Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

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Mathewshooter
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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby Mathewshooter » Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:10 am

Southern Man wrote:
harold wrote:
brancher147 wrote:I scouted a ridge today with a bunch of windward bedding. Some of the buck beds were on the edge of thick cover, some were in the thick cover, and some were in open hardwoods. It just depends. But when you find a buck bed and sit down in it and look around, you will realize why he is bedding there.


Can you expand on this? How were you finding the beds in the thick cover? Were you walking the edge and saw sign leading you in there? Or were the beds elevation/terrain based, so you were keeping the same elevation while scouting but going in and out of the cover?


I found the same thing last weekend. It was by accident actually. We were driving down a gravel road after scouting a few places and almost to the highway I noticed a rub about 125 yards into the woods on the edge. I stopped and looked and there was another one about 10 yards away from the first. We walked over to them and found several more, new old, large and small. The top of the ridge was thick with small brush maybe 4-5 foot tall. As the ridge dropped off, the woods cleared. Where the ridge crested over the thick stuff stopped. Along this edge is where most of the rubs were or actually a few feet inside the thick. Walking that edge I found a bed next to a tree, wore to the dirt. It had been used repeatedly. The bed was on the downwind side of the ridge on normal winds. Squatting down in the bed you could see everything in front of him all the way to the road and the buck could smell from behind him where he couldn't see. Classic bedding.

There was no reason for me (or anyone actually) to even think anything about this particular spot. Just by chance I seen that one rub. In a month when things green up you won't be able to see it. One of the safest places for the buck to bed.


So the buck is bedding 150 yards or so off the road....or were the rubs you saw from the road not the ones that ran along the thick stuff?


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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby Southern Man » Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:41 am

Mathewshooter wrote:
Southern Man wrote:
harold wrote:
brancher147 wrote:I scouted a ridge today with a bunch of windward bedding. Some of the buck beds were on the edge of thick cover, some were in the thick cover, and some were in open hardwoods. It just depends. But when you find a buck bed and sit down in it and look around, you will realize why he is bedding there.


Can you expand on this? How were you finding the beds in the thick cover? Were you walking the edge and saw sign leading you in there? Or were the beds elevation/terrain based, so you were keeping the same elevation while scouting but going in and out of the cover?


I found the same thing last weekend. It was by accident actually. We were driving down a gravel road after scouting a few places and almost to the highway I noticed a rub about 125 yards into the woods on the edge. I stopped and looked and there was another one about 10 yards away from the first. We walked over to them and found several more, new old, large and small. The top of the ridge was thick with small brush maybe 4-5 foot tall. As the ridge dropped off, the woods cleared. Where the ridge crested over the thick stuff stopped. Along this edge is where most of the rubs were or actually a few feet inside the thick. Walking that edge I found a bed next to a tree, wore to the dirt. It had been used repeatedly. The bed was on the downwind side of the ridge on normal winds. Squatting down in the bed you could see everything in front of him all the way to the road and the buck could smell from behind him where he couldn't see. Classic bedding.

There was no reason for me (or anyone actually) to even think anything about this particular spot. Just by chance I seen that one rub. In a month when things green up you won't be able to see it. One of the safest places for the buck to bed.


So the buck is bedding 150 yards or so off the road....or were the rubs you saw from the road not the ones that ran along the thick stuff?


Yes the rub we saw from the road was probably 20 yards from the bed. When we went over to the rubs we found the bed about 10' in the thick. Just far enough to be hidden but he could see anything that was happening on the road. We found more rubs when we went over there. New one & old ones. The rubs stretched back over the ridgetop and down the top of the ridge towards the bottom a half mile away.
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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby ghoasthunter » Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:58 am

most of the real big bucks beds I find are the best vantage point so they can monitor everything undisturbed. so many time I walk into an area and say boy that would be a good spot to sit on the ground and watch this area... then I walk over there to sit down and guess what their is the biggest buck bed in the area right where most hunters would sit with there gun I even find evidence that someone sat there gun season a lot of times.
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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby Tennhunter3 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:07 am

Most of the beds I am finding are right on the edge. Rubs in almost every bed.

Thick clearcut or cover to back open in front facing downhill.
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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby brancher147 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:17 pm

harold wrote:
brancher147 wrote:I scouted a ridge today with a bunch of windward bedding. Some of the buck beds were on the edge of thick cover, some were in the thick cover, and some were in open hardwoods. It just depends. But when you find a buck bed and sit down in it and look around, you will realize why he is bedding there.


Can you expand on this? How were you finding the beds in the thick cover? Were you walking the edge and saw sign leading you in there? Or were the beds elevation/terrain based, so you were keeping the same elevation while scouting but going in and out of the cover?


The beds were elevation based and I was walking the edges and following tracks in wet leaves and there were many rubs also. The buck beds in the laurel always had satellite bedding around them-so the buck was using the other deer to be his eyes when he was laying in thick cover. The cover was mountain laurel only 20 or 30 yards wide and in most places was not to thick or tall to walk through, so I was also just walking through the laurel looking for beds. But this elevation probably had 50 beds and 6 buck beds within a 3/4 mile stretch. It was upper 1/3 elevation military crest bedding and the thickest laurel was at this elevation with fairly open hardwoods with some pines/blueberry brush above and open hardwoods below. I believe deer bed windward on this ridge specifically due to the laurel for cover, as the leeward side is mostly open hardwoods, but I don't know what the leeward bedding is in this area as I only have permission for the windward side. I hunted the edge of this area last fall and saw probably 30 does, a handful of mature bucks, and countless smaller bucks head into the bedding area, so I also knew it was there just had not seen it. But I expected to find the bedding at upper 1/3 elevation military crest as I usually do in the mountains.

The interesting thing is I have a property I hunt 3 miles down the ridge and most of the bedding there is on the leeward side in the open hardwoods in grapevines and the windward side is incredibly steep rocky and mountain laurel but not much bedding. I am sure there is more bedding on the windward side there also, but it is almost too steep and rocky with cliffs for a person to walk. I am sure that is where some of the big bucks hide though.
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Re: Do mature bucks bed on the edge of thick cover or in it?

Unread postby Jon308 » Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:45 pm

What would be some examples of interior transitions in exterior transitions?


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