Just don't do it

FLATHEAD

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Jun 27, 2021
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I understand the necessity for drives as I've been hunting a large NF in the
Southern Appalachians for many years. Low deer densities, huge expanses
of steep, thick, rugged country certainly make drives (dog or man) more
effective.
That said, I prefer still hunting alone. The reward, when finally connecting is
off the charts. And much, much safer.
 

Lawnboi

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North Central Wi
No, the over generalization is you using all hunting. It is more like saying 'don't speed' or 'don't text and drive.' The fact that you have to specify "smart safe hunters" to have drives be safe automatically implies that drives involve more risk than other styles of hunting. How much more, I don't have data to specify. But, the data does say drives account fora noticable portion of accidents. https://freerangeamerican.us/deadly-hunting-accidents/ I'm also guessing far fewer hunting hours are spent in drives, meaning the risk is much higher when compared to other styles of hunting.
I believe these things happen because deer drives often result in moving and running deer, some people don’t take the time practice common firearms safety when placed in a situation like that. I do agree that this stress and the moving parts creates a recipe for disaster. Iv seen it.

It is a firearms safety problem. Go to a range in WI, or most other states a week before gun deer season. Those are the people you’re in the woods with.

Common sense ain’t so common anymore.

Iv been part of many planned and safely executed deer drives.
 
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
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Go to a range anywhere the weeks leading up to deer season and watch the lead sled brigade. It’s scary everywhere I’ve seen it.

We do some drives. It has its benefits, but also can be risky. Got to pick your team carefully.
 

Burnsie

Lil-Rokslider
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Feb 3, 2017
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246
Location
Illinois
I grew up doing deer drives in N Minnesota. About the only way to get deer out of the thick woods.

We'd have as many 8-10 drivers and 4-5 posters - never had an accident - not even a close one.

Ive shot many, many deer on drives. Both as a driver and as a poster.
Sometimes when I was a poster, Id take 2 guns - one with open sights and one with a scope.

Id have deer laying all around me when the drive was done - [and yes, party hunting was legal for all you internet police]
Same experience here except northern Wisc. Growing up - the week of gun deer season was practically a state holiday in Wisc. Different parts of the states did things differently, further south and some central parts of the state they were restricted to shotguns due to a lot of open farm ground- less driving. Up north in the big woods it was all rifle (usually 30-30 or aught '06), and driving was how it was done. One of our traditions was to do the "Big Drive" on Thanksgiving morning. We would team up with the guys from another "hunting shack" down the road. It became legend over the years, only a handful of the old timers knew how to set it up properly and get people in place on either end. It was done on a huge tract of county/state land and covered miles. It took the drivers and standers a good 30-45 minutes just to hike in and get into positions. Standers would be on stand well over an hour - usually 25-30 guys total.
Never a safety issue in all those years - haven't been back to the big woods in many, many years.
If the drive went well, we'd be dragging deer the rest of the day.
 
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Use to do a lot of “drives” when I was younger. Not part of the game plan anymore for a lot of reasons…
 
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Mar 27, 2021
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SW Wisconsin

Based on wisconsins numbers 8 firearms incidents last week. Two on a deer drives, two shooting from a ground blind, and 6 involving unloading/loading guns. I would attribute most of this to poor firearm handling by most. Just interesting to see how many shoot themselves in the foot literally.

Also about a 0.00144% chance of injury/death. 8/554,898. (554898 gun licenses sold) and 203295 deer shot.
 

hoyt-guy

Lil-Rokslider
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Feb 27, 2018
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Minnesota
Never been a fan of deer drives here in MN. My experience is you end up with a running low percentage shot, where at best you just wound & maim the animal.
 

Jethro

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@tony, sorry to hear about your coworkers brother. Hope he can make the best recovery possible.


Many things in our lives are dangerous. More so when adding in poor judgement and lack of thought. I don't think we have to prohibit everything that could harm us.
 

roymunson

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Jul 12, 2021
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NE OHIO
I've done it and its an effective management tool, but in private land hunting in Ohio, I'd prefer to leave my property as the sanctuary rather than push deer out onto the neighbors.

If you wanna drive yours, that's fine, but there are a lot of driving folks who don't care about property lines and will stomp everybody's place up if you're not there to deter them. That's what's frustrating.
 
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Feb 17, 2017
Messages
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No, the over generalization is you using all hunting. It is more like saying 'don't speed' or 'don't text and drive.' The fact that you have to specify "smart safe hunters" to have drives be safe automatically implies that drives involve more risk than other styles of hunting. How much more, I don't have data to specify. But, the data does say drives account fora noticable portion of accidents. https://freerangeamerican.us/deadly-hunting-accidents/ I'm also guessing far fewer hunting hours are spent in drives, meaning the risk is much higher when compared to other styles of hunting.
I think you just didn't understand what the point I was trying to make. Since you brought up some statistics I figure lets actually look at them...since my hypothesis was just that a guess.

We will use the Wisconsin DOT numbers (.89 fatalities per 100million miles driven and 51 injuries per 100million miles driven)
Wisconsin DNR numbers. (554,000 rifle hunters)
Wisconsin has a 9 day rifle season. Lets say you drive roughly 111 miles a day on average...most people average 41 miles/day regular life habits but during hunting season you have to drive to your spots etc.

