Popular here in Iowa during the gun season, and the only way my group hunts deer. Is this a common practice in other parts of the country? Any of the rest of you party hunt?

Grew up doing deer drives in the southern tier of NY. Not sure if they're still popular out there these days or not. Down here people do "drives" but the drivers are dogs not people lol.

The only way to hunt deer IMO. Make things happen, no setting around in a tree or a blind and waiting for them to walk by. No feeding them either, the farmers do that. lol

It happens here. I used to be in on a few drives, usually the last weekend to get tags filled. Problem is finding folks that are safe shooters, I've had to many bullets come flying past me. I've got one buddy that I'll still drive with, but it's more like a gentle push, one stander and one driver, usually start at least a half mile apart and take our time.

We do them usually late in the season after the early spook on deer. After folks round here got the deer they been watching preseason, crops are off and/or weather turned for the worse. We are in close quarters here (parcels as small as 20 acres up to few hundred). Try to respect the other hunters hunt.

That is a good point Sam - gotta trust the people you hunt with. My group of 10 has been hunting together for 15 years or so. I feel safe enough.

Nope. Find sign and hunt it here, or spot and stalk.

Yep. Lots of fun.

No time for that here. We got 5 days to get it done first season, 10 second season I think, and you can only hunt one of those two seasons. Unless you're a bow hunter or muzzleloader hunter, there are separate seasons for that bologna.

Got a few around here that do drives every opener. I've never been in one before

I get what your saying.

Its alot of fun.Hunted deer some with dogs in Virginia.

Getting to be a thing of the past here. Amish about the only ones that still do it around here. The thought of shooting at potentially running deer just isnt my cup of tea. Shot a few deer that were ran towards me on accident but still never shot at a running deer.

It happens here and it’s dangerous. I’ve been along more than once when people have been shot. Once was fatal and I no longer participate.

It can be dangerous if you do it wrong, for sure.

Used to do it a lot but the two timbers we hunted at got sold into several small pieces and it went to stand hunting, we had around 20 in the group the two timbers was around 700 acres.

County where I live was the last one in Texas to outlaw the tradition of deer dogging to appease the deer farmers

…. There’s still a few that do it under the guise of rabbit hunting

I don't know where you live Bob, but I can't think of anywhere in north central Iowa you can find 700 acres of timber. It's all corn, beans and an occasional tree.

Used to be popular years ago here now it's a memory

It’s a freak thing south of Hampton, some of the ground could only have sheep on it because cattle couldn’t crawl the hill.

Got ya. And after I thought about it, there is quite a bit of timber in the Iowa River corridor.

how we did >90% or our hunting the first 25 years I hunted then it went down a little every year , so many places getting broken up to smaller and smaller parcels it gets harder to do , we do a few drives year now.

I remember folks down in eastern Iowa surrounding a plum thicket and all walking to the center. I never figured out how those folks didn't kill each other. They'd get towards the center and the amount of shots fired was stupendous.

It's still big around here. Lots of guys out there.



Most of the deer I shot with a gun were not standing still. Lots running pretty fast. In fact, I don't recall the last one I shot standing still. I do remember a couple many years ago, but surely I have shot one standing since then. Shot one in mid-air as it was jumping a fence, perfect shot placement too but it was only 40 yards or so.

A lot of the big river timber is south of here, here you can see across the river from a mile away.

A couple groups still get after it in NW Pa.
The one bunch is from, gulp, Pittsburgh.
Many ended along with the camp traditions,
and flat-out laziness.

Sometimes you get them standing still, sometimes they're trotting a long, and sometimes they're running full tilt. Just take the shots you're comfortable with.

