The circled area in the picture below held a 12 point buck that I got this year. The spot itself never crossed my radar initially. The buck was spooked and tried to run out an escape route when a neighbor tracking a wounded deer from the property to the west of us entered the area. I probably never would have seen him otherwise.
I went in there afterwards and there are rubs, etc. In hindsight, it sort of makes sense. It was overlooked and typically no one ever went in there. It was on the edge of the property, had easy access to fields, had thick cover within it...and it gave him a vantage from which he could watch us park and go hunting.
Do you guys have examples of overlooked beds?
Overlooked buck beds...
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Very good example of a classic buck bed!!
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Public Land Beast wrote:Very good example of a classic buck bed!!
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Now that its previous occupant is deceased, how long do you think it will be before another buck moves in there?
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Clevinger wrote:Public Land Beast wrote:Very good example of a classic buck bed!!
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Now that its previous occupant is deceased, how long do you think it will be before another buck moves in there?
There will be a buck bedding there next season again Prime bedding sites are premium for mature bucks...
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
With that being said, it has potential to hold mature deer if you let it! You said it yourself that no one ever goes in there, and if you would like them to continue using it you have to give them what they want, and that is privacy!! Don't go trimming it out and hanging stands and cameras. Leave it alone and make very calculated decisions!! You have about 10 months to decide the best way to hunt it and when!!
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
I found one yesterday - really REALLY heavily pressured land. Pheasant put-and-take area with standing corn....Bumped nice buck off his bed on a hillside 200' downwind of the parking area with his back to the fenceline. From there he can watch everyone park,walk in,work the fields,and leave.
I walked thru the fields,slobbered over all the tracks in the corn,then spent an hour in a swamp. I returned to my truck along the property line walking into the wind. He just got up and jumped into the private land. Had I taken a picture of him when he got up,my truck would'a been in the background.
I walked thru the fields,slobbered over all the tracks in the corn,then spent an hour in a swamp. I returned to my truck along the property line walking into the wind. He just got up and jumped into the private land. Had I taken a picture of him when he got up,my truck would'a been in the background.
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Craaaig wrote:With that being said, it has potential to hold mature deer if you let it! You said it yourself that no one ever goes in there, and if you would like them to continue using it you have to give them what they want, and that is privacy!! Don't go trimming it out and hanging stands and cameras. Leave it alone and make very calculated decisions!! You have about 10 months to decide the best way to hunt it and when!!
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That's the issue, really. I wouldn't know how to get to him in there. I think I would have to belly crawl through that brush to get through there, and visibility is nil. Furthermore, he had more than one way he was exiting there. No doubt why he was there in the first place. I caught a really luck break having him spook like that. If he had just held his ground he would have been fine.
I'm not sure how you guys get some of these without cutting at least a small shooting lane.
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
seeds wrote:I found one yesterday - really REALLY heavily pressured land. Pheasant put-and-take area with standing corn....Bumped nice buck off his bed on a hillside 200' downwind of the parking area with his back to the fenceline. From there he can watch everyone park,walk in,work the fields,and leave.
I walked thru the fields,slobbered over all the tracks in the corn,then spent an hour in a swamp. I returned to my truck along the property line walking into the wind. He just got up and jumped into the private land. Had I taken a picture of him when he got up,my truck would'a been in the background.
Like Dan has said, even if it's in hindsight, there is a reason they are there.
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
You could maybe get away with cutting a lane in the summer if you have to! Some other guys can hopefully clarify more with past knowledge and experience, but I think some bucks depending on habitat, available food source, hunting pressure, foliage, time of year, ect...anyway, some bucks will have summer beds and winter beds!! Could you imagine laying in a wet swamp in the summer when it's 90 degrees out? It would be like sitting in a sauna all summer!!! Foliage is up in the summer and i think they would feel safe in the big hardwoods during this time! And I think the wind flows a little more freely in the big hardwoods in the summer as opposed to thick winter/high pressure beds!! Maybe the summer would be a good time to sneak in and fine tune everything?!!!!
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Craaaig wrote:You could maybe get away with cutting a lane in the summer if you have to! Some other guys can hopefully clarify more with past knowledge and experience, but I think some bucks depending on habitat, available food source, hunting pressure, foliage, time of year, ect...anyway, some bucks will have summer beds and winter beds!! Could you imagine laying in a wet swamp in the summer when it's 90 degrees out? It would be like sitting in a sauna all summer!!! Foliage is up in the summer and i think they would feel safe in the big hardwoods during this time! And I think the wind flows a little more freely in the big hardwoods in the summer as opposed to thick winter/high pressure beds!! Maybe the summer would be a good time to sneak in and fine tune everything?!!!!
