South Arkansas Pine thicket bedding help

[TripleOG]

Just recently joined but have been studying and trying to better my craft at deer hunting. I’m a touch overwhelmed with some private property I lease. Typical south Arkansas cash crop is pines. 800 acre total lease. Everything is very “square” if that makes sense. Property lines are square therefore a transition line from a 10 year old pine plantation may run for 500 yards along a stretch of hardwoods. Not a lot of fingers or points that I can pick up on for bedding. About 315 acres is timber company owned and is around 10 year old plantation (pines aren’t tall enough to kill underbrush yet). It’s so thick in between the pine rows you couldn’t walk it without ripping your arms and clothes up from the briars and plants with wicked thorns. I’m positive bucks are bedding in this but I guess I’m overwhelmed with so many acres of thick areas I don’t know how to hone in on any one area. There’s no topo advantages(high spots/low spots) in these thickets. About 200 more of our acres are two year old cutovers and had some decent hunting in them because of the natural browse and you could see for a mile it seemed like. The rest of our acreage is privately owned and is anything from old hardwoods to a few open fields. Looking for any help on anyone who can throw some suggestions my way as to how to tackle figuring out some bedding. Thanks

[Killemquietly]

where's the nearest water source? im guessing there's a heavy pine needle cover on the ground year round so tracks aren't obvious, right? tall straight pines like here in La or branchy kind that look like giant christmas trees? if the tall straight ones, break out your climber & systematically observe till you see something going on. If you don't have the time for that, get a game cam or a few. Ride the logging roads that are bare and muddy and see if you can decipher track activity, they have to have favorite crossings.

[TripleOG]

I run about 8 cameras during season. I get bucks on camera at night..9 pm-3am. I have guesses to direction they are bedding but not easy to narrow it down on a 160 acre block of thicket. Great for the deer. I have a cell camera out on one of the heaviest trails I have found and only a spike so far. I’ll get some heavy scouting in during the next few months just looking for some tips. These pine thickets don’t have trees big enough to climb. They are about 6-8” I’m diameter and In between the trees it is so thick you can’t walk. I’ve killed bucks here but it has been during the rut or lucking out on being in the right place at the right time. I really want to hone in on being more consistent on going and finding the deer instead of hoping they come by me. As far as water goes we have 4 ponds on the lease and a couple creeks that are t year round creeks. They’ll have water about 4-6 months of the year depending on rainfall.

[Bogle]

Im probably not much help with out a map but I hunt a similar terrain in South GA. I think you will find that your property sets up differently through out the year. Most of the deer I see that are actually in the pines themselves are does. However, I find the bucks like to bed on the really thick edges of the pines not in them. When I find the beds I often find that they have some type of visual component to them as well ie.... thick bedding where they can look out in to the hardwoods etc. When the rut kicks in, I would hunt the downwind side of where the does feed or bedding areas (pines in my area) as the bucks will cruise this area. In other words, are the does feeding in the hardwoods, field or cut over? The buck I have in the 2018 beast kill thread this year knew the does would be feeding in a certain field edge and was waiting for them in the thick brush on the edge of the field as they returned to their beds. Lastly, as the leaves fall the travel route for the does from bed to feed will narrow down to the thickest travel routes. This will also narrow down the bucks travel routes from food to bedding as well. Its been my experience that these super thick late season travel routes are usually the routes that a buck will take in early season as well since they are the thickest routes in the most remote areas of a property. By following these routes you should have an idea as to the general food source and the general buck bedding area as the route will connect the two. Take a saddle/sling and go two sticks high in an 8" pine and you should be able to see what is going on in the pines.

[jmbknvc]

Advanced notice, long post.
From my observations running trail cameras and hunting Zone 12 in a timber company lease with all varies age pine plantations, believe they are longleaf or loblolly pines. I have started this year trying to specify certain areas as primary bedding and can say I'm not there yet. This is my 2nd year running 4 to 6 cameras in the same general locations (may redirect camera facing or move about 20yds) this year since May. Reason, to see how the deer use each area, react to seasonal feeding by other club members, and help me understand where to try and hunt around my stand locations. Here are my current thoughts from my camera (video) observations to date.

