Bed hunting all over the place or concentrated.

[hunter_mike]

I'm debating on what I should do tomorrow and I am basically just thinking out loud right now. Please feel free to elaborate. I am considering going to a brand new area that I have never been to before to scout. But also there is an area I kind of want to scout on a piece of state land where I have already located some great beds.

Do you think it is more valueable:
1. To know one smaller area really really well and bank on there always being a good buck in that thousand acre or so area.
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2. To just have lots of good set ups scattered all over the state where there may or may not be a buck in that particular bed.

Since it is getting tougher to scout now that everything is greening up, I have to make some decisions as to where I am going to focus my effort. All in all its probably not going to make a huge difference what I do but I have to imagine others have a preference

1. I could see this being very useful because you could systematically hunt an area until you finally get the buck. However if someone else kills the buck or he gets hit by a car or gets ran out of the area by you or other hunters, you could be stuck trying to find new areas to scout and hunt in the middle of the season.

2. This could be really useful because you are still playing the same game but you are probably not pressuring the individual bucks as much and could get lucky on a buck just being in the right place at the right time. It is probably less mentally exhausting as well because you are always in a fresh area and your hopes would probably be higher knowing that you are in a totally different area. However it might be tough to target an individual buck because once he knows you are hunting him, you can only guess check for wherever he may be.

I think naturally we all tend to hunt by #1 a lot more just because we can't hunt anywhere we want to because of private lands vs public and property boundaries. Of course it would be great to hunt both ways but for someone like me who is just beginning to build my own mental database of beds, I have to make sure my scouting efforts are going to where they will help me kill a buck the most.

Anyways those are just my thoughts. I think I have decided what to do tomorrow now that I have written this, which was the whole purpose

[Swampthing]

I personally am not satisfied until I can find everything out about one place . It's tough to find one good bed and bank on it and it doesn't pan out. Then you find yourself up in a tree drawing a blank on your buck , scratching your head thinking now what. For me also I travel on average 50 miles to my spots, so counting on predicted wind and arriving only to have a wind change can leave you stuck with out an alternative set-up. It takes years to compile a good amount of sets but if your crunched for time I still think knowing one area well stacks the odds in your favor versus a few spots just partially figured out. And like Dan has said before, if your one area don't work out you can always put the stand on your back (in-season) and to some scouting in your new area and try some sets on some fresh sign leaving a suspected bedding area.
Last fall I had some success on a brand new area just looking on google maps night before the hunt and arrived at transition area , found my tree I picked off Google Earth and was onto a good buck same night. I went back to the area this spring and confirmed my suspected buck bedding . I found his bed with-in feet of where I guessed it would be.
I'll often use a feature on Google Earth called ( ruler) and with it I can pick out, buck bedding and measure the distance with the ruler feature to the transition line and if it falls with-in a range I think the buck can clear before shooting time ends I'll hunt there. That helped me get onto the buck last fall. I picked the bedding area and with the ruler feature the measurement was about 80 yards to the transition line. I could see a nice big tree on Google Earth and transferred the coordinates into my GPS. I actually passed on him but hunted the spot again after I busted him out and I was hoping another buck might take over the spot. The next hunt from the same tree another different buck came out of the exact bed and I also passed him.

[PK_]

That's really a loaded question. Depends on how picky you are about what to harvest. If you are just looking for any 'good' buck I would want to have as many different beds for different winds as possible close to home or work.

If you are after some threshold (120"+, 140"+) I would concentrate in areas I felt gave me the best opportunity at that caliber deer.

All in all I would rather know every inch of one chunk, rather than only bits and pieces of several...

[MattyG]

I am kind of in the same boat as you. I lost the private land i hunted on do to the land being sold this winter. I have walked a ton this spring on public land when i think i get the lay of the land and find some beds i move on to the next one.

I have never hunted on a lot of the public i walked this year so i dont know how the pressure is going to be. im kinda banking on if one is to pressured i can move on to the next one.

so haveing other options to hunt is never a bad thing.

