you bump a buck out of his bed--what next??

[76chevy]

Question for those who hunt with the beast style...

Say you have located a great buck bedding area, you know how he's accessing it, you believe he is bedding in there, have a perfect wind and access route planned, and then you move in to hunt him

Then, you bump him out of his bed while setting up...treestand noise, he's not bedded quite where you expected him to be, he sees you climbing up, etc

what do you do next ??

Find another spot to hunt that day then come back the following morning/day to catch him coming back in there??

[Zap]

I beleive that the "set up and come back in the morning" thing depend's alot on moon phase.
Will the moon phase be right for a buck to come back to his bedding area with shooting light?

If the timing for the AM hunt is not right, I would get outa there with as little disruption and scent left as possible....

If I was going to hunt the next am, I would get set up as good as possible, including trimming for a shot..and be there very early...

[Schultzy]

I did It this year but It wasn't my Intension when It happened. I was hunting a 5.5 year old buck. I hadn't saw him for 10 days or so and was wondering where he went. I went to another part of the woods where I thought he could be possibly bedding. I knew the trail I wanted to set up on but didn't know If I was going to be able to find a suitable tree. On November 4th at 10:00 In the morning I stepped In the woods 30 yards and up he jumped with a doe 30 yards away from me. Off they took of to the west. Right away the 1st thing that came to my mind was Andrea knowing he's bumped bucks out purposely to set up on them In the AM.

It took me a couple hours but I finally found a tree and a small trail that I thought/hoped he was using when he would get up from his bed and exit. After I left I thought to myself, do I hunt this evening or should I wait till morning? I thought long and hard and decided to go hunt this stand for the evening hunt. I wasn't there 20 minutes and there he came heading my way by himself. He got as close as 11 yards but he wasn't exactly on the trail so there was too much stuff In the way to get an arrow through. He was there for at least 15 minutes before he finally made his way to my walk In trail and a few sniffs to the ground and he was off to the races.

I sure learned allot from this and won't hesitate to do this again. This buck later got shot during our ML season. 165 Inches he roughly scored.

[dan]

I had a simalar experiance this year... I jumped a 170 class buck with a doe. The doe and buck ran seperate directions. I climbed a tree and set a stand hoping the buck would come back for his doe. 30 minutes later he came back but did a wide downwind circle and busted me.

[magicman54494]

What next? Call me with the GPS coords.!

I would locate and prep a new setup that won't give you away and give the place some time to settle down and make another attempt.

[mrjbigfoot]

Wait for gun season, go back with a gun & make a Texas heart shot on him when you jump him! LOL!

[PLB]

I would wait awhile to hunt there again if he busted bad! I still would hunt there again though! That's why you need to have as many spots like this as you can so you can cover the time in between your best honey holes! It depends on the time of season too in my opinion. If it's late season I would go for broke and throw caution to the wind. If it was the first couple weeks of bow season, I would back out awhile. If it was Oct. 5-20th, I would hunt does if legal. If it was the rut, I wouldn't be afraid of hunting there again because another buck could come right by you as big or bigger!

[BackWoodsHunter]

I had a post in mind that was very similar to this was going to start a thread glad someone beat me too it. This fall in season I was scouting public and was walking the bank of a small stream that ran East and West. I was on the north bank. There was some what of a flood plain with tall grass and big trees but no thick underbrush to the north of the river and then it connected to big woods. The big woods transitioned to a tag alder swamp/thicket and then south of it was the floodplain probably 50yards wide and then the river bank I was walking. A buck was bedded at the south end of the tag alders I heard him take a few bounds and stop so I tried to creep closer to see him or his sign. I picked apart his bedding area and located his entrance/exact routes to the nearest food source. The whole time I assumed he vanished. I started working out of his bedding area towaards the food source looking for a way to ambush him. All of a sudden the tag alder thicket exploded it sounded like someone driving a 3/4ton truck through there just plowing down brush. I never saw that deer but he had to be big. I will be back when some of this snow melts to figure him out and hunt him in spring----hopefully! That made me wonder though, when jumped how far do they go and where do they go? and why? If I would have turned around and left the way I came would he have eased out of the alders and bedded back down? or bedded in the alders? what would he have done? I'm not sure but he sure let me get close and hang around for awhile before he ran off.

[76chevy]

during the rut, I think its an easier call...I would just setup right then and there and hope he returns chasing or looking for a hot doe. It is a good bedding area and you know he will return to it

during early and late season it gets more complicated though...

several times though, I have bumped deer out on the early afternoon walk in, setup right there and then gotten a shot at them at last light

have done the same for morning hunts

[76chevy]

so find a new area to hunt that evening?

What next? Call me with the GPS coords.!

