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Walking the lines yesterday; next step changing drops.
What a disaster! Hundreds of squirrel chews and drops bitten in half (deer I guess). So many chews and breaks, no other choice but to run new lines, mostly 3/16.
Anybody else have a lot of damage, or am I just the lucky one?
Thanks, Bill
Your not the only one. Every year It takes me about 400' of 3/16" tubing just to fix squirrel chews on around 4,000 feet of tubing. I have lots of deer and they never bother it much. Deer might chew a spot but will not bite it in two, it's squirrels doing most of it. When I fix lines I put sriracha sauce on them at the trees and it helps through season.
I had the same problem last season.There was a family of juvenile coyotes that enjoyed chewing on the lines. I had to replace almost 1000 feet of 5/16. That's besides the squirrel chews. Target practice time.
I used to think deer wouldn't chew the lines, until while hunting a few years back, I watched them chew thru 2 lines. The chew marks are not like a squirrel chew at all, no nibbles, they seem to leave a flat chew mark, often in almost 1/2" flat marks. Deer do absolutely chew maple tubing. In fact that year I saw a deer chewing the lines, I got a short video of it. I sent that to the DEC to show them, since that time I've been getting nuisance permits to reduce the problem. The unfortunate part is that I no longer hunt and some years I have a hard time finding anyone who wants to be an "agent" and hunt during Jan thru March. My permits at first ended March 31, more recently they have expired April 8 or so.
One issue seems to be when they gut a doe in March, it's very obvious they were pregnant.
yep deer chew tubing. Although I still get some pretty good squirrel chews on my property I hunt the squirrels out pretty good get 5 to 10 squirrels a year, but across the street I have 75 taps and man the squirrels are relentless they chew through mainline, laterals, drops, fittings... man they are rough over there. more damage on 75 taps than 500 taps in my woods.
good luck