ell, I have 30-06 rifles and I have .308 rifles and I have hunted some pretty thick cover with both. Some seriously open country as well. Many many long years ago when I could only afford one rifle I hunted the rain forest of Northwestern California. So of that stuff was so thick if a deer ran as much as 25 yards odds are you'd never find it and that's no joke.
My rifle at the time as a bubba'd 1903 Springfield and I loaded my ammo with an old Lyman tong tool and dipper. I forget what the charge was but the bullet usually was a 170 gr. Siera flay nose for the 30-30 and I'm guessing the velocity was maybe 2500 FPS. Barrle was chopped off at 19" give or tale, long enough to be legal anyway and recrowned with a brass screw and valve grinding compound. Those loads tore up a lot of meat on those Blacktail Deer but at least I got the deer.
That was then and this is now. I have two rifles specifically for any brush hunting I do, a Ruger M77 RSI and a Remington M660 (Substitute a Remington M7 in it's place.) bothe chambered to the .308. The M77 has an 18.5" barrel and will spit out a 165 gr. Speer Hot Core at 2550 FPS with the load it likes best. It's take big western Mule Deer from 6 feet to 250 yards laser measured. Scope is a 1.5x6X Simmons Whitetail soon to be upgrade with a Leupold 2x7X. The Remington has a 20" barrel and pushes the 150 gr. Sierra Pro-Hunter to about 2600 FPS and the 180 gr. Sierra Pro-Hunter round nose to about 2450 FPS. I've taken deer with that one at 15 feet to 427 paces. Sorry, no rangefinders available back in 1973.
I would not mind having a Ruger RSI chambered to the .358 Win. as a brush gun or a Remmy M7 in that cartridge. Browning makes the BLR in .358 and the one I have is quite accurate. I plan on using it on close to maybe 200yard shots on hogs. Be a good one for you shot at deer.
Contrary to popular opinion, I do not consider the .35 Whelen to be a short to medium range brush gun but a serious firearm capable of taking game to 400 yards fairly easily. I took this years elk at 350 yards FWIW with my .35 Whelen. She was spooky and I absolutely could not get closer.
Paul B.