Budbowhunter

I live in Iowa and hunt my own property. Iowa is basically all fields (cropfields or pastures) broken up by overgrown ditches and fencerows (funnels) I too hunt in the funnels close to the bedding areas. I personally never go into the bedding areas themselves because there are not many of them and they are not very big. Once you enter one, the deer just spook out of there into another one and your hunt is over.

KEEP IT LEGAL. KEEP IT SAFE. OR WE MAY NOT GET TO KEEP IT AT ALL.

THWACK

I agree with Bud Bowhunter for Iowa. I have one of the best bedding areas within 5 miles of my house. That's why I had a fit when the gun hunters creamed it on drives, ended my season basically. I've found 3 dead deer there so far they didn't recover and one I know they found yet walked away and left it. Good spots are hard to find in SW Iowa. It is basically on huge funnel from farm to farm and every year the farmers rip out more of the fence rows. They are bull dozing by my house this week which is going wip out some good quail hunting spots.
When there is so lillte cover, it doesn't take much for the deer to go nocturnal. Nice thing is that there isn't alot of bow hunting pressure. Everyone gets their crack at them so I can't gripe too much. Someday I'll have land I control and those hunts will stop so my bow season will be extended.

THWACK!

davidmil

Belle Isle: like he said.. a bottleneck takes many shapes. Your flats or little thickets also create their own bottlenecks. To skirt the openings the deer are squeezed into a smaller more predictable space. Deer love to travel through those areas that just have a few more saplings and a few more thick areas... so your thickets create a bottleneck because the deer seeking security squeeze into it. Hard to navigate blowdowns, creeks, excessively wet boggy areas, coyote dens, all kinds of things can squeeze game travel into restictive areas. You just have to be alert for them. I've even gone as far as to make use of man made ones. Not just the easy one(fences, hedgerows etc) but things like, where do a bunch of people park that might deter movement. Other hunters who go to the same spots day after day change and create predictable deer movement through certain areas. Use your imagination.

cods

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Bucks would rather walk around then jump over.
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This is not the case in my part of the world. I regularly hunt an area close to a cross fence that is a primary travel route from bedding area to feeding areas and very few deer (maybe 25% of the time) walk through an open gate which is left open all of the time year round. Rather, they jump the fence 20-40 yards down in an area that actually has less cover than that around the open gap. This has been true of young animals as well as mature. I think the theory of deer traveling the route of least resistance is in many cases overstated.

hoythunter48

Wouldnt the corner of a field just be a inverse bottleneck? I have a stand on the end of a swamper where all the deer cross and its a killer spot. A good funnel/bottleneck is the first spot i look for when finding a location to set up my stand and more so if i havent got time to scout or i know the deer are gonna be pressured heavily that day. There are all kinds of different funnels/bottlenecks. it could be just a low spot in a open field or the head of a hollow that has deep sides, maybe like in my case a big swamp, you gotta locate it and if you just wait your bound to see one.

&quot;She said if I hit that fishin hole today, she's be packin all her things and she'd, be gone by noon....I'm gonna miss her, when I get home.&quot;