I would locate and prep a new setup that won't give you away and give the place some time to settle down and make another attempt.

[Brandon]

Depends if it was soft or hard bump.

[Buckfever]

Now keep in mind that I'm only hunting highly pressured public land deer. I take advantage of the opportunity to move my set based on what was the escape route. I want to make sure I can reach in and catch him on the escape route and yet make sure I'm not going to be detected. I will also consider what other info I have, cut all the lanes and then I get out. I do not want to be there the next time he comes back, so I probably would give it three days. We do not kill alert bucks here. We kill bucks that have no clue we're there.

[Haus86]

I think it depends on how he was bumped and how hard he was bumped. I think deer can tell a lot about your body language when walking through the woods. If he felt like he was being hunted (he sees you climbing a tree near his bed), I wouldn't bet on him coming back soon, but if you bump him lightly without him knowing what exactly happened, I would get in there and hunt him the following morning. I'd also consider the time of year as was already mentioned. I've noticed it also depends on the personality of the buck. Some bucks will tolerate a little more than others, but there is only one way to find that out.

[dan]

I will also consider what other info I have, cut all the lanes and then I get out. I do not want to be there the next time he comes back, so I probably would give it three days. We do not kill alert bucks here. We kill bucks that have no clue we're there.

My experiances with mature bucks in pressured areas differs... I find there are three ways to handle bumping a mature buck. Hunt him imeadiatly that day and/or the next morning. Wait at least a few weeks. Or both...

However, I think that waiting 3 days is a big mistake. You could get lucky and thats the day he comes back, or he comes back and stays bedding there till the 3rd day when you hunt him. But human scent stays on the ground for more than 3 days and my experiances lead me to believe mature bucks don't tolerate human scent very well... Especially if you hang around and trim shooting lanes. They either come back for the 1st time since being bumped and you shoot him which would be the same day, or next morning after you shoot him, or you let him move to another bedding area until he starts to feel at ease and comes back or another buck beds there.

[Buckfever]

I will also consider what other info I have, cut all the lanes and then I get out. I do not want to be there the next time he comes back, so I probably would give it three days. We do not kill alert bucks here. We kill bucks that have no clue we're there.

My experiances with mature bucks in pressured areas differs... I find there are three ways to handle bumping a mature buck. Hunt him imeadiatly that day and/or the next morning. Wait at least a few weeks. Or both...

However, I think that waiting 3 days is a big mistake. You could get lucky and thats the day he comes back, or he comes back and stays bedding there till the 3rd day when you hunt him. But human scent stays on the ground for more than 3 days and my experiances lead me to believe mature bucks don't tolerate human scent very well... Especially if you hang around and trim shooting lanes. They either come back for the 1st time since being bumped and you shoot him which would be the same day, or next morning after you shoot him, or you let him move to another bedding area until he starts to feel at ease and comes back or another buck beds there.

I think what you're saying has merit, except that I only get to hunt the rut with the bow and I'm done for the season. I hunt from 11/2 to our gun season, that's all I can afford to take off, so I can't wait several weeks. The other thing is the first set after bumping the buck is probably a little further out than I'll wind up, close enough to still have a shot but at that point, I'm probably thinking more observation to really nail it down for the next year. The other thing is, if I've bumped him it's November the temps are probably cool enough and I'm wearing a full chemical suit and rubber boots, clean gloves and while I am cutting some lanes, it's not the full blown deal I'm doing here post season. So yeah I'm leaving some scent down, but I'm still getting sightings after that. Actually the deer in my avatar, beat me twice the year before and I did exactly what I'm proposing. After I bumped him I moved out about 50 yards cut some lanes so I had a chance and three days later watched him get up out of his bed and hunt me tail up towards the tree he busted me out of(I was already in the tree for 20 minutes and he busted out of his bed 20 yards away, it's that thick). He came in on the same escape trail that he blew out of when I bumped him.

The next year I moved in 30 yards cut all the lanes post season, cut a 3 foot hole to reach into the escape lane, set the stand September 1st, stayed out till 11/3 when the wind was right and the hunt was over in 30 minutes.

The major point I'm trying to make is be very aware that they hunt us and when they're hunting us, we don't win often.

The other thing I'd suggest if you're on their sanctuary, of these highly pressured public land deer, I don't worry so much about pushing them out as turning them nocturnal. And yeah the ground contamination is the deal, even on these perfect sets, you only get so many hunts, before the intrusion is known.

It's an argument for consecutive days on a set and then moving on, or only 1 or 2 full day sits on a set, like someone here mentioned.

The three day thing is more a scouting observation on heavily pressured mature public land bucks when you have their core bedding. They really seldom leave but when they do, so often they're back in three days.