Ok, so when you find some beds, how do you know which buck is using it? I mean like if you go out shining or glassing and see some bucks, how do you know which one of them is using that bed you know is nearby?
I could write a book on this question... 1st off, hopefully you have located almost all the buck beds in your area and have them mapped and marked wind specific if they are wind specific... So now that your spring scouting tells you where the beds are, when you see bucks early in the night or before dark you can assume they are not traveling far to get there.
Where they enter a field and where they exit will give you a direction of travel. Look at your map, which beds are located close to where he is coming from? If your seeing them in the morning, within a couple hours of daylight they are close to there morning beds. Same thing, direction of travel compared to a map... You can also learn aq bucks specific track that identifies that exact animal by raking the ground in front of your trail camera or checking the mud in a field where you saw him.
Once you have a record of tracks ( I would suggest Digital pictures )
You can compare them to tracks found in different fields and then refer back to your bedding map to closest bedding.
Trail cameras set up in feeding areas also do more than just take pretty pictures... They give you accurate times of when a certain buck passed thru and again, direction of travel can be obtained, especially with video function.
Don’t the deer use different beds different times of the year? Reason I ask is while you are scouting in April/May and find some beds, will the deer still be using them in September/October, and do they use the same beds year after year?
Some beds get used all year, some don't... I find that the older a buck gets the more he seems to avoid the "summer beds" out in open grass and such. That don't mean they never do... Just generally.
Older bucks seem to have a few "Primary" bedding areas that they use most often year round.
Some of the properties I hunt in farm country seem to not hold any deer in the winter..If I go walk the groves in the winter, there are no tracks in them whatsoever. Anyways, the deer seem to show up on these properties about mid-summer, so is there any way to scout these properties and find the beds without kicking them out of there?
When we scout buck beds in winter/spring right after snow melt, we are looking at beds and sign from fall, from during deer season. In the cases where the buck is wintering on another property the bed might not have any fresh tracks in it, but it will still be there, and still very easy to see.
