Driving carefully this deer season

Marv Boerboom was only 15, but he remembers the lead flying past him like it was yesterday.

"We were on a deer drive, three of us were driving and two posting,'' said Boerboom, 58, of Olivia, Minn. When a deer broke from cover, one member of the hunting party starting shooting, oblivious to fellow hunters in the line of fire.

"The slugs were whistling through the air,'' Boerboom recalled. "I hit the dirt. It was scary.''

He and four family members will be out seeking whitetails near the Yellow Medicine River in southwestern Minnesota this weekend when the state's firearms deer season opens. They won't be doing any deer drives.

"We'll sit in the trees and let the deer come to us -- it's safer,'' Boerboom said, chuckling.

But plenty of Minnesota's half-million deer hunters will conduct drives through woodlots and fields to roust deer from cover. This year, many will face a problem that likely will hinder their chances of bagging a deer, and also create safety issues: corn. As of Monday, just 12 percent of the state's corn crop had been harvested. Normally, about 70 percent would be gone by now. Farmers are harvesting corn this week, but the bulk likely will remain standing this weekend and beyond.

The vast fields of standing corn will give whitetails a sanctuary while posing special dangers for hunters conducting deer drives. Mike Hammer, Department of Natural Resources enforcement education program coordinator, is warning hunters to be extra cautious.

"Typically, deer drives are conducted in woodlots and ravines, but this year a lot of people will change their hunting tactics because the corn is still in," Hammer said.

Hunters likely will send some of their hunting party into the corn in hopes of moving deer.

But hunters -- even clad in blaze orange, as required -- will be nearly invisible in 8-foot-tall corn.

"It's going to be really tough to do safe deer drives in that situation," Hammer said. "Anytime you're pushing deer, you'll be shooting at running deer. And when you shoot at running deer, you tend to focus on the deer and lose track of where your other hunting partners are."

And, said Hammer: "A corn stalk is most certainly not going to stop a 1-ounce 12-gauge slug."

Accidents not uncommon

Deer drives are inherently risky because multiple hunters are involved, and they often shoot at moving targets.

"Deer drives are involved in a large percentage of firearms hunting accidents in Minnesota and elsewhere," Hammer said. "We have them every year."

Last year in Minnesota, at least two of the nine deer hunting accidents occurred during deer drives. In one case in Houston County, the shooter and victim were 30 yards apart while others in their party drove deer to them.

"Victim and shooter began shooting at deer and the next thing victim remembers is laying on the ground" wounded, the DNR's accident report states.

In another incident in Olmsted County, a 46-year-old hunter, partially obscured in a wooded area, was shot in the thigh during a deer drive.

And in 2007, a 60-year-old hunter who was posting a marsh during a deer drive in Grant County was killed when two drivers in his party shot at a running deer. A slug hit the hunter. At least two other nonfatal firearms accidents occurred during deer drives that year.

"It's one of the more common accidents," Hammer said. "Anytime you're shooting at a running deer, your safe zone of fire is changing with every step that deer takes."

Develop a plan

Still, a deer drive, done properly, is an effective way to move deer, said Lou Cornicelli, DNR big game program leader and an avid deer hunter.

"If you do it right, in an organized way, it's a good way to hunt deer, for sure, but you have to be cautious," Cornicelli said. "Deer don't like to move when there's a lot of people out trying to kill them. Their normal behavior is really thrown out of whack. They tend to hunker pretty tight."

A drive forces them to expose themselves.

Hammer offers this advice:

"Have a good safety plan. Figure out who's going to be shooting and who's not going to be shooting. The drivers' purpose is to shag deer out of the field; they shouldn't be shooters. And you're going to want to have good communications between fellow drivers. They should stay within voice range of each other. Be sure the drive line stays as straight as possible, and no one gets ahead of one another."

It's vital that hunters stick to the plan.

"Set up posters so they have good visibility of the drive itself," Hammer said. "Don't be guessing where people are at. And most certainly don't be shooting back into the corn."

Ultimately it's up to each hunter to make sound shooting decisions.

"Always be sure of your target and what's beyond," Hammer said. "If you're not sure, don't pull the trigger."

Doug Smith • dsmith@startribune.com