1 in 100,000 drivers in the state of Wisconsin will die in a 9 day period averaging 111 miles a day.
1 in 2,000 drivers in the state of Wisconsin will be injured in a 9 day period averaging 111 miles a day.
(based off of injury/death rate per million miles driven)

554K gun hunters in wisconsin. 1 fatality and 8 injuries during the 9 day rifle season.

1 in 554,000 hunters killed in the state of wisocnsin
1 in 69,000 hunters gun related injury in the state of wisconsin during the 9 day rifle season.

I guess i will stick to my original guess that you are more likely to be injured or die driving your vehicle during the 9 day rifle season than injured by a gun during the hunting season. In fact you are 5x more likely...

The reason i am using Wisconsin for an example is that deer drives are a very huge part of the hunting culture and the vast majority of Wisconsin deer hunters have participated in deer drives of some sort.

The only thing "Smart safe hunters" implies is those are the types of hunters I surround myself with in ANY hunting situation. 6 of the 8 gun related injuries in Wisconsin this year were not involving deer drives...but no way of figuring out ratio of hours hunting to hours doing deer drives per capita.

The reason I hunt with smart safe hunters is the same reason I don't jump in passenger seat with a driver that is drunk...
 

Marbles

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AK
I think you just didn't understand what the point I was trying to make. Since you brought up some statistics I figure lets actually look at them...since my hypothesis was just that a guess.

We are bot missing the other person's point then. I never said driving deer is more dangerous than driving a car. It is likely more dangerous than many other forms of hunting.

The Wisconsin numbers back this up. Of the three people shot be other hunters in the link provided in post #29, two of the other shooters were taking part in a deer drive and one was hunting from a ground blind. One involved a shooter in a deer drive shooting a hunter in a ground blind. Not a large enough sample to be statistically valid, but as you cited them to show the safety of deer drives I will make the inference, shooters in a deer drive shoot other people twice as often as ground blind hunters.

I also never said people should not drive deer, but given the title and original post of this thread I can see how one could take that inference.

I backpack hunt solo in Alaska, my guess is this is more dangerous than taking part in a deer drive (primarily due to being solo in rough country), we all choose the level of risk we are comfortable with, but calling something "perfectly safe" is tantamount to plugging ones ears and chanting lalala. That said, it reasonable to state that the risks are negligible, which is probably what you were getting at.
 
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We are bot missing the other person's point then. I never said driving deer is more dangerous than driving a car. It is likely more dangerous than many other forms of hunting.

The Wisconsin numbers back this up. Of the three people shot be other hunters in the link provided in post #29, two of the other shooters were taking part in a deer drive and one was hunting from a ground blind. One involved a shooter in a deer drive shooting a hunter in a ground blind. Not a large enough sample to be statistically valid, but as you cited them to show the safety of deer drives I will make the inference, shooters in a deer drive shoot other people twice as often as ground blind hunters.

I also never said people should not drive deer, but given the title and original post of this thread I can see how one could take that inference.

I backpack hunt solo in Alaska, my guess is this is more dangerous than taking part in a deer drive (primarily due to being solo in rough country), we all choose the level of risk we are comfortable with, but calling something "perfectly safe" is tantamount to plugging ones ears and chanting lalala. That said, it reasonable to state that the risks are negligible, which is probably what you were getting at.

But I like plugging my ears and chanting lalala!!!

No we do agree. Risks are negligible if those risks are mitigated.
And that was my point...we don't stop driving a car if we hear about someone getting in a car accident.
We just make sure not to drive drunk and too fast for conditions...ie doing deer drives with unsafe morons.
 

TheGDog

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Jun 12, 2020
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OC, CA
The only time i felt unsafe was when some a-hole was intentionally shooting the tree beside be because he felt entitled to the spot.
What the!?... Back the Truck up.

You can't just drop a bomb like that without tellin' us all how it panned out that day.

You do realize his actions gave you... on a silver-platter.... the part to satisfy the "reasonable-person" clause part of use of lethal force doctrine. You know this... right?

Ugh.. so what happened AFTER this ahole lost his damn mind and did that?
 
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What the!?... Back the Truck up.

You can't just drop a bomb like that without tellin' us all how it panned out that day.

You do realize his actions gave you... on a silver-platter.... the part to satisfy the "reasonable-person" clause part of use of lethal force doctrine. You know this... right?

Ugh.. so what happened AFTER this ahole lost his damn mind and did that?
I was 14 when this happened. At that age I had no inkling of what was required to justify deadly force, much less a desire to actually return fire during a deer hunt. Plus this was the pre-cell phone era, so getting time relevant legal support or video wasn't on the table. I got out of the spot, called the Warden from home, and was told to shut up unless I could prove it. The main takeaway was to not depend on law enforcement.
 
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Nov 30, 2020
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Met a guy in our hunting area that had a slug go into his headlight, made a mess of his engine bay, and stopped in the firewall of his SUV. He saw the group of hunters and the deer that was running. The story that I recall is that he heard the thump and his vehicle died very very shortly after the thump. He put two and two together and saw the hole in the headlight. Has he been driving a little faster it was right in line with his torso. He got a hold of the police and DNR who talked to the hunters. Not sure the outcome there.

This is wasn’t a middle of nowhere dirt road, this was a busier 55mph paved road. Sometimes common sense isn’t so common.
 
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