big woods buck beding aeras

[backstraphunter]

trying to learn some new tricks on finding big woods bucks beding i,m realy wanting to branch out to new aeras too find big shooter buck where i hunt in the michigan U.P is big woods and ceder swamps no farming no mass crop trees most of our beech nut trees are dieing off. where i hunt is a give me for deer movment and killing a once in wile good buck but mostly we take rag horn bucks i,m realy wanting too key into thease beding spots like i see dan here dose and be 100 yards to 75 yrd off in a stand i never realy hunted this way i allways looked for sine bottle necks where i hunt the deer realy do not stay on trails the other thing as many of you know the winter kill last 2 years has put a dent in our deer heard so in a nut shell with looking at google maps what should i be keying in on to go look at to save time and travel. i,m realy wanting too change my hunting ways and do diff things I,M EVEN WANTING TO LEARD HOW TO TRACK DEER IN THE SNOW wanting to go learn from some east coast hunters.

[backstraphunter]

here is pic of the bucks we can shoot every year where i hunt my kids and me i stoped shooting rag horns since 2008 i have let a lot of bucks walk since then and i,m not seeing any return in size as the seasons go by.

[pitz0022]

Those look a lot like the big woods bucks in my area of MN - short spindly antlers which some guys would skoff at. For our area those are deer to be respected.

I have been trying to apply Dan's techniques to a big woords setting this winter. I have found some spots with decent potential, but it is a lot harder than the Marsh or Hill country spots I've been scouting. I think the big differences for me are that there is no agriculture so the food sources are entirely different (lots of browsing on buds etc) and there are MILES of transition to scout with pleny of bedding where nobody ever goes. I look at it as a puzzle I need to put together.

Dan has give me the fundamentals, now it is up to me to adapt those to my particular situation. If I find one spot that is good year after year, I will consider my winter of scouting a huge success. If I find one spot that produces a mature buck in 2015, It will be a success. "produce" is defined as a buck using the bed in the fall whether I get a shot at him or not, it doesn't even need to be a target buck. I'm on a baby step plan for my first year as a Beast.

[Dustin]

When a good 3" of snow is on the ground for a few days to a week go out and walk. Go deep into the cedar swamps. If you're willing to travel then research the largest tracts of public cedar swamps and with a gps "get lost" in its most remote areas. Closer to rut and especially rifle they move deep into the swamps. You simply have to find out where. I hunt PA public land which is comparable in pressure and hunter numbers. They literally do disappear... But it's typically to the highest elevations farthest from pressure or the deepest thickest swamps. Find these two points of interest. 90% of your big bucks will be here later in the season.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[remmag]

My advice would to first buy dans hill country and marsh DVDs if u haven't already and learn the basic fundamentals first about hunting beds. If you don't do that then you will more than likely find yourself lost in conversations while reading through posts on Here like I was. HAHA these DVDs go further in detail about what your gonna be wanting to look for while cyber scouting.

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

My advice would to first buy dans hill country and marsh DVDs if u haven't already and learn the basic fundamentals first about hunting beds. If you don't do that then you will more than likely find yourself lost in conversations while reading through posts on Here like I was. HAHA these DVDs go further in detail about what your gonna be wanting to look for while cyber scouting.

[ Post made via Android ]

I agree, and not just to make a sale After you understand the fundamentals about why they choose a spot its all about walking the transitions and finding as many good bedding spots as you can and having as many options as possible in the fall so you can keep moving to fresh spots.

[backstraphunter]

your right pitz that is how i and most big woods buck hunters look at those deer in pic i posted but i,m at a point in my life where i want BIG OR GO HOME don,t get me wrong i love old big body bucks to coin the saying in the east coast deer trackers say it,s not about the rack but the track you find those 3x3 tracks and you got a shooter in your and my neck of the woods Dan where can i get a copy of your DvD ? the one thing about where i hunt has a remote river that rins through it and i have been learning this and dans ways apply the deer use the marsh to travel on and bed in. my plan s too get in a boat this lat spring and do some homework a mile or more up away from the road it crosses i am tired of just hunting 100 plus or more off a road anymore i do and can kill deer every year but just rat Bastared 1.5 to 2.5 year old small bucks don,t get me wrong i have seen some Big Bucks but there far and in between. as for instance 2008 i passed on 5 small bucks and one evening i,m hunting one of my ceder swamp stands on a trail and i happen too look left and all i seen was rack standing in edge of ceders he looks rt and left and just starts backing up into the dark swamp he never seen me i know that he just came in like a cat sent checked and left that was a nice buck then in 2009 my son and dad were hunting one of my power line ceder swamp crossing stands that we kill a lot of deer from my son was 16 at the time this story kinda still pisses me off to this day and its my dads fault first off he has only one eye to see out of and had caderack segory on it years befor so in a nut shell when its prim time with 20 to 15 min shooting light left he cant see anymore in distance and he thinks he can.t see everyone cant see and time too pack it up this has been a fight with me and him for a long time so anyway he tells my son empty his pump to get ready to leave matt dose what Grandpa ask he no sooner jacks last shell looks uo and half way out of the ceders stands a monster at 90 yrads my son knows deer and told me latter Dad it looked like a elk huge and tall, so he says grandpa theres a big buck just steped out so blined MR, MAGOO trys to shoot the buck YEA all i find is white hail few drips blood spent better part of next day looking NO DEER. the other thing about some if not most of my whit call good stands if we have a wet fall i can,t get too them there under water. so hence this is why i want too learn new spots and like dan says have new and fresh to hunt. i want too hunt smarter not harder. as most of you northern deer hunters know we tend to stay put on a stand till the buck comes back through where i hunt every 3 to 5 days on my stand by stands

[headgear]

I'm a bigwoods hunter and I will 2nd the fundamentals of bedding, the hills and the marsh/swamp bedding do very much apply. It certainly a little harder in the northwoods but that just means more time on the boots scouting. Remember everything is bigger in the bigwoods so space is sometimes meaningless, a mile here or there to a deer is nothing. Forget food, look for isoation and security above all else. Follow the sign if you can, it will be harder to find and more spread out but those big bucks are still leaving sign. Know your bedding wind and thermals, those bucks are going to hold up in places where they have every advantage possible.