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Any harm in riding your ATV/side by side into the woods?

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Bushape

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Jan 9, 2019
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Not talking about driving right up to the tree mind you but just sticking to traveled roads. Assume you have certain stands for certain winds and that always controls your stand selection.
 
Where I live in East Tennessee these deer are the most nervous herd of deer I've seen. They won't eat out of feeders, they won't move much in daylight, when I do see them they are mainly running or going somewhere in a hurry. I'd never use anything with a motor around here. But I've had leases in middle and west Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky and I wouldn't think twice about it on those properties. I think the biggest thing is pressure and how familiar they are with the smells and noise of the machine.
 
The land I hunt you will not see a deer
If you use an ATV to get in. That being said I believe it is what they get use to. We never ride ATV's there. So that is something out of the ordinary.
 
The machines sound like an echo chamber at my place in the head of a deep hollow, and deer stay away. From my back porch I have a 400ft climb to reach the ridge top. Once there it's pretty easy hiking to any of my spots, but getting up there is a sweaty mess no matter the weather. I've tried taking my machines up but when I do, the deer are non-existent. I'm really considering an electric bike.
 
I think a lot of deer reaction to vehicle traffic is dependent on how and when they hear this activity. On properties where ATVs are a near daily occurrence year-round, deer pay little attention to them. On properties where ATVs only invade the woods during deer season, deer become highly leery of them.
 
BSK said:
On properties where ATVs are a near daily occurrence year-round, deer pay little attention to them. On properties where ATVs only invade the woods during deer season, deer become highly leery of them.
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And, for most hunters, when they ride their ATVs into the woods, it is in fact mostly just during deer season?

With my deer hunting experiences in TN, generally speaking (rare exception), ATVs are the scourge of the earth. I use them sometimes (actually rarely) to retrieve a deer, year-round on a limited basis, but generally NOT to ride into a hunting area during deer season, or soon before.

But deer can get acclimated to almost anything, especially when it's a daily or near continuance occurrence.

A great example is a farmer's tractor used daily to deliver hay to a cattle feeding station. Another is highway traffic, as some local deer will acclimate to that noise, aroma, and visual, often choosing to bed all day within 75 yds of a major road. After all, how many hunters want to hunt near a highway?
 
I'm lucky to not have to ride a 4 wheeler or sxs in on my property the way it's laid out. I used to hunt a place that I would drive my truck or 4 wheeler in about half way. It was 180 acres but I really only hunted maybe 60 acres of it. The rest was wide open cow pasture with rolling hills and you would have to walk your tail off to get to the back to hunt. It had so many rolling hills you could park at the bottom of one and be just fine. Even one you could drive down and park and walk about 100 yards to the stand and they never knew anything was around.
 
BSK said:
I think a lot of deer reaction to vehicle traffic is dependent on how and when they hear this activity. On properties where ATVs are a near daily occurrence year-round, deer pay little attention to them. On properties where ATVs only invade the woods during deer season, deer become highly leery of them.
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This exactly.

A 4 wheeler can be the worst thing ever if used on a property only during deer season. The same 4 wheeler if used regularly throughout the year won't bother the deer a bit. On my farms, deer are terrified of 4 wheelers and clear the fields before you even get to them. But drive into a field in a truck (they are used to trucks checking the cattle) and they will just watch you and not run off (unless you stop and open the door). Ive shot a bunch of nice bucks just parking my truck in a field and hunting from the bed with the rifle set up on the cab. Had deer come to within 10 yards of the parked truck as long as they are upwind and don't smell me.
 
If they are accustomed to it (year-round use), it won't bother them. If the area is voided of atv's all year and all of a sudden atv's are being driven through the woods, you better believe they will run at the fist sound of it firing up.
 
I used to drive my side x side down a levee for a little over 1/4 mile, I would park in some high grass at the end, then walk from there. I started walking that levee then on to my tree. I started seeing older mature deer slipping in without driving the UTV in. My place may be different from yours. As someone said, it's what they are used to. But, you could be pushing an older mature deer out and not know it. Just saying.
 
I have been using a ATV to access our hunting property since 1988. Before then it was a old CJ-5 Jeep. It is a very large tract of mountain property, but I usually don't ride in to where I hunt no closer than 1/4 mile. I would never be able to get the deer out without my ATV. I do think ATVs do educate the deer for the most part. If I hunt farm land I wouldn't use one, except to retrieve a downed deer.
 
