Building buck beds?

[TANGS]

PSA - detail heavy post so for any comments/questions/insight about building buck beds just skip to the end

Alright so to set the stage - my dad has owned our property for 10 years... We have never been able to hold bucks throughout the season and essentially only have any sort of action during the rut. We usually have a handful of yearlings and a strong doe population.

We have tried something new every year - mainly food plots/crops/stand locations etc to no real results...

Essentially 2 years ago is when we started listening to Dan and really learning what these deer are doing. We did a lot of studying between Dan and Jeff Sturgis to diagnose our problems and come up with a real solution. Essentially our #1 problem is that we have too many does on our property - #2 is that most of our bedding potential is too wet to actually hold many deer.

So our first remedy is something that we picked up from Jeff - and this will be our first year that we try planting only fall food plots and no row crops (hopefully eliminates some of the resident doe population and gets rid of our "doe factory")

And our second solution - build buck beds.

We spent several hours looking over every square foot of our brush today. Basically the only spot that really has mature bucks bedding is on our very west border, a cluster of 5-8 beds with large rubs scattered throughout the brush line. The rest of our property actually has very good structure - but very little high ground. Any high spot seem to be used, but lack any sign of buck presence.

So our bright idea is to use these plastic pallets as a base (holes drilled to drain water) - pile a layer of wood chips on top to help with water, and top it off with a healthy layer of straw.... We analyzed the heck out of what's going on and I think we keyed in on some spots that will be very attractive using land features/historical rubs etc.





Big question time I've you've made it this far - has anybody ever tried this before - what kind of results did you get - and do you have any tips or advice????

We plan to go ahead with about 14 total beds and monitor how they're used this fall via trail camera. Some places we enhanced some bedding areas that were already used and in other places we are going to try and establish bedding so we've got a variety of ideas in play. Can't wait to see how this works, I'll keep this updated if anybody is interested to see how it goes

[TANGS]

Here is some screen shots of our property (don't hate, my premium subscription of OnX ran out this week )

The yellow icons are where we're building these beds - and the buck icon is any existing buck beds.

It doesn't look like much and hard to read off of an aerial, but boots on the ground looks like plenty of diversity with points/island etc. Also, the slough bottom is pretty heavy bog. Any bed that were building is next to good structure and is semi-dry with multiple beds for different winds.

[TANGS]

And for step one - here's the Argo loaded up with pallets.... And some of the pallets in place. I'm hoping to get feedback if anybody else has tried this. We can still move things around before we top off the pallets if any of y'all have any valuable insight.


I also think it's worth noting that any sizable, dry hump of Earth in our brush line is being used for bedding as is... I'm fairly confident our beds will get used by something... Even if any these beds are used by does - I hope some of the other beds should open up for bucks

[VaBowKill5]

Definitely a cool idea. I’m not sure if it will work but I’ll be interested to hear how it goes. I guess if they’re not bedding there as it is you have nothing to lose and may pay off in a big way.

[dan]

I don't think the number of does makes a difference... I have looked at a lot of properties with both high and low doe populations and never noticed any effect on mature buck bedding. 2nd, Ive been on a lot of properties that have done "bed making" and noticed that it usually barely works. They might get deer to bed there now and then, but usually not mature bucks or primary bedding... Mature bucks seek out bedding spots that have a lot of ingredients like air flow, shade, sight, etc. The best way to create bedding is to enhance existing bedding. With that said, I like the idea of creating spots under trees in cattails it the spot is under water, but you have to be carefull how big the spot is, and that thick high cover surrounds the bed. Good luck.

[justdirtyfun]

Looks like you have the experiment in full swing. Cool stuff.
My 2 cents is only building beds with great layout for killing. But if they are living on your place, eventually the killing should work out.

[headgear]

I sometimes make some adjustments to known bedding areas to make them better, say a place that has everything a buck needs but maybe not that exact spot they like, or I pile up some brush and make a bed off a point a little better. That seems to work out great, the deer want to be there anyway and I have gone back and seen beds in some spots but there is only so much a person can do on public land.

I have thought about creating beds like you with pallets and dirt but the wood chips is a great idea and much easier to haul out in the swamp. I think it could work but you really need the right ingredients. Looking at your map are those islands private land? Droping a bunch of trees on one end might create the kind of bedding area the bucks in the area are looking for but really all you can do is try and see if any bucks respond.

