RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

In reading through this I can see I am pretty lucky to live where I live. I hunted four days in SD and never saw another hunter. I heard a few shots way off in the distance. I have access to about 6000 acres of private land. There are only 750,000 people in the State where I hunt. Many of you live near cities with many times that number of people. I don' t understand crowded woods and disputes over a downed deer. I can' Imagine a season without many, many oppertunities to take a buck and a doe is a given. Sometimes I don' t appreciate the remotness of our states up here, ND-SD. Even at that, I seldom go out the first weekend. If there ever is going to be any number of hunters competing for deer it would only be the first two days. Where I live Road hunters are a far worse problem than drive hunters. These are people who don' t even try to get permission to hunt. They just drive the back roads and try and nail one and get it loaded and get out before they are detected. While I consider myself an ethical hunter I believe that any tool for legally taking your deer is ok. Some people make drives, some tree stand hunt and others spot and stalk. Some of us do all of these methods at times. Anyway, I wish you all the best hunting and have a good off season. YEA RIGHT!!!:):) Good Off Season???

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

I have heard some crap in my day but some of what I have just read has really turned my stomach. I WILL START BY SAYING THAT i DRIVE DEER. MY DRIVES CONSIST OF 2 PEOPLE. 1 STANDER AND ME DRIVING. I dont want these deer to be flying through the woods at all, just moving. I hunt from opening day of bow season, so I know where these deer will be bedded down. It takes a great deal of skill and knowledge to make these dear do what I want. Someone in here had the audacity to imply that all drives are what were the words" If its Brown its Down" . I can tell you that me and my partner are very choosy on what we shoot. And to imply that all of us shoot everything that moves and we are all the same is bunk. If I was ever to agree with something as stupid as that then I would have to agree that we are all poachers. Hey we have alot of them for sure, but does that make us all in the same boat. Idont think so, or atleast I sure hope not. The person " kind word" that implied that, needs his or her head examined.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Hey Dad why can' t we hunt anymore? Well no one could decide who the " real hunter " was we spent so much time fighting with ourselfs we lost our seasons.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Well where I hunt (Central ND) there are not alot of areas where you can set up stands. Its alot of open plains and CRP. Very few trees. We do drives every deer gun season. When you do drives the deer dont run right at you. They almost all of the time know exactly where everyone is and will run away from everyone. Just because you in NJ do not do drives you shouldnt be slamming people like me where, in ND or my part of ND do not have the trees for stand hunting. In alot of north dakota this is how people were brought up. Obviously there are areas of the state, river bottoms and such that are great for stand hunting. I hunt there during bow season but during rifle season I can only go to certain areas and they are not suitable for stand hunting so we do drives. So maybe you should know the situation for other people before you go slamming them.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Food for thought:

Why can’t we hunt anymore Dad? Well Son it’s our fault, you see the hunters did it to each other. Everyone became so hung up on who the “real hunter’s” were that we ended up loosing our rights.

The Bow Hunters couldn’t decide. The Traditional shooters said that the guys that hunted with compounds weren’t “Real Hunters” They needed let offs and releases and sites. People that hunt with Compounds just aren’t “ real hunters” because they don’t have all the skills that the traditional guys do. Heck, they shoot at a hundred yards and don’t know how to track, how can you call them” real hunters”? The Compound hunters shouted back YOU TRAD GUYS JUST WOUND THE DEER!!! Most of you can’t hit the broadside of the barn!! The only thing they could agree on was that people that hunted with Crossbows and guns weren’t really hunters, that don’t belong in the woods. Neither do guys that put on drives nor bait use stands, scents or calls. A scoped rifle for hunting sitting in a blind how can you call yourself a “real hunter”? It’s not ethical its just killing it should be banned. It kept up like that for years. Hunters bashed hunters and the non -hunting public paid attention and our seasons were lost. You see they took us at our word when we said that these guys weren’t real hunters and they didn’t belong in the woods. Funny thing is it ended up that no one qualified as a “Real Hunter” and our season they were lost.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

NO Thanks!!

I do know about them Taz. I know it' s not as easy as I make it out to be. I know they can circle right behind the drivers and bed back down 50 yards behind them. I know you have to be conscious of the wind. I know you have to study their escape routes. I know you have to positon the sitters perfectly. Concealed and downwind from where they will come out. I know sometimes you can try to drive a piece of woods that you' re 100% sure a mature buck is in and he won' t come out. I know there are soft drives or bumps and there are all out hard drives. I know you have to know where they are likely to be bedded in the am or pm. You have to know their patterns just like any other form of hunting. I do know a lot about drives (succesful).