1. First like @TripleOG stated, locate the primary water location. If your area is like mine. The creeks you talk about are Stream Management Zones (SMZ) with pine plantations on each side. The one creek in the area I hunt leads to a pond off my lease is like a road going to the pond. The deer travel up and down the creek all year. The SMZ also usually have a scattering of hickory and oak trees mixed in with the mature pines which is a very limited natural food source. The oaks that seem to produce every year are where the most consistent buck sign keeps appearing. Now to what I have learned about how the deer use this area for bedding. In the summertime, a camera captured a young buck bedding about 5-10 yds inside the open SMZ facing out to a clear cut two nights in a row. It looks like he used the large tree with the camera on it for his back drop. Now this was in the summer and this buck was the youngest in the bachelor group I had pics of using the area. Have also, jumped does that have appeared to be bedded down during the summer in the SMZ. This year I have found beds in the 8yr old pine plantation which boarders one side and a 2yr clear cut on the other, not far in, just within the first couple of rows of pines. My thoughts, the bucks are occasionally bedding down in the SMZ looking out into the cut over and think the reason is the area provides cooler temperatures than the thick pine plantations. However, the bedding in the pines I have found usually are usually under a pine with thick briars as the backdrop with not so thick cover in front. Guess this is for sight.
2. Investigate the fire breaks between the different age cutovers. If the fire break has not grown over then I have found this to be a good travel corridor with bedding off the fire break in the pines. This is what I found on one fire break that only had tall grass/ weeds growing where I ran two cameras this year 200 yards apart. The north pine plantation is 8yrs and to the south is 4yrs. To help get better images and possibly have a shooting lane I cut down the weeds and some briars down in late May. Then I was removing the debris I noticed several places that appeared to be bedding areas and I think this was confirmed with the activity from the trail camera results. Most the activity was from 9am till around noon. Which I took as the deer getting up out their bed and moving around. Also have to say I had another camera this summer that was looking down another fire break capture two bucks eating vegetation in and off the trees. Then they decide to bed down back to back in the middle of the fire break. They stayed there four about 4hrs before getting up and moving off.
3. Cutovers, as you know are hot spots for the deer to feed and bed. That is unless your timber company sprays the cutover leaving only sage grass and goat weed growing with the pines. Then they are not that great as a food source but still used for bedding. Did observe a few deer eating on some vegetation in the cut over but nothing like it was before the timber company started spraying. Also found a few beds out in the cutover.
Understand what you are talking about hunting the younger age pine plantations. Have been reading on here how Dan and those guys hunt “IN” the marsh and have been relating some of their tactics to hunting the pine plantations. Where they get out in the off season, early months, and create some stand locations by cutting some shooting lanes along the travel corridors to hunt. Dan talks about cutting a single shooting land with an observation window in the direction of travel, so you are shooting the buck as he walks by. Have thought about that tactic for that 4-6yr old pine plantation where there is not tree to hang from. Also, thought about taking a step ladder out into the cutover to see over the sage grass or setup along the fire break. Then there is the traditional clearing a long lane between the pines and setting up a shooting house. However, I don’t think that is what you are after and hope this long post has helped.

[TripleOG]

Great help and tips so far guys. I’ll look into getting a topo map uploaded and also take some pictures of the type and size of pine plantations for reference. Thanks so far.

[TripleOG]

Attempt to upload a photo

[TripleOG]

It worked. Ok it’s turned sideways but the black lines fully outline my 800 acres. That’s an older google photo but I have some more photos that are in color and are taken in the last year for anyone that may want to lend a helping hand.

[TripleOG]

Black line on the bottom of this one is the south border. Orange is the pine thickets that are extremely thick. Redlines are hardwoods that border our south end. The yellow on the right is mixed hardwoods and pines. Blue circle is one of our small ponds. This orientation has the north end of the lease at the top. We enter the lease at the far west corner road where the orange goes off the screen.

[TripleOG]

THis will show how thick for the most part the thickets are.

There is also some heavy trails leading in that lead to some spots that remind me of marsh but keep in mind we have had a ton of rain this year..I mean a to . This next picture is on a heavy trail about 50 yards into the thicket.

[TripleOG]

Keeping in mind black lines are borders. The orange line is a heavy Bush hogged trail. Everything to east of trail is pine plantation that isn’t extremely thick. Some pines haven’t taken and have made some holes. A lot of doe bed on north end of the property line and look out into the field to north of us. To the west of bush hogged line is more pine plantation that’s a bit older than the ones I have showed you but it is still thick in there.

[TripleOG]

Expanded photo of the rest of property. Everything in the White is clear cuts two years old. Blue again are ponds. Everything else you have seen so far has been to the west of this picture. Block to the west and north west is the same age pine thicket as the first you saw pictures of (very thick). Two blocks of timber in the middle I have a zoomed in picture I’ll post after this one.

[TripleOG]

Last one. The purple outlined block is very thick older pines. Blue again are ponds. Yellow is a one acre food plot I planted. South block of timber is half very old hardwoods and half very thick older pines. The west end(purple color) is the thick and the east end(red circle) is the older hardwoods. There is a transition line I need to walk this year. Thanks for help guys.

[Bowhuntercoop]

I feel your pain about the pines it’s the same here in sc. was all new to me moving from pa where it was big woods and marsh. I attacked the pines like swamps. I can’t stress enough to walk the permiters and find the terrain change and sign. When I found old rub lines or fresh ones coming outta the pines or on the edge of the hardwoods leading into the pines I pressed further in both directions. Sign don’t lie.


I killed a really good buck outta his bed this year in a creek bottom. They tend to bed on the transition from the mixed hardwood creek bottoms to the pines.

Another critical thing to consider down here is thermals. I found more of the beds are thermal based then straight wind based bedded. Any elevation change is better then nothing. When I found points or ditches that had 10-50
Ft elevation changes they would bed just like hill country. Along with bedding pertaining to hearing. I bumped numerous buck and does bedded wind to face, but the beds set up for either sight or hearing bedded. Once I bumped em it made sense.

Yes the deer for sure bed in the pines but it’s more on the transitions and permiters compared to the dead center of the pines. I won’t even hunt in the pines. Just a waste of my time. Once I found any sign of hardwoods the buck sign started to show up. The more I focused on creek bottoms and hardwood tracts the more I saw better age class bucks.

[TripleOG]

Thanks for the help. I’ll be walking all the transitions looking for sign and then diving in looking for beds. One of the better bucks I saw on the hoof headed into those pines about 8am one morning and proved what I had been thinking about them bedding in there. I asked myself where I would bed if I wanted to be hidden and no doubt those are some of the best places. In this picture it’s right on a transition from a field to a thicket. There is a nice size rub on the pine right there. Not 40 yards away is where I saw the big buck walk into those pines. Tough part is gonna be sneaking in on those deer without being seen. Guess that’s why we love the chase and the hunt.