Thicket pics and pointers

[Country]

I want to increase my confidence when it comes to finding and hunting thicket edges for big bucks. Sometimes I find a really thick, brushy area but lack of sign around the edges makes me wonder if I'm even looking at the proper type of thicket. Do you have any thicket pictures you would be willing to share or thicket pointers? Thanks.

[Lockdown]

Here's another long winded Lockdown post

The best piece of advice I can give is concentrate on structure, transition lines, and whatever is [glow=red]different[/glow]! Sometimes "the whatever is different" can be extremely tough to see on an aerial. Everything looks the same. But what looks like it MIGHT be a little opening usually is. What looks to be a different type of tree/shrub usually is. If you can find an opening or pocket of canary grass in a thicket there will be beds there.








Any time you have a cattail, CRP, Ag, creek, etc transition with thickets around, the typical bedding principles all apply. Peninsulas, islands, bowls, etc... One spot I found a bunch of beds around tiny pockets of cattails within the thicket. These were EASILY visible off the aerial. The nearest open area was over a hundred yards away, but there were beds all over by these pockets. And rubs.

They like high spots... high means dry. In the Marsh Bucks DVD when Dan says "look for the biggest tree" he was spot on. They gravitate to those big trees even if its only one. Notice the "big trees" by this bed aren't very big, but they're big enough to attract them.





The more of these "structures" that are in a certain bedding area, the better.

[glow=red]Whatever you do, don't waste your time randomly looking through the middle of the thicket. All you will find is sticks[/glow]


One spot I've got is a huge expanse of the same type of brush (pic below) but whatever that brush is they DO NOT like rubbing it. I hardly found any rubs in that stuff, but a hundred or two yards away, the first different type of brush/tree would have rubs. I don't think they like rubbing this specie because it isn't very rigid.







I almost never find scrapes IN a thicket if it is thick in there. If there is open pockets with grass, then yes.


Here is a very obvious bedding area. (I'm in a small tree line and this is one of my LW sets.) There certainly could be beds by the big trees, and of course there were a couple, but the best and [glow=red]thickest[/glow]area is the dark brush and that's where the rubs are. The rub line leaving it toward ag is very obvious and there is a bed with a rub in it in the middle of the thick stuff. Everything else around me is red brush.





Blowdowns in a thicket are always good. Dan is right when he said you can avoid "the abyss" whether its cattails, thickets, hardwoods, whatever. The principles are all the same. It's all about transition and structure.

*disclaimer: I'm not trying to come across as a know it all big buck killer, but I've spent a ton of time in choked out thicket type areas the last 3 springs. And my lone mature buck encounter from last year came from a huge public thicket.

Another thing I will add is if you don't have some decent sized trees for them to rub on, it is hard to tell if you're dealing with a big buck or a decent buck. Suitable rubbing trees and available rubbing trees make a difference on how things are perceived. Where there aren't suitable rubbing trees, concentrate on bed size itself.

[Lockdown]

After re-reading your post, I'm wondering which "edge" you're talking about hunting? An exterior edge? Far more often than not I'm at an interior edge/opening in the middle of the thick.

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[rbuckleyjr1]

Nice post, Lockdown. Love the pics and descriptions.

[Country]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to put this together Lockdown! This is exactly the type of information I was looking for. I have already re-read it a couple of times hoping to sink it in to the ole noggin. To answer your question, I guess I was referring to exterior edges, but only because I hadn't considered the interior thicket edges. So, your answer was above and beyond. Thanks again, I appreciate the time and effort you put into this.

[BigHunt]

I want to increase my confidence when it comes to finding and hunting thicket edges for big bucks. [glow=red]Sometimes I find a really thick, brushy area but lack of sign around the edges makes me wonder if I'm even looking at the proper type of thicket.[/glow] Do you have any thicket pictures you would be willing to share or thicket pointers? Thanks.

regardless of sign if it looks like big buck bedding I'm hunting ....

[Lockdown]

I want to increase my confidence when it comes to finding and hunting thicket edges for big bucks. [glow=red]Sometimes I find a really thick, brushy area but lack of sign around the edges makes me wonder if I'm even looking at the proper type of thicket.[/glow] Do you have any thicket pictures you would be willing to share or thicket pointers? Thanks.

regardless of sign if it looks like big buck bedding I'm hunting ....

Bighunt makes a good point, too. Sometimes it just looks "bucky" or your gut tells you to hunt it and you go for it. Nothing wrong with that at all. Quite often I feel like I should be finding more buck sign in these thickets than I do. In which case it will just take time to figure that piece out. Some will be worth your time, some won't.


Tonight I will see if I can dig up an aerial to post showing how subtle the important details can be. Keep in mind, regarding my lengthy post, not all of those situations will be buck bedding. Often it is doe bedding, maybe both depending on the scenario. Many times these spots are super hard to hunt due to lack of trees or thickness of the underbrush. Sometim the neareast opening is a long ways away, or the opening doesn't make sense (directionally) for the food source nearby. In which case not all bedding areas are worth your time.

[BigHunt]

I want to increase my confidence when it comes to finding and hunting thicket edges for big bucks. [glow=red]Sometimes I find a really thick, brushy area but lack of sign around the edges makes me wonder if I'm even looking at the proper type of thicket.[/glow] Do you have any thicket pictures you would be willing to share or thicket pointers? Thanks.

regardless of sign if it looks like big buck bedding I'm hunting ....