Still do it here in pa. But hunters are getting lazy and most sit next to the truck.

you have to have discipline

you have to work the terrain

sometimes you're carrying your gun to have it on the next drive where you are the stander.

you have to know your crew

you have to train your crew

we used to do a few drives where the driver was on hands and knees for most of 200 yards in a overgrown Christmas tree farm
there were a few brakes in the trees where you could see , everyone stopped at those made sure everyone was back in line then big arm rotation given and returned so everyone saw and knew when to go.
as an example of working terrain we always drove it west no matter the wind , it started 20 feet off a road but ended going over a ridge the standers would get about 50 yards back down low from the ridge , the way deer shot out of the west end of the pines you never had a chance to shoot at the top of the ridge any way about 20 yards down the other side they would start to slow down , you were shooting into a hill side and you broke the shot when they hit the bottom , if you dropped them right there you could drive the truck down a field road and load them no dragging.

soon as the orange was out of the pines they held at the top till everyone was out , then the drive was over as it was not uncommon for deer to still be pushing out after the first guy was out , someone might have gotten 20 yards behind and that was enough to hold deer.

3 steps , stop look for 3-4 seconds , 3 steps , stop look 3-4 seconds , it sounds a little like a squirrel hopping through he woods , a very slow push , we had drives with multiple ridges in them where often the drivers shot as many or more deer than the standers , because deer want to circle back so they would get up walk out and turn and walk right into the view of the next driver over , you stayed so you could just see each others orange.


really glad my son got to experience it , it is a dying culture and I think we did it really well.
if I get grandkids , I doubt there will be hardly any drives left by the time they would get old enough

we used to team up with another family down the road , we would go over how slow we wanted them to go , they were an all right bunch but we had to stagger us and them so that we could keep them in line or they would get to walking and it is slower than a slow walk

you can also do 20 minute leap frog 2 man drives first guy gets in legal shooting distance off the road and a touch more then down about 50 yards 5 minutes later second guy walks in slowly , very slowly to find his spot he might go about 70-90 yards in but 50 yards over , then after they set 20 minutes , guy one goes he goes in so he is about 70 yards past his partner , then sets 20 more minutes go buy and the partner goes about 70 yards past his partner , and you do that slowly so you set for 30-35 minutes move for 5-10

some people do top and bottom of the hour. but you get the idea , it moves deer and when they go to circle around you they run into your still setting partner

My son usually has one or two a year at their place to help thin some does. Always a fun time and generally a good many does killed.

Grew up doing drives in both MN and WI. The WI gang had at times 20 hunters. Some of the drives were 2 miles long. Often the drivers had the most shooting. My dad had a hard time walking so he was always put on stand. His most memorable WI drive was having 44 deer come out and not a one had horns. Most of the gang is dead now and the guys that do hunt are young and drunk. These days I have my own land and am content sitting in a ladder stand.

WS

Very common here.

But, there is a pack of hounds doing the driving.

The hunters are in 4x4 trucks spaced out along private roads and standing on their dog boxes with rifles....waiting for their opportunity.

Very sociable and traditional way to hunt deer in the pineywoods swamps.

I like “moving” deer to one or two shooters using the wind and going real slow and stopping a lot. Keeping a smoke on the go helps move them and keeps track of the wind. On river islands the “mover” always starts off walking away from shooters on up wind side of island. If you go slow enough the deer don’t bust to the water but rather circle around to the shooters end of island. We usually do this bow hunting and it works very well. The deer are walking slow and stopping often to check on the mover. Offers good bow shots.

Works good on narrow strips of timber too. Sometimes if it’s real narrow I don’t even enter the timber, just walk field edge away from shooter on upwind side. Deer circle to shooter. Shooter is best set up at 1/3rd of island or strip length rather than the end. The deer seem to get nervous when they get closer to the end. 1/3 from end is about where they “hang up” and start thinking about circling back.

We all got too old or dead and the younger guys would rather sit and play video games.

Used to hunt deer with dogs 40-50 years ago in Eastern NC. Sometimes at lunch we would walk out a few heads. Can be lots of fun.

Up until about ten years ago, I had a 12-15 man crew for bear and deer driving. We had about 2000 acres of private ground to push off. It was a blast. Unfortunately, time and old age caught up with us.

Always exciting when you were mid drive and the watchers started shooting.

Used to 30 years ago had around 20 guys never hit the same piece of ground each day.most of us had 2 permits and would usually tag out every season.between land getting sold and some of the guys getting older we make a couple small drives and sit the rest of the time.we made alot of memories and had a ton of fun.

