Hunting Ditches

[Kevin Altemara]

So I joined this new hunt club this past year on the eastern shore of Virginia, and its got like 30 different properties and one of them has this ditch about on one of the property lines of us and another hunt club, the ditch is about 1.5 feet deep and like 3 feet wide and there are 4 piles of shit along the ditch with a ton of crossing trails. what do you guys think about sitting near the end of the ditch with a 30-06 and just looking down a trail that is parallel to the ditch? and what about putting a stand along the ditch edge?

 

[Chainsaw]

So I joined this new hunt club this past year on the eastern shore of Virginia, and its got like 30 different properties and one of them has this ditch about on one of the property lines of us and another hunt club, the ditch is about 1.5 feet deep and like 3 feet wide and there are 4 piles of shit along the ditch with a ton of crossing trails. what do you guys think about sitting near the end of the ditch with a 30-06 and just looking down a trail that is parallel to the ditch? and what about putting a stand along the ditch edge?

Hi Kevin,
Welcome to the forum. We all come from different areas and thus the deer behave differently from property to property. The deer here do not walk down three ft. wide hedgerow ditches during the day or are you referring a ditch in the woods? For you a camera will confirm it either way and in either case. Likely though a stand fifty yards in the woods opposite where the ditch hits the woods or where it ends if a woods ditch might be an active early evening spot. I'd check that spot out with a camera as well as checking it for rubs. Just a note, generally sitting on a property line hunting is not viewed as being neighbor friendly. Unless you drop all of your deer on the spot then 50% will run on the neighbors. That is not being respectful of their hunting time or space. Even if you do drop them where they stand, shooting parallel close to the property line is not just rude but dangerous to others as well. Sorry to be so blunt but we always must think of where could this bullet end up.
Let us know what you find and again welcome to the group.
Chainsaw

 

[Kevin Altemara]

Hi Kevin,
Welcome to the forum. We all come from different areas and thus the deer behave differently from property to property. The deer here do not walk down three ft. wide hedgerow ditches during the day or are you referring a ditch in the woods? For you a camera will confirm it either way and in either case. Likely though a stand fifty yards in the woods opposite where the ditch hits the woods or where it ends if a woods ditch might be an active early evening spot. I'd check that spot out with a camera as well as checking it for rubs. Just a note, generally sitting on a property line hunting is not viewed as being neighbor friendly. Unless you drop all of your deer on the spot then 50% will run on the neighbors. That is not being respectful of their hunting time or space. Even if you do drop them where they stand, shooting parallel close to the property line is not just rude but dangerous to others as well. Sorry to be so blunt but we always must think of where could this bullet end up.
Let us know what you find and again welcome to the group.
Chainsaw

the woods surrounding that ditch are all pine and with the way my dad is ( im 15) he won't climb a pine or set up a stand on one, so I am kinda forced to do the same, I plan on putting 2 cameras on the ditch line at 2 of the major crossings in september cause im currious to when they travel it, and as for the bullet im a leftie so I would have the stand with its back to the ditch and the longer section of the ditch to right of me and most of the shots will be about 10-40 yards and ill be shooting down and ive never had a through shot with my slug gun. We have seen a person tracking a deer on our side of the ditch and they said the 2 clubs worked it out so that we could retrieve deer on their side and they could on ours

 

[Chainsaw]

I guess Kevin what holds true for deer acting different in different areas holds true for hunting customs as well. Here a reciprocal agreement to retrieve wounded deer is fairly common but is still a privilege. Hunting from property lines increases the need to use the privilege; Use it too much and those agreements can and do quickly fall apart. And then there is a serious safety issue whether everyone is careful or not. But both of those things aside lets look another problem with hunting property lines. Lets assume that if you hunt the property line and that people from the other club are doing the same. So say the stars line up and you and your Dad finally get an afternoon to go out hunting together and you are sitting watching the path on your side of the ditch while another pair of hunters is watching the deer path on their side of the ditch. Neither of you know the other is there of course. You see nothing for three hours and then finally one hour before dark and even with the stink of four humans in that immediate area, you see a spike cross the ditch, you get ready but he turns and goes back into the ditch. A shot is fired from the other club and a deer comes out of the ditch on your side, you shoot it and down it falls. You run to it and get there just as the other hunter walks thru the ditch to retrieve "his" deer. The good news is that no people got shot but of course the hunt is "successful" for one pair of club members from one club and is cut short for the pair of club members from the neighboring club. The shooting and people movement and interaction in that area has ended the deer movement and thus the hunt at least for the day there. Safety and manners issues aside that still does not sound like a great day afield to me for either pair of hunters.

Maybe in your location that is normal due to too many people/shortage of land issues or something but I would certainly be looking for other stand options at least 50 yards from the property line. Keep mind also that while ditches sometimes get heavy use, the deer sign in them often looks a lot better than it is. Deer traveling through low spots make trails quickly as compared to deer traveling on a side hill through a pine grove for example but there could be more deer traveling thru the pines on the side hill. In either case the land off the property line has a better chance to give you a better and safer hunt than the property line hunt. Best of luck to you in your hunting.

