Deer in the cattails?

[bogwalker]

Have you hunted in or overlooking cattails along water for deer?

[matchset]

once. it was a pinch between two blocks of timber! moose utilized the trail too; and boy was that a rush when i had one of them come thru at fifteen yards!

[gr8icefishinmind]

Every slug season and i love it! I have a 4x8 stand on 10 foot stilts overlooking a slough! EVERY year have seen big deer, its a rush to look over the cattails and see a bucks rack going through the cattails!! Cattails/sloughs are where the big boys hang out!

[Archerysniper]

Shot one off a 6 foot ladder in the middle of a cattail slough, there were no trees around but they were in their thick so I put up the ladder and sat on top of it.

[Bear55]

Yep they love them, I get out on points or islands in the cattails and just about always see deer. Like someone else said seeing a rack floating above the cattails is pretty cool.

[bogwalker]

Do they just bed down in there or is there daytime movement? What do you look for in finding a good spot to hunt?

[matchset]

bog! we've done late season muzzleloader drives thru sloughs. i would say they do pass through, but they offer thick security when the water isn't too high.

be ready! its a blast, and tons of fun to walk through that stuff~

i don't hunt over them anymore; we just wait till the last weekend of rifle or smoke pole season to go into it! the deer are usually stacked up in there due to pressure!

[rainylakefisher]

We hunted cattails one year in desparation ... couldn't find the deer in any of the 'usual' spots that year. Our land has a couple of small pockets of cattails and my oldest brother decided we needed to try to push them as it was back when we only had two days to hunt in our area. After lots of grumbling and whining, we formed a line and started walking. Chaos quickly followed! Six deer, including a monster buck, and a fox got out of an area smaller than a football field. We dropped everything except the fox!!

Needless to say, those patches are now part of our regular hunting, but I will say they vary widely from year to year. The best years seem to be the drier periods ... I'm pretty sure deer won't use them when there is standing water. Small patches are just as effective as large ones and lots easier to push with small groups. I do agree that the BIG bucks choose the heaviest cover and the sight of a big rack getting up a few feet in front of you is a rush everyone should experience. My biggest deer, a double drop-tine 10 point, was shot through the neck running directly away from me at 20 yards. It got up about 10 feet away ... I'll never forget that!!

[Bear55]

Do they just bed down in there or is there daytime movement? What do you look for in finding a good spot to hunt?

They usually try to find a little patch of high ground in the cattails, and trees or brush sticking out will usually be growing on a little high ground. If you don't see any high ground they might bed on the edges where its a little less wet. I don't think a deer will bed in the wet stuff but pressure may force them in there and they might go just about anywhere to stay alive.

[hockeybc69]

We built a stand overlooking a slough of ours with woodlots on both sides. My first year in that stand, middle of the afternoon I hear ice breaking and splashing and knew what was up. Out comes a nice 8 pt following a doe. They never let up on the gas, otherwise that 8 pt would have been down.

[gurkster]

In the cattails or the edges of them are good. Like others have said they go there to hide as many hunters won't go into them. They like to find a drier place in there to hide out.

[student]

We've had great luck hunting cattail sloughs, just be very careful when either a.) walking through them as some can have deep holes that appear from nowhere and b.) if you are pushing or driving the cattails, be very sure of your target and what/who is behind it. The dense cover only allows for a fraction of a second to decide if you can shoot or not. We typically don't have the drivers shoot, only the poster(s).