Not much driving going on anymore. I try to get a group together to do some one day each season but usually can only get 5 or 6 guys at a time so its not enough to be truly effective. We used to have a group of 15 to 20 guys that hunted together. We drove every day. If you were available you just showed up and joined in wherever the group happened to be. Now its increasingly difficult not only to get the guys, but also finding the land to do it on. Many of the places we used to push have leased out the hunting rights and many others have had sections sold. More and more people from the city come out to buy a "hunting property" which often consists of a 5 acre tract in the middle of a larger woods. They typically will absolutely not allow anyone on their property, so it often effectively shuts down driving of many of the neighboring properties as well.

Why would I crawl out of my deer blind, abandon my Mr. Buddy heater and waste freshly thrown corn from the deer feeder just to maybe get shot on a deer drive?

I've been part of a few back in the old days. They can definitely work.

We have dog drives here whether you want one or not. Trapping season starts the same day deer hunting with dogs starts so I hang up my deer hunting gear and break out the traps. I dont think it's ethical hunting deer with dogs. They chase deer day and night for 6 weeks. Then in the spring when the does ard dropping fawns the dog hunters just have to turn the dogs loose on them again. It's really good for the coyotes because those dogs separate momma from the fawns making them an easy meal for the coyotes. I've never understood that!

Lol......... thought this was what we were talking about

I used to get involved in drives back about 30 years ago. It was enjoyable for many different reasons than hunting other ways are enjoyable. I don’t hunt that way anymore but this thread has made me want to get in on one again. Lol

Yep before the horns became more important and loss of the family farm so less open land it was big in WI. No less and less land do do them on. They were a hoot for sure and a successful way to move the few deer we had around here. Everyone celebrated together and even those not in your group were happy someone got a deer.
We still do small pushes on our own land, some leave their land for the first few days and drive all the public they can. We do not feel right about that and just hunt are and are glad we have what we do and purchased years ago.

used to be very popular after opening weekend of our 9 day gun season.
After thanksgiving especially, the last weekend of the season.
But then the vast majority of land in rural areas was farmer owned.
The farmers all pretty much allowed it.
Then we had a rise in slob hunters cutting or wrecking fences, driving in crop feilds and other disrespectful behavior.
Add to that more rural land owners saying no for various reasons.

Now its not common at all.

Really a shame, we need to really nail those does hard.

I have thought about calling it something different , like a slow push , because they way we did it was so much slower but then I feel like I would be giving it syllables like that George Carlin comedy bit , shell shocked and how it turned into post traumatic stress disorder.

"Crawl" maybe then it doesn't add syllables

I've heard people from other states call it "mooching." Not sure if that's quite right either.

We did it like that too, super slow push, almost like still hunting.

2 man drives are deadly here

We would do that with small groups. Park a stander on known escape routes and have one driver slowly ease in to the area pushed.

We would change up on the old fields part of the place that was a sixty acre flat. Line everyone up far enough apart to just keep the man left and right in sight then very slowly push across. Surprising the number of deer that went down the line rather than straight away.

I'm a firm believer that deer circle like rabbits if not pushed to hard. I've seen it both man driving and with dog drives. I learned the the best spot on a drive was back at the starting point waiting for one to slip back in after the push.

Put this doe in my cousins lap today. Bow drives can be wild

Bear drives used to be very popular on the 3500 acre timber company lease I hunt on. We were maxed out at 25 guys and used to drive the thickest nastiest clear cuts we could find. We’d flush them by jumping on brush piles almost like rabbit hunting.

It was usually pretty successful with 3 to 6 Bears being killed each season.

One year a writer with Outdoor Life participated and did a story that was published in the magazine.

Most of the participants have gotten older and quit and the bear drives they do now are much smaller and less numerous.

We also do deer drives on the property, but they are not a big organized event like the bear drives were.

I prefer silent pushes for deer. One guy still-hunting and another guy posted at a likely location can be very successful if you know the terrain and where the deer are likely to go to escape.

15 days ?? that's crazy. hardly any time to hunt. do you not have many deer in Iowa? I heard the states has lots of deer compared to us up here, probably due to the mega farms down there.