[TANGS]

Thanks for the chatter, I appreciate the insight!

First I'll address the islands.. We own both of those - our main focus right now is to experiment on the south side and depending how that goes try something on the islands. Our "Oak island" to the South West is the long, narrow one. This island hold virtually zero buck bedding... As is, it's very harsh transitions and mainly open inside. Might not be a bad idea to drop a few trees?

The "popal island" to the north east is pretty similar composition to our brush line to the South. Depending how that goes we might do some of this around there.

It's good to hear that some of you have had luck enhancing bedding. Here's one example of what we're trying to do. I drew in the water line in blue. The island portion holds only one dry hump large enough for a buck to bed on - apparently used by a doe... There are very old historical rubs on popals (4-8"), however none fresh from the last couple of years. 2 small humps had fawn beds on them. The brush around the edge of it makes some perfect openings/canopy which would be dynamite bed locations, but the ground is basically like pasture humps so it has wet spots underneath. We set 4 pallets around the outside of that island tucked into the brush pockets.


That point to the east is like half and half wet/dry. In one spot I was just able to clear enough rubbish to make room for a bed. We put 3 more pallets around the brush clusters. (At the yellow arrow, not the waypoint) No current bedding existed right there, but just inside where the high ground appears there's a couple humps, each with beds and very old rubs. Nothing fresh.

I didn't take pictures but I feel pretty good about these. I'm just hoping that our beds are natural and attractive enough to be used?

Inkedanother1_LI.jpg

[TANGS]

In this portion, the small island to the South holds several beds. None of them are really "perfect" but the point to the west has a bed with a few nice rubs. We're gonna try building a few on the north tip of the island in the brush pockets.

Out in the slough to the north, the cattails are pretty heavy but the bog is somewhat dry. The buck icon to the east is a few popals that are ripped up and a big old bed right in the center. To the west of that is another cluster pretty similar but not quite as dry.... There are beds here but I'm pretty confident they're only used once the slough freezes over. We're gonna try building some up to see if they get used in the fall. The north most icon is a lone dead tree..... So why not

Inkedanother3_LI.jpg

[TANGS]

As long as I'm doing this, the last portion is to the South East of the heavier tamarack trees... The north edge of the tamaracks holds very heavy doe bedding (red icons). Where the yellow icon is I laid 3 pallets down about 10 yards apart in a line.... There's a line of dogwood that is noticably taller, thicker, and dryer than the rest.

My thought with this is experimental - the structure looks good but it's just a little bit too wet. My thought with this is a Northwest wind would blow the scent from that doe bedding directly to that heavier patch of dog wood. No idea if this will work but worth a shot

Inkedanother4_LI.jpg

[Jackson Marsh]

It's a cool idea and I am interested in your results. Seems to me enhancing where they already want to be but maybe can't be due to too much water would work well. Keep us informed of your results

[dan]

First I'll address the islands.. We own both of those - our main focus right now is to experiment on the south side and depending how that goes try something on the islands. Our "Oak island" to the South West is the long, narrow one. This island hold virtually zero buck bedding... As is, it's very harsh transitions and mainly open inside. Might not be a bad idea to drop a few trees?

I would not drop trees on the island... I would create bedding off the most down wind tip. 2 reasons, #1 bucks prefer bedding in the swamp, in cover, off the point of an island, and I have found the prefer the down wind side more. #2 The island is where you can kill the bucks, but not if you get a pile of does and fawns and young bucks bedding up there alerting everything in the mature bedding area when you enter.

[TANGS]

We finished building our buck beds today. Probably went a little over board with this project - but hopefully it pays off

We overlayed the plastic pallets with rough sawn lumber to stiffen it up and get rid of the unnatural plastic feel.... The we layered each one with about 3 inches of wood chips. Then a half bale of straw on top of that.

They look like they're sticking way out and kinda bulky. We're assuming it will probably shrink and settle down into the bog about 6-8 inches. I'm really not sure what to expect.... They might not get used right away, or at all for that matter I was pleased with how solid they felt after everything was in place!

We kinda figure as everything sits out there it will firm up and break down into a more natural kinda feature, so hopefully they get used even if it's not for a few years..... Anyways here's some photos of the finished product!

[Jackson Marsh]

I think that will work.

[matt1336]

That’ll be very cool if it does work!! Even if it doesn’t, still cool and worth the effort. Good corona project