Rainy day trail cam check reveals...

[mainebowhunter]

...bucks are not bedding where I thought based on my spring scouting and last years intel. Season opens Sept 29. I had not planned on checking the cameras till the day I decided to hunt. Well, target bucks showed up midnight on a camera not where I expected to get them. 4 cameras right in the general area...1 picture of the 10pt at 1:45...one photo in 3 weeks.

Glad I did. Gives me a chance to try to figure out what acorns these bucks are feeding on right now. The oaks close to known beds are showing pile of younger bucks and does but not the big bucks. Deer are HAMMERING them. So this gives me a 5 day jump on figuring out where the bucks have moved. These acorns are a game changer for sure...and not in a good way.

This year has been crazy so far with the massive amount of acorns and how dry its been. I honestly think the lack of water has really affected bedding habits. Many of the beds I found were dry hummocks in wet areas. Its why I scout so much ground. Things will and do change. If I booger this ...I will use the intel for next year and hunt another property that is also good right now but just not the same caliber of bucks. If I get lucky, I just might be able to pin down where they are feeding which should give me some idea with bedding direction. Also, with the amount of does around, definitely is a last part of Oct spot.

If I had to take a guess, most bed hunters are wrong way more than you are right.

[hunter10]

Hope you can get back on them Maine! goodluck. I am curious though, why would the mature bucks not use the closest dropping oaks to their bedding area but instead move off and let the younger bucks have the ground?

[mainebowhunter]

Hope you can get back on them Maine! goodluck. I am curious though, why would the mature bucks not use the closest dropping oaks to their bedding area but instead move off and let the younger bucks have the ground?

Its what deer do. Deer here have bedding in abundance. I will be the only person probably in this piece of woods all season except for November. So deer tend to bed right where there is a preferred food source, provided there is adequate bedding. Like I said, the bucks may have abandoned the beds due to the lack of water. Deer habitats for sure are not cookie cutter. The bigger bucks may have shifted beds allowing the does and smaller bucks to bed the same areas.

One thing about bedding thats trumps all is experience in the certain piece woods you are hunting. When you have 20 yrs of this under your belt, you go through all the seasons of food, no food, overbundance of food. I do not have 20yrs of that experience in these areas. Big timber bedding is much more difficult to pin down. The transitions are very subtle. Many of them you cannot see till your in the woods. Honestly, I put 4x as much scouting as I do hunting and sometimes that is still not enough. Many of the places I have been in the midwest, bedding is much simpler to pin down. There just is not as much cover. So the cover that is there is used and used.

[mainebowhunter]

This also means skipping out on the last few days of urban to scout for statewide. This year, only put 4 or 5 sits in so far for urban. When the bucks you want to hunt are not there your better off to do something else. Sitting on non productive stands is a waste of time.

Its tough. I really would like to sit productive spots. BUT scouting pays dividends for future years. Even with all the preseason work it still was not enough to overcome the low deer numbers. But this does not mean at some point in the season it will not get better.

[hunter10]

Good call forsure, now that you are looking again for the mature deer are you going to have to full out tromp through the entire area or just tip toeing around trying to catch their tracks near other bedding

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[mainebowhunter]

Good call forsure, now that you are looking again for the mature deer are you going to have to full out tromp through the entire area or just tip toeing around trying to catch their tracks near other bedding

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Honestly, there really is no tip toeing. I am scouting 100s of acres of timber looking for sign that will point me in a direction, staying away from known bedding until I have "have to" push in. If I push to hard and bust them, I will come back at them again another day. Definitely will be back post season. Its only my second year on the piece and I really need more scouting in the spring. Acorn years can be a killer. Really is shifting the bedding around right now. I figure my its takes me 3-5yrs to learn bigger timber type woods.

I break down as much of it as I can, working as edges as I can. BUT much of it is just walking and looking. What is driving me right now is that I have 4 bucks here I would shoot -- 2 of them are P&Y. Not real common where I live.

My motto is ...the less I know, the more I go.

[mainebowhunter]

My check also revealed...I need more post season scouting time on this ground.

[bobbo1686]

Good call forsure, now that you are looking again for the mature deer are you going to have to full out tromp through the entire area or just tip toeing around trying to catch their tracks near other bedding

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Honestly, there really is no tip toeing. I am scouting 100s of acres of timber looking for sign that will point me in a direction, staying away from known bedding until I have "have to" push in. If I push to hard and bust them, I will come back at them again another day. Definitely will be back post season. Its only my second year on the piece and I really need more scouting in the spring. Acorn years can be a killer. Really is shifting the bedding around right now. I figure my its takes me 3-5yrs to learn bigger timber type woods.

I break down as much of it as I can, working as edges as I can. BUT much of it is just walking and looking. What is driving me right now is that I have 4 bucks here I would shoot -- 2 of them are P&Y. Not real common where I live.

My motto is ...the less I know, the more I go.

Maybe a good recipe for a "bump and dump" since there is no tip-toeing around? Albeit you'll need to get close enough to see them come out of their beds anyways to give yourself the best odds.