That's just our gun seasons. Bow hunting goes on for months, and there is an early and late muzzleloader seasons too. Plenty of deer here, too many in some places, but the CWD or whatever has lowered the population. You can hunt one deer a bow and one with a shotgun/straight walled rifle or muzzle loader. You can not hunt all seasons. You have to choose one of the gun or the other. Lots of other BS rules in there too...

https://www.iowadnr.gov/media/1700/download?inline

My group always hunts the first gun season, and usually are done by Sunday evening. Year before last we had all 18 tags filled by Saturday afternoon! Lots of deer in the part of southern Iowa we hunt.

I like to still hunt through the woods like I’m hunting squirrels. My youngest son will set up in known escape points. We typically do this in the middle of the week. It is very productive and I kill just as many if not more than my son. The deer he kills are usually just sneaking along so a good shot usually presents itself.

Sounds like you'd do well hunting up here. We've killed a lot of deer just like that over the years.

Had a guy almost kill me on a deer drive I was not in. I was on private property and they were on the neighboring property. From what I could figure out the guys shooting were about a hundred yards away walking down the property line. I was a hundred yards in sitting it a blind. The splinters where the bullet hit smacked me in the face. The bullet hit my blind 12 inches to the side of my head.

BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND BEYOND!!!???

I am against deer drives

It can be done safely. Know who you are hunting with, know the terrain and know where you can safely shoot. Pretty much like any other type of hunting.

We have never had large groups. The only type of drives we have done is more of a slow push. Last year on out ky hunt we jumped a group scouting. Oldest som and I walked around the outside of the woods and came in the back side with wind to our back slowly working to my youngest. I didnt see any of the deer but it worked. Heard the supressed shot and the youngest had one down.

Slow push with wind to our back gave him a shot at deer that were not in a huge hurry at all.

I'm not and my brother got shot on a drive. It was his fault though.

Four of us. Three standers one driver. First driver top of a slope on a road that had a long gentle curve around the hollow to be pushed. My brother 125 yards away in the deepest part of the curve and further positioned 15 yards off the road, me 200 yards further down the road. Dad, the driver, was slowly working his way up from the bottom into the hollow. All of us are carrying 12ga with buckshot.
Big racked buck pops out into the road in front of my brother he throws up fires and misses. Deer turns right and runs directly up the road in the direction of the first stander. Brother runs out into the road to get another shot, violating the first rule of being a stander to stay exactly where you are put. First stander seeing big buck fires and misses, never sees my brother behind the buck.
My brother picked up one pellet through the inside left calf muscle, and one struck the outside edge of his right foot and lodged after cracking that bone. The one through the calf would roll out his pants leg when we stood him up as it was stopped by his jeans.
It was the elevation that allowed 00buck to carry 125 yards. Had my brother been just a yard further back, the pellets would've landed harmlessly at his feet. Had he stayed put no hit at all.

The one in the foot had to be cut out. One slice through his calloused sole and it popped out, one stich to close. He was in a soft cast.

In the aftermath the first stander, a deacon with daddy, couldn't bring himself to come to church the next day. Mama left church to go to him to hug his neck and tell him to get the notion of selling his guns out of his head because he was expected to go hunting with the next weekend. He did and still a family friend to the point that I've introduced him as the fellow that shot my brother.

Deer drives need to have some pretty firm rules for safety.

Oh, after the hospital, brother insisted on going back and looking for blood that wasn't his. I knew exactly what that one did and found the tracks to prove it. The deer turned right passing within feet of my brother's original position before dropping down into the wash behind him then circling down the wash and back up crossing the slope above the first stander heading back to where he started. No blood or hair found. Brother was insisting on a do over, lol.

We chased that buck for years and as far as I know he died of old age.

Dads truck got shot driving down the road and a slug went through an outbuilding. Both from these safe deer drives.

Those don't sound like they were safe!

I don't care how others legally harvest deer. Personally, I have no interest in driving deer. Small, 1 or 2 man pushes to a stander can be super effective.

However, the bigger the group, the more likely you're going to have "one of those guys". Gut and rump shot deer is something I can do without. It's inevitably going to happen if you drive deer.