i raise cattle and hunt the woods that butts up against my pasture. The deer always seem to walk just inside the woods along the pasture. Cattle spook fairly easily and i think that the deer will stay close to the cattle and if they are at ease the deer will be to.

I have hunted several farms where there are cattle, in fact almost every private farm i've had permission to hunt had cattle on them. It has been my experience that deer do not usually come around when the cattle are there and I agree with Firehawk that cattle will come to you if they see you. Deer and cattle do use the same areas and I do not think that deer take much notice to cows as far as whether they have been in an area or not, but when they are there they do not come and mingle with them. Last year when I was hunting with my brother and his father in law on their farm there were cattle around me in the woods just off a field. No deer to be seen, until I got down out of the stand and literally shoed them away. 30-40 minutes later a spike passed by and went down where the cattle were at previously.

When I first started hunting at my uncles,his cows would follow me out and watch me climb the tree.At first I thought "shows over"then it dawned on me what a great cover scent.The cows will get bored when they can't see you anymore and walk off.Shot a lot of deer that way.He would only let me use a bow.

Cattle in an area eat alot of the stuff that deer would eat and also eat the grass that would be bedding areas for deer. Woods tend to have a lot less cover where cattle are grazing. These things make areas with cattle less attractive for deer.

Bob

We started raising cattle about 5 years ago and the number of deer on our property have gone way down. The cows eat alot of the same browse that deer do leaving less for the deer. I am seriously considering getting rid of all the cows so that the hunting will improve.

Thanks guys for all the info. i'll try to stay away from the cattle as much as possible

We built a fence splitting our property last year. Until that time our cattle had free range on the place. Since we only hunt the west side of our property, we fenced the cattle off and kept them on the east side all fall and winter. Our deer hunting and number of deer we saw improved a great deal last year. Don't get me wrong, we had good success and have harvested many deer and some really nice bucks prior to this, but it seemed to help taking the cattle away. We'll see for sure this season.

Cattle won't totally ruin your hunting, but they will definitely hurt it. A few cattle in a pasture won't hurt if they dont over graze, but they need to be out when hunting season is underway if possible. As others have said, their curiosity will have them following you to your stand and hanging around your stand after that. Forget feeders and putting out salt and minerals for the deer. Food plots, forget that too. Cattle will also make a lot of noise which really effects the quality of the hunting. One place I used to hunt was in CRP and had a creek running through it. Then the landowner took it out of CRP and rented it to a guy who loads it with cattle. They have destroyed all the cover along the creek, and it isn't even worth hunting anymore.

I think, cattles really affects your hunting strategies. It would be a hard time to determine the difference between the the cattle and deer that will be your target.

God i wish we could get rid of ours, but its not up to me. Cattle have got to be the dumbest animals on the planet.