Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

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dreaming bucks
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Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby dreaming bucks » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:39 am

Dan...

sorry if I've missed your story, but I was wondering if you could tell us how you discovered bed hunting? I mean, did someone steer you in the direction, or did you just come with it on your own through trial & error?

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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby dreaming bucks » Sun Jun 02, 2013 3:10 am

Bump

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Jackson Marsh
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:17 am

dreaming bucks wrote:Dan...

sorry if I've missed your story, but I was wondering if you could tell us how you discovered bed hunting? I mean, did someone steer you in the direction, or did you just come with it on your own through trial & error?

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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Bowhunting Brian » Mon Jun 03, 2013 5:18 am

ttt. (to the top)
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Ragepassthru » Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:55 am

I'm sure he started hunting for a bed when he got really, really tired and knew it was time for a good rest :D
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby MOBIGBUCKS » Mon Jun 03, 2013 7:30 am

Most likely out of necessity...Pressured deer are true survivalists.
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby dan » Mon Jun 03, 2013 2:56 pm

Sorry it took a while to answer... I was out of town for a few days and had no internet...

When I was a kid I grew up the youngest in a family of 10... 11 if you count my brother Mike who died as a baby. We did not have much money and my parents grew up in the depression so hunting was about getting food...

I killed a lot of deer when I was young, it was different times, and hunting was for different reasons. The good thing about killing a lot of deer was that I became really good at killing deer, which is important when you transform to hunting "big bucks". You have to understand when to draw your bow, when to move, and exactly how to set up a proper ambush.

There were no where near the bucks there are today back then, even deer numbers were way less all together... When someone would get a buck with 8 points every body would be talking about it and people would come over to see it...

I was always dreaming of big bucks, even though I was just shooting deer... One year a 1-1/2 year old buck grew a small 10 point rack in my area.... He did something very few bucks did back in those days, he survived to be a 2 y/o.

I found one of his antlers, and saw him grow thru the summer into a 135 inch 9 pointer... And I wanted him bad. I remember telling my Dad I passed some small bucks and him getting upset. I told him I wanted that buck... When I would come home empty handed he would ask me if we were eating antler stew again. Meaning that my antler chasing was depriving the family...

Some how, despite a few sightings, he slipped thru my grasps and survived again... And again, I found one of his sheds.
That winter I walked around a lot and found some bedding areas. I was already starting to put the bedding area equation into account due to my previous hunting, but started looking a little closer...

The next year set up near a bedding area I had a close encounter with no shot opening day, and then later in the year wounded the buck after he got out of a bed 200 yards from me in sight. This year the buck was really big (for those days) high 140's... After wounding the buck, he got real smart and gave me the slip the rest of the season...

That winter / spring was the turning point. I realized my failure the year before was due to set ups and bad performance and worked on that, I also new that my (almost) success was due to being close to his beds... It kind of dawned on me that I needed to find all of his bedding areas and hunt him down by hunting him where he lives one bed to the next... I scouted like crazy, found both of his sheds, and all the buck bedding areas in my hunting area... The next year I had many encounters with the bow, but again failed... When shotgun season came I made a plan to sneak into every bedding area till I got him... On thanksgiving day I slipped up to one of his beds and tossed a rock into where I thought he was bedded while I watched his escape rought. He jumped from the bed and I shot him...

It was a great feeling, and people came from all over to see the buck... That was back in the 1980's. The next year I made good with my bow on an 11 pointer, and from then on, I really just kept perfecting bed hunting... One great reason I have gotten really good at it is cause I hunt all over the place and many different terrains.
I hear a lot of people say they don't need to know how bucks bed in hill country, cause they hunt farms, or they don't need to know how bucks bed in marsh, cause they hunt hill country, etc... But really, it all relates. For example, when you hunt hill country you learn real quick that they bed the down wind points coming off ridges... In relatively flat farm land you might think that can't help you, or in big woods, etc... However, a slight hill of 10 feet in other wise flat ground can act just like a 100 foot ridge in hill country and until you see it in hill country you just don't notice it on the flat land...

Here are the sheds from that buck
Image

Here is the buck:
Image
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Swampthing » Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:16 pm

Great story Dan, how many bedding areas did he frequent?

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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby MOBIGBUCKS » Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:20 pm

dan wrote:Sorry it took a while to answer... I was out of town for a few days and had no internet...

When I was a kid I grew up the youngest in a family of 10... 11 if you count my brother Mike who died as a baby. We did not have much money and my parents grew up in the depression so hunting was about getting food...

