Bizwoods

I hunt in Illinois in a river bottom. Been seeing alot of deer, but then the river came out of the banks last week.
The river is back in the banks now, and is dried up pretty good. But not seeing any deer, seeing some tracks though. Question.. will the deer that were there before return?. If so, does it take awhile or what. Getting frustrated lol. I'm trying to get one before the next shotgun season with a bow. Thanks...

tatonka

It could take a while. We had a flood along the Milk River back in 1986 during September. When the water finally went down the flood had changed a lot of the brush, bedding areas, etc. Some pockets of brush had been competely washed out and deposited in other areas. It was a strange year to hunt. I never really did figure out the deer patterns that fall along the river and creek bottoms, so I moved up to higher ground that hadn't been affected by the flood and found that many of the deer had moved up there and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the fall.

Bizwoods

Thanks tatonka, guess everyone agreed with you.
I'm still seeing some track and new rubs, but not much movement.

USFWC

I hunt a piece of land that floods quite often.The river deposits a layer of mud and washes all of the acorns away when it does come up. I have to back way off of the river into areas that thehigh waterdid not touch. If you look for the high water mark, you can walk along the edge of it and find where a lot of the hard mast has collected in piles. The deer find these before long and start hitting them pretty frequently. Otherwise, hunt patches of cover,greenfields and oak groves back off of the river that were not really affected by the high water. You should find high concentrations of deer in those areas.

Bizwoods

Thanks USFWC for the info

Good Hunting to you..

younggun308

River bottom hunting? You go to the river bottom with a snorkel and a harpoon-gun?

KoBear

i hunt a long strip of land that goes along the river, and it floods a couple of times a year.

the deer run up behind the houses, but are usually back within a week or two.

unless its the rut, then you can hear them running through the water.

but yes, i promise you the deer will come back.

Bizwoods

Thanks so much. Where I live it's hard to find places to hunt.
The water was not out for long, nor very deep. Hope u r right and they come back. Been scouting a real nice 12 pt there....