 

[Kevin Altemara]

I guess Kevin what holds true for deer acting different in different areas holds true for hunting customs as well. Here a reciprocal agreement to retrieve wounded deer is fairly common but is still a privilege. Hunting from property lines increases the need to use the privilege; Use it too much and those agreements can and do quickly fall apart. And then there is a serious safety issue whether everyone is careful or not. But both of those things aside lets look another problem with hunting property lines. Lets assume that if you hunt the property line and that people from the other club are doing the same. So say the stars line up and you and your Dad finally get an afternoon to go out hunting together and you are sitting watching the path on your side of the ditch while another pair of hunters is watching the deer path on their side of the ditch. Neither of you know the other is there of course. You see nothing for three hours and then finally one hour before dark and even with the stink of four humans in that immediate area, you see a spike cross the ditch, you get ready but he turns and goes back into the ditch. A shot is fired from the other club and a deer comes out of the ditch on your side, you shoot it and down it falls. You run to it and get there just as the other hunter walks thru the ditch to retrieve "his" deer. The good news is that no people got shot but of course the hunt is "successful" for one pair of club members from one club and is cut short for the pair of club members from the neighboring club. The shooting and people movement and interaction in that area has ended the deer movement and thus the hunt at least for the day there. Safety and manners issues aside that still does not sound like a great day afield to me for either pair of hunters.

Maybe in your location that is normal due to too many people/shortage of land issues or something but I would certainly be looking for other stand options at least 50 yards from the property line. Keep mind also that while ditches sometimes get heavy use, the deer sign in them often looks a lot better than it is. Deer traveling through low spots make trails quickly as compared to deer traveling on a side hill through a pine grove for example but there could be more deer traveling thru the pines on the side hill. In either case the land off the property line has a better chance to give you a better and safer hunt than the property line hunt. Best of luck to you in your hunting.

Me and my dad have hunted that area ( the woods around the field) and we have not seen a person parked near this area or many people driving here either, what they own is mostly hardwoods with a old field that is now a bunch of baby pines that is super thick, you couldnt even walk in there with just a gun.

 

[Kevin Altemara]

for some reason the image wont show up but ill keep on trying

 

[Tap]

Ditches make great stand access. The deeper the ditch the better, but even 2 feet deep helps visually conceal a hunter and also helps minimize noise approaching stand sites.
I travel one creek ditch (it's more like a little canyon) to one of my stands. There was one issue, though...the canyon was blocked by an impassible 12 foot waterfall, so I built a ladder to get over the falls. I showed up one bitterly cold morning and found this...


I try to use any low point as an access route. Ditches, gutters, canyons...anything that will help hide me from the deer.

 

[j-bird]

I agree in that ditches and creeks and the like can be great access and stand sites. Use trail cams to see where the most activity is and when. I also agree in that hunting property lines can become an issue with neighbors if abused. If you can't access a tree for a stand consider a well placed ground blind and brush it in and place it as early as you can. Back off the point of where you expect the deer to be as far as you feel that you can still make a comfortable shot. When hunting from the ground try to use any slight elevation advantage if you can as well. learn the general travel pattern in that area and you may even choose to narrow down the crossing locations to better your chances or at least learn where these crossing come from and go to to help understand what the deer are doing and why. Sometimes the information is better than the stand site itself. Good luck. If your having trouble loading an image the file size may be too big or the actual physical size (L X W) may be too big....sorry I don't recall what the max limits are.

 

[Kevin Altemara]

I agree in that ditches and creeks and the like can be great access and stand sites. Use trail cams to see where the most activity is and when. I also agree in that hunting property lines can become an issue with neighbors if abused. If you can't access a tree for a stand consider a well placed ground blind and brush it in and place it as early as you can. Back off the point of where you expect the deer to be as far as you feel that you can still make a comfortable shot. When hunting from the ground try to use any slight elevation advantage if you can as well. learn the general travel pattern in that area and you may even choose to narrow down the crossing locations to better your chances or at least learn where these crossing come from and go to to help understand what the deer are doing and why. Sometimes the information is better than the stand site itself. Good luck. If your having trouble loading an image the file size may be too big or the actual physical size (L X W) may be too big....sorry I don't recall what the max limits are.

it was just a screenshot of an arial shot that i marked up for property lines and stuff like that

 

[Kevin Altemara]

file:///home/chronos/u-fb690c4267a92b93ce121409a58c2e94d483e62d/Downloads/land.png
i think that will work, brown yellow is a powerline, 3 stands on that, field( purple) has winter rye in it and the one near the top is just grass, blue is a stream, and red is the ditch, white is not our prop. but green is

 

[j-bird]

it was just a screenshot of an arial shot that i marked up for property lines and stuff like that

You are still limited to 2.3 megs and depending on the formatting and like that isn't much. I think there is also an actual file size based on pixels in the horizontal and the vertical directions.

I typically have to take my pics and the like and take a screen capture, dump it into microsoft paint and then save it as a jpeg file in order to reduce the file size enough for it to work.

 

[Kevin Altemara]

You are still limited to 2.3 megs and depending on the formatting and like that isn't much. I think there is also an actual file size based on pixels in the horizontal and the vertical directions.

I put a link up for it, just copy and paste it

 

[Mennoniteman]

Welcome to the forum! I enjoyed reading about your hunting endeavors. Since you're young and ambitious I suggest trying out some different things with your hunting spot and see what works. The important thing is to watch the wind very closely, nothing ruins your hunting quicker than a deer scenting you. The worst thing about this is that it may be happening and you don't even realize it, and you just can't figure out why you aren't seeing deer. If a hunting strategy seems to make sense, is legal and not bothering anyone else, I'm the type of guy to give it a try. But keep records on a note pad, if something is not working you need to change up your game before you burn out your spot. The way to tag a buck is to not let him outsmart you twice in the same way. As far as uploading pictures, your files are too big, I take them with my phone then crop 1/3 to 1/2 off of them and they upload right away. This buck came up out of a ditch to feed last fall at my spot, similar to what you are talking about. I left him grow another year.