I too love hunting creek/river bottoms.
My areas are usually so thick with laurel thickets, brairs and cedar, you could about throw a bowling ball in there, and never hear it hit the ground.
Everyone I know that hunts these areas, cut in shooting lanes.
I kill 3x as many deer as them. There is a reason the deer are in there. Its THICK! Leave it that way!
I am close to a river, so the gurgling river noise sorta hides the deer noise(no cracking twigs or soft bleats), and I suppose mine too to some degree. At least I attribute that to some of my success.
You gotta hit'em good and hard, so they go down THEN. Or they'll go back in the water lots of times.