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Typically I clear lanes in Spring or mid--summer and don't have any issues with it affecting my hunting in the fall. They will tolerate someone walking through and messing around in their core area in summer & stuff, that is if the are even bedding in there during that time of year. If you are in AG/farm land they will bed about anywhere in the summer because there is food and cover everywhere. The thing they won't tolerate hardly at all is people messing around in their core areas in the fall. They know the difference of summer and fall when it comes to pressure and feeling safe. So go in this spring, find his bed and prepare a couple of stands(maybe even hang stands in them). Then wait til you get the right winds in the fall and slowly slip in there and kill him.
Here is my example of an over-looked bedding area, 3 of the last 4 years we have killed a buck out of this draw or heading into it. Each time it's been the first or second sit in the draw, after that it's pretty much blown for a big buck being in it. Since the draw is so small we pretty much have to hunt it where it meets the fence row/woods on the north side of the draw. I attached a picture of the one bucks we killed.
Here is panned back a little bit, it's the small, far east draw on the south side of the map. It's maybe 125 yards long and at the widest point 60 yards wide.
Here zoomed in more to the draw.
Here is one of the bucks.
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
rudy78 wrote:Craaaig wrote:You could maybe get away with cutting a lane in the summer if you have to! Some other guys can hopefully clarify more with past knowledge and experience, but I think some bucks depending on habitat, available food source, hunting pressure, foliage, time of year, ect...anyway, some bucks will have summer beds and winter beds!! Could you imagine laying in a wet swamp in the summer when it's 90 degrees out? It would be like sitting in a sauna all summer!!! Foliage is up in the summer and i think they would feel safe in the big hardwoods during this time! And I think the wind flows a little more freely in the big hardwoods in the summer as opposed to thick winter/high pressure beds!! Maybe the summer would be a good time to sneak in and fine tune everything?!!!!
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Typically I clear lanes in Spring or mid--summer and don't have any issues with it affecting my hunting in the fall. They will tolerate someone walking through and messing around in their core area in summer & stuff, that is if the are even bedding in there during that time of year. If you are in AG/farm land they will bed about anywhere in the summer because there is food and cover everywhere. The thing they won't tolerate hardly at all is people messing around in their core areas in the fall. They know the difference of summer and fall when it comes to pressure and feeling safe. So go in this spring, find his bed and prepare a couple of stands(maybe even hang stands in them). Then wait til you get the right winds in the fall and slowly slip in there and kill him.
Here is my example of an over-looked bedding area, 3 of the last 4 years we have killed a buck out of this draw or heading into it. Each time it's been the first or second sit in the draw, after that it's pretty much blown for a big buck being in it. Since the draw is so small we pretty much have to hunt it where it meets the fence row/woods on the north side of the draw. I attached a picture of the one bucks we killed.
Here is panned back a little bit, it's the small, far east draw on the south side of the map. It's maybe 125 yards long and at the widest point 60 yards wide.
Here zoomed in more to the draw.
Here is one of the bucks.
Nice buck!
Having been through there, is it that they like the view they get from 3 different sides? In hindsight, what do you think the advantage or their reason for being there was?
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Re: Overlooked buck beds...
Clevinger wrote:
Nice buck!
Having been through there, is it that they like the view they get from 3 different sides? In hindsight, what do you think the advantage or their reason for being there was?
I think a few things. The first being that because this is a small, thick draw that is close to the road it gets overlooked and not hunted very hard at all before I started hunting this farm. It helps that they can lay in there and see out, plus play the wind so it makes it nearly impossible to get in there without them seeing, hearing or smelling you. The draw is filled with buck brush so they feel very protected and like they can sneak around in the draw without you even knowing there in it. Another reason is that because it is a small draw and out of the 'beatin path' it doesn't hold a lot of deer. As stated lots of times, big, old deer aren't like other deer, they don't want to live in a place where there are lots of other deer bothering them all the time, so this place is peaceful from hunters and other deer harassing them.
Yea that buck is pretty nice(he scored 181 as a 9), trail cameras is one of the reasons that deer died. I put a camera on a scrape on the draw to the west of that small draw and within an hour of dark he was on the scrape coming from the East so it seemed likely he was living in the small draw. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hunt that draw with a bow that year, so a guy who was gun hunting with me was able to go kill him with a gun. Hind sight I probably would have gone in and just tried it even though I didn't have a great set-up, but at the time I was filming everything so hanging and hunting with camera man & hunter in that close of quarters is really hard(one of the reasons I'm not going to be hunting with a camera anymore starting this fall).
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