CEG017 wrote:Moose wrote:Lockdown wrote:oldrank wrote:CEG017 wrote:oldrank wrote:Lockdown wrote:I’ve had two different responses typed out and deleted them both. I know what I’m thinking I’m just struggling to put it into words. Hopefully this makes sense.
Its extremely hard to know exactly what you’re looking at when you’re there out of season. I feel like there’s a select few on the forum who could accurately and consistently gauge when specific bedding areas are being used. Most people will be speculating. Most will be wrong more than they want to be as well. I include myself in that statement.
I feel like when I was a new Beast I shared your mindset. “I want to know when this bedding is being used, before it’s even being used.”
Sometimes there are certain factors that will give us a pretty good hypothesis. (Read the comments above… some excellent points were made).
My current mindset wants to separate myself from the “what kind of bedding is this.” train of thought. Primary? secondary? Satellite? Is it used early, mid or late season?
While the old me was concerned with those names and titles, the current me doesn’t care about that. What type of bedding is this? I don’t know for sure, but it’s on my radar.
I want to know where ALL the beds are. Then I want to know when a big one is around. Once I know the land extremely well, AND I know a target is around, THEN I get busy and figure out which one he’s in.
It’s pretty customary to want to have a name for everything or have the bedding so figured out that we know exactly when deer will be there and when they won’t. For me, things have not been anywhere near that cut and dried. Even though I scout as hard as a I can and am as prepared as possible, most of my recent kills have come from spots that I didn’t have prepped ahead of time.
I’m not going into these spots blind, I know the land. The big ones just keep popping up in spots I don’t expect them to.
This^^^^
I dont even think about when... I know where the bucks will bed. They will be in the most secure spot and even there they will be in the most secure spot at the secure spot.
I used to look for the beds and that does help in the beginning, but what I have found is if I think it has bedding, it usually does. Now instead of just hunting a particular bed I hunt bedding areas at the spot where I can kill deer coming out of it. That could be 50 yards away or 300 yards away or 3000 yards away depending on terrain. "3000? Yards", yes 3000 yards. Think large ag with big open fields n small woodlots or swamps. Big farm deer cover alot of ground fast when they need too. If I see big buck sign during season I focus my attention on that general area ( buy that I mean his home range) and try to figure out how I can catch him.
The key is to equally understand the lay of the land along with bedding and how deer move through the terrain. As much as I think large I think small. Where is the best spot to kill deer on 5 acres, where is the best spot to kill deer on 10 acres, 20, 100 1000?
In early season I could catch him coming from bedding to food. When he is cruising I start focusing on bedding to bedding and During rut I focus on cruising trails or does. Late season is bedding to food again. Late season I also focus on serious high pressure cover. He has been hunted and is somewhere safe.
Any how I'm probably rampling...but I think all scouting is good. The more time in the woods the more you learn.
How are you identifying the bedding areas that interest you? Are you using a combination of spring and in season scouting or other methods?
Onx, and all bedding areas interest me.. Then I will hunt them if it's hunting season. If it's the off season and I need more intelligence I will scout them. When I scout I am in and out fast. I want to see that the maps are accurate and how the terrain and cover layout. If I see buck sign I hunt it. That could be old or new. Both show that bucks were there. When I go in during season I am then focused on big tracks. Alot of the areas I hunt have very few rubs or scrapes near bedding.
I find them in his travel areas more than around the bedding area. Rubs and scrapes collect humans. I believe they are fools gold in a way. If you go to a sumac thicket you will find rubs. That says "yep a buck was here" but it doesn't mean that's the spot to hunt. Every sumac thicket in the woods will have rubs, every field edge or human trail has scrapes come pre rut. Those or just indicators. When scrape lines show up at pre rut it's tells me to start hunting cruising trails. My number one way to know if a big buck is home is big tracks. I follow that with observation.... then kill on the right day.
Old rank and I are like minded. I especially agree with the highlighted portion. I do know of bedding areas with a lot of sign in them. But in general that’s not what I go out and look for.
I’m interested in the beds. Especially size and amount of wear. I like finding monster beds that are rounded out from being laid in so many times. So big you know that the bed itself is bigger than the size of the actual deer. I like seeing the grass worn out and chewed up from being laid on and smashed into the ground by their hooves.
You will find lots of beds out there with little wear. Stuff like canary grass that is all intact that looks like it was laid in once for four hours and flattened down.
What I want to see is worn beds in a place that makes sense on the map.
