separate outer “non-improved” areas through which you access your stand locations, with the created and improved areas upwind and behind screening cover to offer a defined edge of travel.

4. Lay of the land could be an inner topography change, open pond or waterway, or any other natural feature that constricts deer movement to one side or the other.

It is critical that both hot spots on each end of the corridor, and the corridor itself, are insulated or screened from the approaching hunter in some manner. Both bedding and whitetail deer food plots have to be screened effectively to be secure. You are providing very private and secure lines of daily movement for the local herd so each hot spot has to be protected from your movements. It does no good to have the “perfect” bedding or deer food plot if a deer in either of those locations can stand on the edge and see you 50 yards away as you walk by or access your stand locations.

By trophy whitetail hunts the travel corridors, and not the hot spots, you decrease your risk of deer/human encounters. A “line of movement” is just that! The deer are traveling in a line from hot spot to hot spot. Unlike a hot spot where a deer may visit deer food plots or bedding areas for hours at a time, a deer spends a very little amount of time traveling in a defined line of movement. Of course a deer will stop to browse or a buck may be successfully slowed down by providing licking branches within the travel corridor, but by hunting a line of movement you expose yourself only a fraction of the time to deer in comparison to its hot spots and deer food plots.

These lines of movement are one of the most important aspects of property management. Often the success of the property doesn’t fall under the perfect bedding area or deer food plots. Instead your success will fall under how well you establish and maintain the integrity of the lines of movement on your land.

Hunting Deer Food Plots and Travel Corridors This way Will help Your Chances of Seeing and Shooting a Trophy Whitetail