[Dewey]

I personally am not satisfied until I can find everything out about one place . It's tough to find one good bed and bank on it and it doesn't pan out. Then you find yourself up in a tree drawing a blank on your buck , scratching your head thinking now what. For me also I travel on average 50 miles to my spots, so counting on predicted wind and arriving only to have a wind change can leave you stuck with out an alternative set-up. It takes years to compile a good amount of sets but if your crunched for time I still think knowing one area well stacks the odds in your favor versus a few spots just partially figured out. And like Dan has said before, if your one area don't work out you can always put the stand on your back (in-season) and to some scouting in your new area and try some sets on some fresh sign leaving a suspected bedding area.

Exactly. I would rather know every square inch of one chunk of land than to spread myself too thin and have a bunch of spots I have a minimum amount of knowledge of.

Knowing your hunting area well really helps you make a decision on how to adjust and be in the right spot to hunt. Some days you need to tweak your set up and intimate knowledge of the area will really pay off.

Every year I pick a new area and learn it well. Over the past 20+ years I have accumulated a large wealth of information with spots all over WI and the UP that I would feel comfortable hunting any given day. This is not something you can do overnight and takes many years to do.

I believe any good size chunk of public land holds at least one mature buck and this is something that I find to be true every single time. Learn a piece of land well and I promise it will pay off.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[dan]

If your just after any shooter buck, hunting the best spots in several different areas is probably the best bet... If your after a certain animal its probably best to know every inch of his ground.

[whitetail007]

it takes time to build up your hot spots and know them well. a couple areas I have been hunting 30 years so I know them well and others I am working on and then others I just started hunting last year. its a constant work in progress. last year I didn't ever hit some of my better areas.

[MOBIGBUCKS]

I scout all of the time in the offseason...I'm always looking for new spots because they come and go. I typically move around my different spots unless I see or know a giant is using a certain area. Once a giant is located by trailcams, sightings, etc I'll depend on my scouting to get me on that particular buck. If I've done everything right, I should know the vicinity in which bed he is using. However, this takes years on certain pieces of ground, but it's always good to try new ground when possible. You just never know what you might find.

[Redman232]

I've gotten to the point where I really enjoy being able to hunt new ground a lot. I have about 1/2 dozen properties that I've hunted for 10+ years that are pretty small, they are all less than 100 acres. I've got them pretty well figured out and they only get hunted when wind, weather and the moon phase are right. Therefore I'm left with several places for the rest of the season that I may have never hunted. I spend almost all of my scouting now on new areas that I may not even go to in the fall, but I've got them in my notebook for when I'm looking for somewhere to go. I love hunting draw hunts in the state where I'm forced to scout and hunt with a stand on my back. I don't have a ton of success on mature bucks doing this but I thoroughly enjoy seeing new properties and figuring out how the deer use the landscape. There isn't much more satisfying to me than having success at a stand location I've found just hours before.

[headgear]

I posted a very similar question last fall and ended up going to something similar to your option 2. What is came down to for me was not just hunting buck beds in a given area but only hunting the best of the best primary beds in an attempt to up my odds on a public land buck. Been beast hunting for about 3-4 years now and what I found was a lot of the beds I was finding just were not used all that much, maybe they were rut beds used only for a short time or the bedding area would go cold the next year. However some of the beds, usually the ones that get you pretty excited about while scouting held a lot more sign and were always active from year to year. On public land I think it might be even more important to put yourself in the best possible locations even if there are a limited number of them. I will see if I can dig up that thread, I do remember Dan saying that a lot of his bucks were shot out of the same 6-7 beds or something like that.

Here is a good example of what I am talking about, I have been scouting out two large blocks of public land the past couple of year. Both between 1500 and 2000 acres in size very similar swamp/woods/islands on both. I found mature buck sign in both areas and there was plenty of cover for a buck to hide out. However the one chunk of land had 3-4 really nice looking bedding areas with tons of sign and the 2nd spot just a few miles away just didn't have the sign. I still have some areas I need to scout in both but for this season I will be driving by one area to hunt the other.

One other thing I suggest is to re-scout some of your old spots from time to time. I did a little of that this year if I was passing through as area and I was kind of surprised at what I found. Some spots that seemed like killer bedding areas went totally cold and other spots which I wasn't sure about seemed to get better. You just have to revisit those areas to see what is happening.

