Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
- Denisboyko22
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Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
I have a bunch of spots this year I want to try sitting but I only know the general bedding area and not exactly where the bucks are bedding to the exact bed. I also so far havnt gotten any big bucks on food sources near by but I know when fall comes I will get more deer on these food sources and in the bedding area. How many of you have had success on mature bucks just hunting bedding areas in general and not the exact bed without knowing if theres a mature animal living there?
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
actually, thats how i hunt about 50% of tje time.
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
This guy.
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- Denisboyko22
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
[quote="dan"]actually, thats how i hunt about 50% of tje time.[/quote
I've watched all your videos and podcasts and it gave me the idea that you typically find some bucks preseason or during season to go after . Seems alot easier finding a buck and go after it than crossing your fingers going into a bedding area. My questions would be how far do I go? There's cat tails for a 100 yards and then a few solo trees and then 50 yards more its like cattails with trees mixed but the food is the opposite directions from the trees mixed with cattails, all the trails lead that way and then towards the food which is probably half a mile a way or so. Do I go until I bump a deer and then setup in those solo trees? Or go further into the trees mixed with cattails further back ? This is an area I found a month ago so I havnt scouted the bedding yet since its too close to season
I've watched all your videos and podcasts and it gave me the idea that you typically find some bucks preseason or during season to go after . Seems alot easier finding a buck and go after it than crossing your fingers going into a bedding area. My questions would be how far do I go? There's cat tails for a 100 yards and then a few solo trees and then 50 yards more its like cattails with trees mixed but the food is the opposite directions from the trees mixed with cattails, all the trails lead that way and then towards the food which is probably half a mile a way or so. Do I go until I bump a deer and then setup in those solo trees? Or go further into the trees mixed with cattails further back ? This is an area I found a month ago so I havnt scouted the bedding yet since its too close to season
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
you have to take an educated guess as to where they are bedded... sometimes your to far, sometimes to close. tje more you look at buck bedding in spring scouting. the better you will get at guessing. In marshes ofzen you can zoom in on your phone and see where tje trails lead and that helps tremendously.
- rfickes87
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
Think to yourself, does this bedding area have the potential for these buck? Does it have the security required for a buck to get to that age?
Last week I pulled 2 cameras out from a ridge line here in PA where I found a great bedding area on a series of points adjacent to this main ridge I scouted on foot back in spring. I have 4 shooters on camera using that area regularly, these are top end deer for my area and sure enough its because its a top end bedding area. It's nice to confirm my intel that they are there but honestly I already knew it'd be a great bedding area before I put the cameras out just because "it checked all the boxes" when I was in there on foot. You just have to look at it on a map and/or on foot (hopefully both) and trust yourself that it'll hold good bucks.
If you don't know the exact beds, don't worry, they move around anyways within that bedding area that even for a seasoned vet hunting I'm sure a known bedding area that can be tough to nail down a specific bed. I would feel very confident sneaking in to hunt with the wind in my face and a general idea where the bedding is and setting up on the first trail I cut across near that bedding. I killed a nice PA buck on the 2nd day of archery season, two years ago doing just that. I have a lot of areas pre-scouted but this particular hunt I walked up on a beaten down buck trail and followed it (wind in my face) up to where I guessed the bedding would be within 100-150 yards and I climbed a tree. He walked out down the trail with 5-10 minutes of daylight left. I had never even been in that area before or scouted it prior but I had a gut feeling it might hold a nice buck. He was totally surprised.
And further more I said about the 4 shooters on my cameras. 2 of them are looking right at the camera and I never got another picture of those bucks after that (I did on other cameras but it proved how you can cause harm to your area). And I even purposely put the cameras a few hundred yards from the bedding to not spook them and I still did. Point being... sometimes that shear utter surprise...taking an educated guess, is wayyy more beneficial to you than poking around trying to learn what's in the area.
Have fun man!!
Last week I pulled 2 cameras out from a ridge line here in PA where I found a great bedding area on a series of points adjacent to this main ridge I scouted on foot back in spring. I have 4 shooters on camera using that area regularly, these are top end deer for my area and sure enough its because its a top end bedding area. It's nice to confirm my intel that they are there but honestly I already knew it'd be a great bedding area before I put the cameras out just because "it checked all the boxes" when I was in there on foot. You just have to look at it on a map and/or on foot (hopefully both) and trust yourself that it'll hold good bucks.
