Ditch Bedding

[Sam Ubl]

The Farmland Bedding thread is interesting - we all seem to agree that ditches hold deer. So what are some BST's why deer find safety in ditches. I have some ideas dealing with scent and wind on one shoulder, but the little man on my other shoulder has an opposite opinion.

Pros:

1) The bedded deer's scent remains hidden, eliminating it's whereabouts from the predators nose.

2) Well hidden

3) Protected from the elements

Cons:

1) The bedded deer can't smell predators coming.

2) So well hidden that everything on the up-side of the ditch remains hidden, too...


... Let's here your thoughts?

[Singing Bridge]

A number of years ago I hunted an enormous, high hunting pressure, flat farmland buck that I’m confident would have rewritten the top spot for the county in question. I hunted him for two seasons before he vanished. The closest I came was the buck standing right in front of my tree forty minutes before daylight fifty yards from his bed. This buck shredded trees a foot in diameter, particularly right in his bed. He was spotted by other hunters once, to my knowledge, on the edge of a nearby field the first week of November. They never had a clue where he often bedded with a prevailing wind.

The buck used a wide, deep ditch with good cover for a main artery of travel to water/food/and does. He did not like to bed in the ditch however, as it had too much travel and made him vulnerable in more than one direction. With a prevailing westerly wind, the buck would leave the ditch and walk fifty yards east or downwind, to a small grove of mature aspen trees that had tall weeds in them. Everything around the tiny grove of trees was wide open- except forty yards to the east where a large, dense thicket was located with lots of doe and young buck bedding.

Why bed here? He completely used the other bedded deer to his advantage. If a predator approached from downwind, it would blow out the does and young bucks from the thicket and give him advanced warning. A couple of bounds would have him in the ditch to the west and completely out of sight.

As stated earlier, he often approached the bed from upwind, and any predator trailing him on the ground would give itself away with the wind blowing its scent right to the buck along with the buck having great vision upwind. A couple of jumps downwind and to the east would put him completely out of sight in the dense thicket. If he had to blow out north or south, for some reason, he could put the mature grove of trees and weeds between himself and the danger while getting out of dodge.

Multiple escape routes, using the other deer to his advantage, and bedding in a completely overlooked small spot…

[Sam Ubl]

Scott, well written and described like a painting on canvas! Great inferences, great explanations, etc. My minds working now.