I put out several cameras over specific buck beds a couple years ago, hung 8-10' high and far back (40-50') and left there 4-8 weeks each. For one thing its really easy to disrupt an area a buck knows as well as you know your living room. If you walked into your living room one day and saw a strange box on a wall - or say smelled SKUNK - you would be concerned! I intended to do more, sort of an informal study, but stopped because I figured out what I needed to know. I did get some bucks repeatedly using beds. It was very hit or miss. I think that is because here in bluff country bucks tend to use more than one bed in a small defined area, many of the beds are very faint. But a buck will still bed repeatedly in a very small area.
I have had much more consistent success putting cams on the entrance to bedding. I have regularly gotten mature bucks regularly entering and leaving those areas and when I check historic wind directions the use lines up more often than not to the wind I expected the bedding needed. Its fascinating stuff.
From what I have seen, hill country bedding might be some of the easiest to figure out because its almost always wind specific. Other terrains might be trickier.
mainebowhunter wrote:I keep mulling the idea of putting a cell camera right on a bedding area...found 3 beds in it. I know a 6.5 yr old is using it. (if he is alive) he will be 7.5 this year. I could be wrong on age...but at any rate, is a brute. I believe got the same buck on cam in 2013 as a 3.5. Got daylight of this buck in this area this year. Never hunted him.
There is an apple orchard back right on the edge of bedding. Big primary ground scrape that opens each year. I think it would cool to get buck using the bed, go in and try to kill him the day you see him in that bed.
That buck sounds cool. If you are right about the age and he had some daylight activity last year then you should expect him to be even more active this year...most really old bucks have that trend, get a little complacent in their core area. Good chance he might do something dumb like step out and stick his nose in that scrape right after a rain or a cold front in the pre-rut.