If you don't know the exact beds, don't worry, they move around anyways within that bedding area that even for a seasoned vet hunting I'm sure a known bedding area that can be tough to nail down a specific bed. I would feel very confident sneaking in to hunt with the wind in my face and a general idea where the bedding is and setting up on the first trail I cut across near that bedding. I killed a nice PA buck on the 2nd day of archery season, two years ago doing just that. I have a lot of areas pre-scouted but this particular hunt I walked up on a beaten down buck trail and followed it (wind in my face) up to where I guessed the bedding would be within 100-150 yards and I climbed a tree. He walked out down the trail with 5-10 minutes of daylight left. I had never even been in that area before or scouted it prior but I had a gut feeling it might hold a nice buck. He was totally surprised.
And further more I said about the 4 shooters on my cameras. 2 of them are looking right at the camera and I never got another picture of those bucks after that (I did on other cameras but it proved how you can cause harm to your area). And I even purposely put the cameras a few hundred yards from the bedding to not spook them and I still did. Point being... sometimes that shear utter surprise...taking an educated guess, is wayyy more beneficial to you than poking around trying to learn what's in the area.
Have fun man!!
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
That’s how I used to hunt before I started looking for individual beds and killed bucks and usually didn’t know what was around. Finding the individual beds helped fine tune my set ups. I still hunt like that on freelance hunts
Last edited by Hawthorne on Thu Aug 13, 2020 5:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Boogieman1
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
I’ve had blind luck just sitting the downwind edge of the thickest stuff I could find that had good deer sign. Didn’t have a clue it was a bedding area until I got up there and seen what was going on. Lucked into a few spots that way.
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- Dewey
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
Denisboyko22 wrote:How many of you have had success on mature bucks just hunting bedding areas in general and not the exact bed without knowing if theres a mature animal living there?
Sounds like about 75% of my hunts.
I usually know about a handful of buck beds in the general vicinity otherwise I wouldn’t be hunting there but as always it’s pretty hard to know all of them. Sometimes new beds pop up as well further complicating things. Bucks randomly change beds daily so just being near great primary bedding ups your odds tremendously. Really good primary bedding is more often than not used by the dominant buck in the area.
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Re: Who's had succes hunting bedding areas without knowing the bucks in the area?
rfickes87 wrote:Think to yourself, does this bedding area have the potential for these buck? Does it have the security required for a buck to get to that age?
Last week I pulled 2 cameras out from a ridge line here in PA where I found a great bedding area on a series of points adjacent to this main ridge I scouted on foot back in spring. I have 4 shooters on camera using that area regularly, these are top end deer for my area and sure enough its because its a top end bedding area. It's nice to confirm my intel that they are there but honestly I already knew it'd be a great bedding area before I put the cameras out just because "it checked all the boxes" when I was in there on foot. You just have to look at it on a map and/or on foot (hopefully both) and trust yourself that it'll hold good bucks.
If you don't know the exact beds, don't worry, they move around anyways within that bedding area that even for a seasoned vet hunting I'm sure a known bedding area that can be tough to nail down a specific bed. I would feel very confident sneaking in to hunt with the wind in my face and a general idea where the bedding is and setting up on the first trail I cut across near that bedding. I killed a nice PA buck on the 2nd day of archery season, two years ago doing just that. I have a lot of areas pre-scouted but this particular hunt I walked up on a beaten down buck trail and followed it (wind in my face) up to where I guessed the bedding would be within 100-150 yards and I climbed a tree. He walked out down the trail with 5-10 minutes of daylight left. I had never even been in that area before or scouted it prior but I had a gut feeling it might hold a nice buck. He was totally surprised.
And further more I said about the 4 shooters on my cameras. 2 of them are looking right at the camera and I never got another picture of those bucks after that (I did on other cameras but it proved how you can cause harm to your area). And I even purposely put the cameras a few hundred yards from the bedding to not spook them and I still did. Point being... sometimes that shear utter surprise...taking an educated guess, is wayyy more beneficial to you than poking around trying to learn what's in the area.
Have fun man!!
Sounds like the area I wanna hunt, not sure if theres a mature buck in these areas but if there is then he'd be there forsure. I also spotted a mature buck a month ago probably 200 yards from the bedding and i hung a stand in that creek hes using for a easy trail and havnt seen him since , he's avoiding that trail completely but u have an idea where he's bedding so thats all that matters
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