Tues is counted 4 potential bedding areas. Confirmed three. Was I really good trip. I feel I learned a lot. I'm also finding the deer know when we are there due to vehicle driving down trails. I'm also finding that to hunt without spooking them or alerting them to my presence, I have to start parking father away, and have to hunt much closer to our trails/roads.most of what I found on this trip could not be hunted any deeper than 50yrds into the trees without alerting deer.. I have never hunted that close to our rds. I should point out our rds are dirt rds, about one vehicle wide, and used very minimally. Only 15 guys have access. And certain rds see the most activity when plots are being planted on that part of the property, so deer travel them and cross them daily.
Back to trip. I found approx. 16 beds on 3 points. One of which contained 8 or so. This spot had some very worn beds. Access into this area is about impossible. It gets very thick? It was littered with rubs, the biggest being on a pine about 8-10" in diameter.. There were beds 2-3 ft from each other but not in a circular pattern. However I believe bucks and does bed here regularly. What turn me on to this spot was the consistency of tracks I've see crossing the rd above, it's a small saddle that drops down into a big hardwood bottom, and leads to a couple different food plots. Where the swag crosses the rd is a mud hole, I plan to put a camera here in a few weeks. I started to post maps of all the set ups I found, but will just post this one for now and the others later. If you guys would, critique my set up, ask questions, point out things I could be missing.. I think hill country is a tricky beast to conquer, I think we can all learn from diagrams and real life examples like this.
A few bed pics from the day:
Few maps:
The first is an aerial view of the area.
Topo:
Birds eye:
Green= trails
Red=beds/bedding
Blue= stand site
I have about 25yrd shout to the east and west and a 15 yrd shot to the tip of that ravine to the S.
An interesting thing I found about these beds were that they sort of face down the ravine, instead of of the crest of the point looking straight down the point...
I think they bed here on a N -NW wind. This set up will allows them to get up and walk into the wind going toward the hollow and the food plots to the North. Notice my stand will be roughly 15 yrds of the rd.
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Hill country scouting trip
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- justdirtyfun
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
On this site people use a stack technique that might work if you had a tree for each trail.
Hunt the right stand once or twice and they will group up over on the left point. Then your scent going toward the beds ends up an advantage.
This explanation might not be complete so try to read more about stacking.
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Hunt the right stand once or twice and they will group up over on the left point. Then your scent going toward the beds ends up an advantage.
This explanation might not be complete so try to read more about stacking.
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You don't have to be the best, just do your best.
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
That's an interesting thought. Do ppl do this when points are 100 yrds or so from each other? Reason I ask, at what point are the beds to close, and hunting one affects the other as well...
Why would they be bedding looking more into the ravine than the main hollow to the south? I was sort of surprised by this... It seemed to be a fairly common theme scouting that particular day.. Beds were off to the right side of points.. I guess that has them facing more straight south.. Maybe due to N winds?? I should check I guess..
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Why would they be bedding looking more into the ravine than the main hollow to the south? I was sort of surprised by this... It seemed to be a fairly common theme scouting that particular day.. Beds were off to the right side of points.. I guess that has them facing more straight south.. Maybe due to N winds?? I should check I guess..
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- justdirtyfun
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
Those points might be too close. I hope someone else comments on that. Nice bedding, I hope you nail a good one.
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You don't have to be the best, just do your best.
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
If you can bugger one bedding area without buggering the other I imagine you could stack.
Nice find.
Nice find.
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Everybody's selling dreams. I'm too cheap to buy one.
Rich M wrote:Typically, hunting FL has been like getting a root canal
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
I found 8+ beds on the eastern point.. How many deer have u guys seen bed on a small point such as this?
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- backstraps
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
BHC wrote:I found 8+ beds on the eastern point.. How many deer have u guys seen bed on a small point such as this?
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Could it be a bachelor group this time of year, or possible doe bedding?
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
Could be one deer shifting. Could be multiple bucks.
If possible, I would hunt both bedding areas at once. It certainly ups your odds. But only if the set up is close enough to get the deer from all the beds to you... if not, the stacking method would be my next choice.
If possible, I would hunt both bedding areas at once. It certainly ups your odds. But only if the set up is close enough to get the deer from all the beds to you... if not, the stacking method would be my next choice.
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
BHC wrote:I found 8+ beds on the eastern point.. How many deer have u guys seen bed on a small point such as this?
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Depends on density too. One place I hunt has really high density, I counted 19 does that piled off of a small bedding island, about 10 yards wide and 20 yards long. It was like watching a bunch of clowns get out of a VW. There was a satellite group of does bedded just outside of the staging area as well, about 6 I kicked up getting into position.
No Shortcuts. No Excuses. No Regrets.
Everybody's selling dreams. I'm too cheap to buy one.
Everybody's selling dreams. I'm too cheap to buy one.
Rich M wrote:Typically, hunting FL has been like getting a root canal
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Re: Hill country scouting trip
Pk I think your experience could also be affected by preferred available bedding. Our density is about 1 deer per 12.7 acres or 50.5 deer/ square mile.
I think I can hunt both areas from the blue dot. 150yrds from the beds and I'm hunting in the thicket. Hoping the rd is kinda that barrier they reach/ cross right at or before dark. The biggest issue is them passin just out of range. I think I'm in the best spot for highest percentage of a 20 yrd shot, but if they're 10 extra yrds to either side they are barely going to be seeable due to thickness...
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I think I can hunt both areas from the blue dot. 150yrds from the beds and I'm hunting in the thicket. Hoping the rd is kinda that barrier they reach/ cross right at or before dark. The biggest issue is them passin just out of range. I think I'm in the best spot for highest percentage of a 20 yrd shot, but if they're 10 extra yrds to either side they are barely going to be seeable due to thickness...
[ Post made via iPhone ]
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