[mainebowhunter]

Good call forsure, now that you are looking again for the mature deer are you going to have to full out tromp through the entire area or just tip toeing around trying to catch their tracks near other bedding

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Honestly, there really is no tip toeing. I am scouting 100s of acres of timber looking for sign that will point me in a direction, staying away from known bedding until I have "have to" push in. If I push to hard and bust them, I will come back at them again another day. Definitely will be back post season. Its only my second year on the piece and I really need more scouting in the spring. Acorn years can be a killer. Really is shifting the bedding around right now. I figure my its takes me 3-5yrs to learn bigger timber type woods.

I break down as much of it as I can, working as edges as I can. BUT much of it is just walking and looking. What is driving me right now is that I have 4 bucks here I would shoot -- 2 of them are P&Y. Not real common where I live.

My motto is ...the less I know, the more I go.

Maybe a good recipe for a "bump and dump" since there is no tip-toeing around? Albeit you'll need to get close enough to see them come out of their beds anyways to give yourself the best odds.

If I could bump these bucks...absolutely. I will. If I am lucky enough to find their other bedding area. The most difficult part of big woods hunting is that if a deer crosses a main road, your into a different chunk of woods. So you can scout till your hearts content and never really even be in the game if that buck is moving a mile to get to the food source at night. These bucks I am talking about, only have 1 of them ever in daylight. And it appears, he is not bedding the same as he did last year.

What is interesting is that I have 30-40+ trips glassing this field over the spring and summer. Never once did I see any of these bucks. Did lay eyes on the 4.5yr old once during the summer when I went in to hang a camera. The biggest drawbacks with pre season scouting is that IF the deer do not bed where they did the previous season, all your eggs are in that basket. Backing off and not pressuring the property is great in theory if the deer move as expected.

But when they do not, your left without many options except to keep pushing in on them.

The beauty is ...this is just one property. Its not a make or break for Oct.. So I push it this season...if it works, great. If not, I learn more for upcoming seasons.

[mainebowhunter]

So...I may have bumped one of the bucks tonight. Not sure. So I will be going back again tomorrow night to scout down the other side of the transition. What a great woods transition...looks like a piece of pizza. Walked one side of the transition right before dark. Get to the tip of the point hear a deer take off. Of course its a big buck right ? Quickly looked for a bed nearby...could not find one. Really, its a great funnel. Jumped the deer right where it says crossing. This is right around where the buck bedded last year...but he shifted off the pole line...somewhere.



Going back again to walk the other side of the transition and look for sign. Super nice woods transition area. Really thinking I can get on this piece in the morning, hoping to find more beds...going to put some cameras up. Its aggressive. But its information I need for future years. If I can dial this spot it..I think it could be dynamite for future seasons.

In another area, saw 2 racked bucks on acorns in another spot tonight while checking cameras...not sure which ones they were. But deer are definitely on the nuts big time. Sept 29th season opens.

[JoeRE]

If I had to take a guess, most bed hunters are wrong way more than you are right.

Oh absolutely. And your first season is going to feel like the blind leading the blind at times.

I look at it as its a marathon not a sprint and I have the advantage in that I only need to be right once....the bucks I am chasing can get it right the first 10 times but if I get it right the 11th time its over.

On top of that bumper acorn years make the hardest early season hunting I have found. If I was surrounded in pizza's I wouldn't leave the house. Good luck I'm confident over the coming weeks you are going to have some action out there.

[mainebowhunter]

If I had to take a guess, most bed hunters are wrong way more than you are right.

Oh absolutely. And your first season is going to feel like the blind leading the blind at times.

I look at it as its a marathon not a sprint and I have the advantage in that I only need to be right once....the bucks I am chasing can get it right the first 10 times but if I get it right the 11th time its over.

On top of that bumper acorn years make the hardest early season hunting I have found. If I was surrounded in pizza's I wouldn't leave the house. Good luck I'm confident over the coming weeks you are going to have some action out there.

Same here. Over the years, I have been wrong about beds, way more than right. Been bed hunting for a number of years but here in Maine, really started to get serious about chasing bigger bucks in 2011. Every year I keep refining what I do. This year, its ramped up again to see what will happen if I add way more areas than I can possibly hunt, see what happens with 4x as much scouting as 2x. It just takes time though in bigger timber to learn the areas. Just not going to happen in one season. It just takes so much ground here to produce even 3.5yr old bucks.

Bed hunting as always fascinated me. Really the whole reason I came the beast to further refine my early season skills and chat with like minded individuals about deer behaviour outside the rut.

[mainebowhunter]

Just not a lot talked about bed hunting / bedding behaviour anywhere else I have ever come acrossed.

[stash59]

It may not be until the last day but you'll come up with one.

[mainebowhunter]

It may not be until the last day but you'll come up with one.

Hope to come up with one sooner than that! This is a spot that I am messing with because I don't know it really well. Other spots are looking very good.

[ Post made via Android ]