My point still remains: Why?? if hunters know all this then why? why not just set up on them instead of drive them. Someone honestly please help me understand that aspect. I honestly can' t figure out why?
You are right however Tazman and charlie P and whoever else I offended. I am WRONG for classifying it as not hunting and I sincerely apologize. It' s not up to me to make that determination. Good points about me not being perceived as a hunter because I don' t use a recurve or a tree limb with a piece of string and a carved branch as my arrow. Point well taken and again I apologize. I just still wanna know why. Maybe I' ll never know.
To me, and this is JMO, nothing deragatory intended. Any form of taking an animal when it is out of what would be their natural routine or travel, seems a bit tainted. ie: making an animal get up and move when they wouldn' t normally.
Now that I' ve read my posts, I admit I was a dink with some of the statements I made. I get a little goofy over this subject. Had 1 friend shot in the hip during a drive. Had an aquaintance get killed when he was 20 during a drive. Everything about it freaks me out, but yes it is hunting it' s just not my form of hunting. The more I learn about it the more I can understand that form of hunting. Or maybe I' ll never understand it. Good luck be safe.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Why, Well let' s take the other day for example. My son and I were bowhunting during gun season, it was midday. I thought to myself we can go eat or put a little push through this thicket. If I had sat with through midday would we have seen anything maybe, but I doubt it. It had warmed up pretty good and most of the deer movement had been early.

So I made a plan with him and went and set up. He pushed four deer out that we wouldn' t have seen back at the house. Three of the four just came walking out, the fourth a huge doe was really moving.When he came out to me he was really excited. See he knew where those deer would be bedding and helped Dad out. I didn' t get a shot but he sure got a sense of accomplishment. He explained to me how he had to crawl through the one area and flanked the deer to move them my way.The same sense of accomplishment he does when we scout an area hang a stand and see/shoot deer out of it.When we got home he explained to Mom how he worked this push for Dad.

Another reason is plain and simple to kill some deer.A couple of the farms we do larger pushes on the farmers need the numbers lowered. Last year on one push ten guys we killed 8 does all mature. I think 11 shot were taken. This Thanksgiving day I didn' t go but they took 7.

How do you keep a kid interested in hunting and fishing, you give them some action.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Yeah tell me about it. I' m so sick of catching rock bass and sunfish!!

aight. I can relate to that. that' s cool. I suppose I' m just surrounded by yahoos where I' m from and it drives me nuts. I hate to beat this subject to death, but another thing that kills me about it is they have NO consideration for anyone. I' m sitting taking up 1 square foot of space while hunting. These guys will tromp through 3 counties of woods and kill everyone elses hunt. They pretty much leave you with no choice. But I can see the companionship and family thing.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

NY Bowhunter this is one reason why I have become a stand hunter and also why I have taken up bow hunting, the thrill of the kill is far greater to me.

Where I am from there were plenty of folks that hunted with dogs which is another form of deer hunting that takes quite a bit of skill, but I noticed that over the years most dog hunters went one of 2 ways, they either got away from hunting deer with dogs and evolved slowly into first driving without dogs and eventually to stand hunters, I am part of that group, or they became fascinated with the scouting and the dogs and could care less about killing a deer. I often wondered if they also did this to hang out with the younger crowd who loved dog hunting, of course I had more than one relative who went to thier graves still hunting in front of dogs and loving it.

RE: Is Driving deer is really " hunting" ?
 

Driving deer definitly hunting. I find that most of those against drives like to sit high up in a tree out of the deers line of sight or smell. They use artificcialy produced scents to get the deer to come to them. They may also sit over piles of bait or food plots placed there with the objective of attracting deer. When a deer comes along they decide if the rack is big enough to hang on their wall. If it is a " shooter" they kill it while it is completley unaware of any danger. HOW CAN YOU CALL THIS HUNTING??? On drives, the deer knows that danger is approaching and has a chance to save its life by using it' s natural defense of leaving the area, which is what exactly would happen if a natural predator was pursuing it. Driving deer is truly " fair chase" .
Going on drives is also an enjoyable way to spend time with friends, as you generally need more than one person to do it. It is also a great way to get kids intrested in hunting as they are good and crawling through thick brush(make sure they wear blaze orange and don' t go through on an edge of the piece so they don' t get lost) Everyone in the hunting party should know who has tags for what and if anyone minds tagging a deer they may not of actually shot. (Not a problem for me, on a drive everyone is part of the hunt and any individual could have been the one that jumped the deer and/or made it go the way it did)
The groups I hunt with shoot antlerless and antlered(any size) deer as long as we have tags for them. Meat is meat. There are too many deer and a dead deer is a good deer