How thick is too thick??

[oldrank]

I don't really recall seeing much of this stuff till the last 5 or ten years around here. We have small patches of it here and there. I have noticed that it seems to be choking out the cattails in some places but we don't have it super dense yet.

[Longbow]

Around here (NE Wis) where conditions are right it chokes out everything. Nothing seems to be able to compete with it.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[briar]

The thickness that Dan was describing is what this place was like. I am talking just awful. It took about everything I had in the take to go 200 yards. It was well over my head and so dense I would venture to say if you would see 10 feet you were lucky.....nasty nasty stuff.

[seeds]

The thickness that Dan was describing is what this place was like. I am talking just awful. It took about everything I had in the take to go 200 yards. It was well over my head and so dense I would venture to say if you would see 10 feet you were lucky.....nasty nasty stuff.

I decided to hunt a spot in the Metro zone today - season's still open. Part of this public parcel is a sanctuary that's closed until Dec 1st. I've been in the edge but I saw there's a pocket of larger trees in the middle. There were very few spots in the thicket where I could have taken a 5yd unobstructed shot...

I headed in there today with plenty of time but quickly went from "hunting" to "scouting" to "I'd better find my way out of here before dark or I'm really screwed". I may not have covered 1/2 mile in 2 hours. ...I kept thinking of this thread. There were tracks all over but most beds were near the edges....But if it's practically too thick for a rabbit,a big buck can (and did) jump thru it like nothing....It was so thick I spent 10 minutes getting to a tree no more than 20' tall just to climb it and look for a better way out...Snowing - thank God for a compass in my phone.... Sweating too much to wear my gloves and crawled thru the snow more times than I could count. Or backed up 2 or 3 paces to get a "running start" to break thru the redbrush and scrub willow.

I finally found human tracks and thought "another dumb@ss",just to realize they were mine from last week when I just skirted the edge of the thicket. At least I was almost out....I was back to my truck with 20 minutes of legal hunting time left.

But...If I can find (and maybe trim a bit?) a way in from the main marsh and cattails to the spot where there was a cluster of 15' to 20' poplar and ash trees...???...'cuz the only time I've seen ANY deer leave the thicket during daylight is when the weather's really crappy.