“They are moving around a lot more at that time of year,” Boggess said, “so much so that scientists can use that collision rate to determine when deer breeding is occurring in an area.” When it comes to collisions, however, the most dangerous time on the road is during the deer breeding season, commonly known as “the rut.” “They’re getting up for the day and they’re settling in for the night,” Boggess said. Activity trackerĪlthough some are on the move at night, deer are most active at dawn and dusk, says Moriah Boggess, a deer biologist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife. Here’s what else you should know about encountering deer while driving.
“That means paying attention to the roadway, keeping your eyes on the road, and not being distracted by devices in the car or other occupants.” “The easiest way to avoid a collision is to not be distracted or impaired while driving,” Michigan State Police Sgt. How can you avoid becoming part of that statistic? The actions you take next will determine not only your own safety, but that of the animal and possibly other motorists.Īround 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions occur each year on the nation’s roadways, estimates the Humane Society of the United States. Focused drives kill deer.On your early morning drive to work, a deer pokes its head out from the trees along the roadside. The size of the group isn’t as important as putting on a very focused drive. A slow pace means that a lot of times the drivers-instead of the shooters-wind up killing the deer. It maintains a controlled pace and movement that doesn’t come with startled deer that run hard. Slow drives help us steer the deer toward the shooters. Cormier tries to stay in contact with others in his group via two-way radio. In an ideal world my ideal forecast calls for a light drizzle rain or snow with a light, swirling wind. All that does is change our approach because the best part of drives is they work in all types of weather. On windy, rainy days they’ll be in the hollows or bedded down. In my area I’ll find deer on hillsides on warm, sunny days. Our properties have a lot of water on them, too, and those swamps, ponds and lakes serve as natural borders to push animals toward choke points, and that’s exactly where we put the shooters. Ridges, hillsides and saddles are natural borders, and since they’re steep here the deer aren’t likely to run up them. We use every part of the terrain to channel the deer to our shooters. “Most of us have been hunting together for more than 40 years, so at this point in our lives our approach is pretty dialed in. Every year we kill a lot of deer by wind bumping them on a drive.” A lot of times they get the shot, and that’s fine because that’s the purpose of the drive. They’re important since they’ll see any deer that double back. “The two other hunters seal off the back. If I move at a slow, steady pace then the deer walk right up the trail and into range of the shooters. Spooked deer run, and when they do they catch shooters off guard or sneak out and go in a different direction. If I can keep them from bedding down, then they just keep walking and don’t get spooked.
On windier days I move faster because my scent drifts more quickly and the deer are spooky to begin with. Most of the time I move real slow, a speed just a little faster than a stillhunt.
As they move, I move, and I keep going so they don’t stop and bed down again. Once they wind me they get wary and get up and start to move. “I set up upwind of the deer and let my scent sweep down to the herd. A solid 8-pointer that was taken on a late-season deer drive.
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