For close quarters, a Slugger from a shotgun will blow through most small material.ĭeer drives can be effective if executed correctly. As I said earlier, this is like shooting a bowling ball through a deer. My personal conviction for the best thick cover drive gun is a smooth bore 12 gauge shooting Remington Sluggers. While this gun has punched my lungs over its tenure, I have also realized it is not the best for thick cover. 270 for its all around performance and capabilities. I bought my first rifle at a young age and chose a. Gun choice for a drive in thick cover is also a point of discussion. Two of the bucks on our walls fell because of this. Many times I have used the wind to blow through the funnel to move deer at a slower jog past my shooters. Move at an even pace when walking and try if you can to have the wind at your back. But think about just how fast those deer will be cruising past your buddies hoping for a shot. Crashing through the woods making tons of noise is certainly one way to execute a drive. Post shooters on natural exits from the funnel. Although you learn escape routs over time, you can make educated guesses by considering the natural direction of the funnel. When analyzing a piece of woods, ask yourself about the natural direction of the funnel? What way will those deer run to escape. The chances of you pushing deer to your friends is far greater in a small ten acre piece of woods than in 1,000 acres of land. But smaller chunks of land concentrate deer. Sure, you can make a drive work almost anywhere and I’ve killed deer pushing endless tracts of woodlands. When I set up for a drive, I look at these three things: Woods size, funnel direction, wind direction.īigger is not always better when it comes to deer drives. They work, and here are the things to look for to set up a successful drive. I killed one of my best bucks on a well played push. But drives aren’t all bad, they are darn effective and I refuse to be shamed into talking bad about drives. Can they be counter effective and drive deer off your property. Ok, drives are frowned upon in today’s land management deer hunting world. But to a 12 year old boy, the magic of laying hands on a deer was still something to get used to. In the years to come, that same drive and gun produced more meat for our freezer than any other spot we could hunt. Remington sluggers are like shooting bowling balls. Say what you want about a smooth bore barrel. When it goes off, something will be tagged. Halfway through the briar clogged funnel, two shots rang out. As a young boy, spending a morning freezing with my dad was darn special and having part of the hunt ride on my shoulders in my mind, made me about as damn near close to being a real hunters as I could get. “Loop around this wooded funnel in the corn field and walk through, push something to me.” My father had just given a near holy task to me as a 12 year old boy, push a deer to him.

Deer drive hunting