Bighunt makes a good point, too. Sometimes it just looks "bucky" or your gut tells you to hunt it and you go for it. Nothing wrong with that at all. Quite often I feel like I should be finding more buck sign in these thickets than I do. In which case it will just take time to figure that piece out. Some will be worth your time, some won't. .

I like to come back in winter or spring if I have an encounter or not. I like to look over the area to see what happened or any sign that I missed. I find very often were I discover a buck bed but the sign is 150 yards away on an island or small finger. a lot of times there's not even a rub in the bed. I think this has something to do with the population in the area. low deer density= less sign because they don't have to compete with other bucks. there's a different public piece with high population I hunt and the sign is every where! makes a guys head spin

[Lockdown]

I got scared to show my public stuff so I found some random private This will give you an idea of what I look for when there's intimidating expanses of thickets. The aerial I'm posting is a bit of a tricky one to hunt, depending on what you find.

Before pic:




[glow=red]IF ANYONE ELSE WANTS TO MARK UP EITHER AERIAL WITH ADDITIONS/QUESTIONS/CONCERNS PLEASE DO SO. Or feel free to mark up the original aerial showing what you see from your perspective.[/glow]
Mine is just my thought process and how I would go about it scouting it. I head into a spot like this with an open mind and let the sign tell me what to do. Obviously GPS is a must to get from A to B in a thicket like this one.



After:

I would start in the big trees (top left) hit the small finger of trees then head south. I'm not sure if the dark green is cattails or what, but it is definitely something you'll want to check out. I would bet money with the bigger trees next to it, there are beds there. I'd head thru the Cane? or whatever it is then hit the river and go East to the yellow transition and work that around.

It doesn't matter how or what order you get to each spot, but to me these are the biggest points of interest and each one needs to be looked at. Once in a while a trail will lead you to something like a blowdown so keep that in mind ESPECIALLY if there are rubs near you. If you can climb a tree, do it. Often I'll see something different and go check it out.

The creek bed, if dry, could make an excellent travel corridor to the grassier area in the corner. I would definitely walk it and see what's up. Even in my pre-Beast days I learned that not checking out a property in its entirety is a big mistake.

If anyone has questions, fire away.

[Country]

Awesome post again, Lockdown. The visuals really help me see the big picture. Makes sense. Thanks again!

[Lockdown]

Awesome post again, Lockdown. The visuals really help me see the big picture. Makes sense. Thanks again!

Not a problem. This one doesn't look easy to hunt... it looks crazy thick especially in some spots.

Once again I'm not saying what I drew is right, or is exactly what's going on. I've got a lot to learn yet. I'm just trying to help get rid of the "where do I begin?!" overwhelmingness of these types of places for those who might shy away from them.

Also in the 2nd pic when I labeled the yellow "Something different/Grass" I should have left out the "grass" part. I added labels later and forgot to change that.

[Country]

Awesome post again, Lockdown. The visuals really help me see the big picture. Makes sense. Thanks again!

Not a problem. This one doesn't look easy to hunt... it looks crazy thick especially in some spots.

Once again I'm not saying what I drew is right, or is exactly what's going on. I've got a lot to learn yet. I'm just trying to help get rid of the "where do I begin?!" overwhelmingness of these types of places for those who might shy away from them.

Also in the 2nd pic when I labeled the yellow "Something different/Grass" I should have left out the "grass" part. I added labels later and forgot to change that.

You're right, that definitely looks like a challenging piece of land to hunt. It's encouraging to feel the confidence building with the online scouting I do with the addition of scouting on foot in these types of areas to confirm or disprove my suspicions. Posts like this are super helpful.

[Bigb]

During the rut, the downwind side of these thickets are the best spots for cruising bucks to check for hot does. I wish I had some stand pictures ( I need to take more this year) of some of our spots downwind of the cedar thickets we have. They were cow pastures 20 plus years ago and grew over as 5 to 30 foot cedar trees with some tall grass mixes in. The yellow circles represent the the thick areas (if you look close, you can see deer trails). The blue line is a creek and between the blue and yellow lines is a steep drop off. I always look for some sort of barrier down wind of the thick areas whether its a creek or open ag field. If you can find a spot that connects to thick bedding areas, that is also a good spot to look for a stand site. In this instance, its a old tractor trail that is built up over a creek. I've also spend time brushing in the other paths that cross the creek so deer have to use spots to cross where I have stands.

I hunt this spot with a west wind (pink arrow) which would put me downwind of the thick bedding area. I also have a camera set up on that tractor trail. I get more mature buck pics on this trail then I do on any other camera I have. unfortunately I let the camera run until March last year and it was gone when I went to check in in March. I tree had literally fallen and brushed the tree my camera was on when it fell. I'm not sure if the camera was stolen or hit off the tree when the tree feel and the camera was grabbed my an animal or rolled down the hill during a big rain.

Below are is the set up and a couple of the pictures I have gotten during daylight hours. I did hunt this spot on time this year and saw a 160" buck but couldnt manage a shot.

[Killemquietly]

Great post!!! THIS is what puts the Beast above all other hunting sites, magazines and video combined. I wish I'd had this 30 years ago...

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[Country]

Another great post Bigb! Thanks for taking the time to post this. This is all getting me really pumped to try some of this out. The pics and tactics are all great guys. Thanks!