If I pick it out online and it ends up being the best looking bedding out there (without a bunch of human intrusion around it), then I get excited. It seems like the best spots usually have some element of difficulty regarding access. You have to keep in mind, if it’s super easy for you to access and hunt, it’s super easy for everyone else too.
But at the same time there is a lot to be said about overlooked spots. Sometimes thing ARE that easy.
I rely heavily on my observations and cam intel. It’s irrefutable information. There is nothing better than physically watching a buck do something. Cams are 2nd best. (I have watched bucks circle my cam and walk in front of them from the opposite direction they approached.)
Cams are very helpful but they only show you a fraction of what is really going on. Mounting them high and keeping them hidden is extremely crucial for big deer.
Going back to when are beds being used, common sense will often go a long way. If you’re thinking “man… I can’t believe they’re bedding here when it’s so open.” Then chances are they’re using it prior to leaf drop when there’s more cover. Or maybe it’s night bedding
If a bedding area looks like it’s in the midst of a bunch of hunting pressure, then maybe it’s used early. Maybe it’s used so early they’re gone by the time season rolls around
There’s only one way to find out…
When is your favorite time to scout or do you only prefer in season scouting so you can do observation sits and know what's going on right now. Sorry if you already answered this. I just did some scouting with all the snow we had and it was to deep to find older beds. Great for trails but that was it.
This is something that I heard Dan say in a Hunting Beast podcast today. Pretty cool to see it repeated that optimal bedding will make sense on a map. It really makes sense to me but now I need to figure it out for myself. Something you mentioned here also is using observations. How do you approach this besides cameras? Are you using observation sits and if so do you do this year round?
Moose, for my situation, most of my invasive scouting is done in the spring. That’s when I try to REALLY get to know a property. My part of MN is fairly open country, so whenever I find bedding that I feel is worth keeping tabs on, the first thing I do is look around and take note of what is visible. Mainly, the trails leaving bedding. Where can I see those trails from a distance that won’t disturb the area?
Then if I find more bedding that looks good, again I look around for a good observation spot. My goal is to be able to watch multiple bedding areas from one location. Sometimes I can see 3-4 different bedding areas from an observation tree. I’m rarely watching one lone bedding area.
In season is hands down the best time for boots on the ground, but it comes at a cost. If you scout invasively you’re hurting your chances for a kill for that year. It’s a risk vs reward situation. If it’s a spot that I am unsure about, I will absolutely scout it mid season. I don’t just tromp through my best bedding areas mid season to see what they look like. If I know the bedding well I don’t need to go busting in there. But if it’s new and I have questions, I’m going to get my answer one way or another. I have burned good bedding in season more than once just for the sake of learning. Haven’t regretted it once. Sometimes if I’m checking for hot sign near bedding that WAS being used but it appears to have gone cold, rather than assume and walk away I will bust it to see if I’m right or not. When you can verify your assumptions that is a huge confidence boost.
Sometimes I decide I’m not going to have time to hit up a brand new bedding area so I will try and scout it (invasively) around early October. That way I can establish a time line. If there’s a bunch of rubs and scrapes in there already then I just verified that it’s a good early season spot. If sign looks lackluster but next spring it looks good, then you know they were there after you were.
I’m also big on invasive scouting (or checking invasively placed cams) on the days preceding gun season because their world is about to turn upside down anyway.
Most of my in season scouting is trying to find sign near KNOWN BEDDING without blowing that bedding out.
CEG017, regarding your observation question, I’m REALLY big on doing them preseason. The bucks are fairly predictable and there’s a chance they hold pattern until season opens. I don’t boots on the ground scout a whole lot in July and August because everything is crazy thick and the bugs are bad. So I load up on mosquito spray and climb a tree where my scent trail won’t hurt anything.
I observe in season as well, but not as much as I’d like to. If I could hunt more that would help, but I’m not going to observe on a Sunday when I can’t hunt him until next weekend. Too much could change in that amount of time. Obviously observing is never a waste of time though. You never know when you can uncover a previously unknown hide out or get eyes on a buck you didn’t know existed.
Especially if you don’t have enough time to hunt, a good substitute would be a late entry into an observation tree.
Here’s a good example of why I like observing over cams. On the day I observed the drop tine last year I saw a bunch of deer. I saw the drop tine (monster), a 3 yr old he was running with, and 5-6 other deer. It was an awesome night and I learned some important information on how the drop tine left his bedding.
What went in front of my trail camera?
Nothing. Drop tine was within 75 yards of it though…