I lease a working farm. Farm hands are routinely on a four wheeler. If I use mine to go hunt (rare occasions) I'm more concerned with the scent. I have an old pair of coveralls just for this and I spray down with no scent.
 
Sold my ATV and bought an eBike last December. Spent a lot of time in the woods post season scouting. This eBike is so quiet I had deer stand and watch me ride by them. Even got within 75 yds of a Coyote before he heard me and ran. Lots of hunters ride these to their stands and just throw a camp net over them. I'm not sure I can make myself go that far, but if you have any issues keeping you from walking 1/4-1/2 mile to your stand this is definitely a solution. I would love to brag about the abilities of this eBike but that's not what this thread is about, so suffice it to say it's a solution to getting close to your stand in stealth mode!
 
Volbuck777 said:
Where I live in East Tennessee these deer are the most nervous herd of deer I've seen. They won't eat out of feeders, they won't move much in daylight, when I do see them they are mainly running or going somewhere in a hurry. I'd never use anything with a motor around here. But I've had leases in middle and west Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky and I wouldn't think twice about it on those properties. I think the biggest thing is pressure and how familiar they are with the smells and noise of the machine.
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I agree I live and hunt East Tn there is not the deer here as once but they are nervous as all get out! I drive in as close as I can because here it almost always straight up in and out! Then walk in!
 
13pt said:
Sold my ATV and bought an eBike last December. Spent a lot of time in the woods post season scouting. This eBike is so quiet I had deer stand and watch me ride by them. Even got within 75 yds of a Coyote before he heard me and ran. Lots of hunters ride these to their stands and just throw a camp net over them. I'm not sure I can make myself go that far, but if you have any issues keeping you from walking 1/4-1/2 mile to your stand this is definitely a solution. I would love to brag about the abilities of this eBike but that's not what this thread is about, so suffice it to say it's a solution to getting close to your stand in stealth mode!
Click to expand...

I've heard a lot of good things about them, but haven't quite convinced myself to part with the cash yet. This might just be the year!
 
I used to be very anti-ATV/UTV for hunting, because of what I've seen on big clubs that allow hunters to ride ATV right to their stands. Some even build tower stands with covered ATV "garages" underneath the stand. In those instances, I've watched as deer quickly cleared food plots as soon as they heard an ATV being fired up, often a LONG distance away. However, I also have the experiences generated from 30+ years of running trail-cameras and 21 years of running trail-camera censuses. It didn't take long to learn that the fastest way to kill a camera site was to walk to it frequently. All that human scent going to and from the spot, and concentrated around the camera itself, really shuts down older deer activity in the area.

So you have deer that become highly sensitive to ATV traffic when that traffic is associated with hunting, and yet constantly walking to a stand can shut down deer activity in the area as well. What's the answer, walk or ride? I really don't know. Once I began using video mode on trail cameras I learned some really valuable information. Over and over I got video clips of deer suddenly snapping their heads up and looking off in a particular direction, then rapidly leaving the area. The next video is me pulling up on my ATV to check the camera (I only place cameras where I can drive an ATV right to the camera. This reduces scent left on the ground). Checking the time stamps, the videos invariably will be less than a minute apart. The video of the deer reacting is proof the deer are hearing me coming on my ATV and getting out of the area. So even though I ride an ATV around the property regularly, all year, deer are still reacting negatively to an approaching ATV. However, what is most interesting is that the same deer that ran away from the approaching ATV are often right back in front of the camera 5 minutes after I leave.

So which is the best practice? Walk long distances to your stand and lay down scent that reduces deer traffic in the area, or ride closer on an ATV that certainly spooks deer, at least temporarily? Now I would never practice nor recommend driving an ATV right to the stand. On the other hand, walking long distances to stands is probably not the best practice either. I really don't know where the "inflection point" is between the two practices.
 
Actually, the ideal scenario is to have someone drop you off right at the stand in a vehicle/ atv, then have them pick you up at the stand after dark. That way, the vehicle pushes off the deer rather than having the deer spooked by you climbing down out of the stand. at, do this on some of our larger fields with airtight shoot houses, and deer continue to use the fields and it takes much longer for them to learn to avoid the shoot houses.
 

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