I killed a lot of deer when I was young, it was different times, and hunting was for different reasons. The good thing about killing a lot of deer was that I became really good at killing deer, which is important when you transform to hunting "big bucks". You have to understand when to draw your bow, when to move, and exactly how to set up a proper ambush.

There were no where near the bucks there are today back then, even deer numbers were way less all together... When someone would get a buck with 8 points every body would be talking about it and people would come over to see it...

I was always dreaming of big bucks, even though I was just shooting deer... One year a 1-1/2 year old buck grew a small 10 point rack in my area.... He did something very few bucks did back in those days, he survived to be a 2 y/o.

I found one of his antlers, and saw him grow thru the summer into a 135 inch 9 pointer... And I wanted him bad. I remember telling my Dad I passed some small bucks and him getting upset. I told him I wanted that buck... When I would come home empty handed he would ask me if we were eating antler stew again. Meaning that my antler chasing was depriving the family...

Some how, despite a few sightings, he slipped thru my grasps and survived again... And again, I found one of his sheds.
That winter I walked around a lot and found some bedding areas. I was already starting to put the bedding area equation into account due to my previous hunting, but started looking a little closer...

The next year set up near a bedding area I had a close encounter with no shot opening day, and then later in the year wounded the buck after he got out of a bed 200 yards from me in sight. This year the buck was really big (for those days) high 140's... After wounding the buck, he got real smart and gave me the slip the rest of the season...

That winter / spring was the turning point. I realized my failure the year before was due to set ups and bad performance and worked on that, I also new that my (almost) success was due to being close to his beds... It kind of dawned on me that I needed to find all of his bedding areas and hunt him down by hunting him where he lives one bed to the next... I scouted like crazy, found both of his sheds, and all the buck bedding areas in my hunting area... The next year I had many encounters with the bow, but again failed... When shotgun season came I made a plan to sneak into every bedding area till I got him... On thanksgiving day I slipped up to one of his beds and tossed a rock into where I thought he was bedded while I watched his escape rought. He jumped from the bed and I shot him...

It was a great feeling, and people came from all over to see the buck... That was back in the 1980's. The next year I made good with my bow on an 11 pointer, and from then on, I really just kept perfecting bed hunting... One great reason I have gotten really good at it is cause I hunt all over the place and many different terrains.
I hear a lot of people say they don't need to know how bucks bed in hill country, cause they hunt farms, or they don't need to know how bucks bed in marsh, cause they hunt hill country, etc... But really, it all relates. For example, when you hunt hill country you learn real quick that they bed the down wind points coming off ridges... In relatively flat farm land you might think that can't help you, or in big woods, etc... However, a slight hill of 10 feet in other wise flat ground can act just like a 100 foot ridge in hill country and until you see it in hill country you just don't notice it on the flat land...

Here are the sheds from that buck
Image

Here is the buck:
Image



Wow! Just wow! Amazing story that is a true inspiration to me.
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:25 pm

Great story!

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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby Stanley » Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:26 pm

Always like to hear how guys evolved into better hunters.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby dreaming bucks » Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:49 pm

Awesome story Dan, thanks for sharing!

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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby BGHUNTER » Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:15 am

Very cool story.
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby dan » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:42 am

Swampthing wrote:Great story Dan, how many bedding areas did he frequent?

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A couple dozen maybe? Back then I literally found every bedding area I could find and hit them all... Not sure which ones were primary and or his.

One of his beds, the one I wounded him with the bow at, I later saw other big bucks come out of, and that started to click that bedding was not random, and that big bucks preferred certain spots.
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Re: Dan.. How did you start bed hunting?

Unread postby headgear » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:44 am

dan wrote: I hear a lot of people say they don't need to know how bucks bed in hill country, cause they hunt farms, or they don't need to know how bucks bed in marsh, cause they hunt hill country, etc... But really, it all relates. For example, when you hunt hill country you learn real quick that they bed the down wind points coming off ridges... In relatively flat farm land you might think that can't help you, or in big woods, etc... However, a slight hill of 10 feet in other wise flat ground can act just like a 100 foot ridge in hill country and until you see it in hill country you just don't notice it on the flat land...


Great story Dan and I just wanted to highlight the above paragraph, it is so important to learn everything you can about buck bedding. I bought Hill Country even though I hunt mostly swamps and flat land. There is a little structure in some of my areas and it has sure paid off to have some of that Hill Country education. A lot of beds that produce seem to have a unique set of circumstances and having a broad knowledge of why bucks bed where they do is huge for any hunter.


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