[Dewey]

One other thing I suggest is to re-scout some of your old spots from time to time. I did a little of that this year if I was passing through as area and I was kind of surprised at what I found. Some spots that seemed like killer bedding areas went totally cold and other spots which I wasn't sure about seemed to get better. You just have to revisit those areas to see what is happening.

Good point and I totally agree. Even though you might have hunted spots for many years you have to keep up on what is currently going on. Some spots do go dead for whatever reason.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Swampthing]

One other thing I suggest is to re-scout some of your old spots from time to time. I did a little of that this year if I was passing through as area and I was kind of surprised at what I found. Some spots that seemed like killer bedding areas went totally cold and other spots which I wasn't sure about seemed to get better. You just have to revisit those areas to see what is happening.

Good point and I totally agree. Even though you might have hunted spots for many years you have to keep up on what is currently going on. Some spots do go dead for whatever reason.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Yes, I've found many spots go dead and shift due to landscape changes, water levels, etc.

[hunter_mike]

Thank you for all of your explanations, some really cool input and really great advice on how to go about finding your own bucks... I am bookmarking this thread because it really helps me define the mindset I want to be in currently.

I ended up going with the option 1 on saturday which I will be posting results of shortly. I know that this area that I have been scouting holds at least a few bucks that are 2.5 yrs and older and even a big one or two that I saw shining around there last fall. I decided I should just try to figure out this last portion of the property and try to put together the big pictue of the area.

I personally am not satisfied until I can find everything out about one place . It's tough to find one good bed and bank on it and it doesn't pan out. Then you find yourself up in a tree drawing a blank on your buck , scratching your head thinking now what. For me also I travel on average 50 miles to my spots...

Swampthing i think I am starting to feel the same way you do. And since I have this season will be my first ever beast hunting/hunting over beds, and the fact that I consider a 2.5 yr old buck a shooter, I think its in my best interest to know one area really well so that when I go in and blow the hunt I will still be in the game.

Every year I pick a new area and learn it well. Over the past 20+ years I have accumulated a large wealth of information with spots all over WI and the UP that I would feel comfortable hunting any given day. This is not something you can do overnight and takes many years to do.

I believe any good size chunk of public land holds at least one mature buck and this is something that I find to be true every single time. Learn a piece of land well and I promise it will pay off.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Dewey, I think this is pretty awesome to hear too. I scouted a lot (or at least what I consider a lot) this past winter but I think I spread myself too thin. I think over the next scouting season I will try to do this and figure out each parcel of land individually just to keep the brain focused on one situation at a time. A lack of experience and lack of understanding how much ground one can cover in a day, really kept me from making a ton of break-throughs this winter but I still think this will be my best bow season yet. There definitely is a learning curve and I am already getting way better at locating the more primary bedding.

I posted a very similar question last fall and ended up going to something similar to your option 2. What is came down to for me was not just hunting buck beds in a given area but only hunting the best of the best primary beds in an attempt to up my odds on a public land buck. Been beast hunting for about 3-4 years now and what I found was a lot of the beds I was finding just were not used all that much....

headgear, you bring up some very important points too in your post. I think that as I start to figure out my own grounds that are close to home, I would like to transition over towards your style of finding the absolute primary spots and only hunt those, even if it means traveling across the state or where ever. But for right now, with my standards I have plenty of bucks to chase close to home, allowing me to hunt/scout more often. As my standards rise, and my database of hunting spots grows, I will want to have more spots that would be closer to the definition of being a primary bedding area.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! I have really been learning and even more-so in the past week.

[JoeRE]

I've gotten to the point where I really enjoy being able to hunt new ground a lot.

I find the same thing. I will scout 2 or 3 new areas every year just for the fun of it. Given two options like the OP I will almost always take a look at something new! I like to nail down a honeyhole or two in a new spot then branch out from there.

[fishlips]

I am just starting to build my bank of places to hunt, so I am in a similar situation. I have tried to scout out the places that I found online as well as I can and come up with a gameplan for each one. This usually leaves me with not enough places to hunt come hunting season, so come hunting season after I have hunted my spots, I start to speculate based on my online scouting for places that I can hunt. This actually worked for me last year in a pinch when I had a short period of time to hunt. Hunted a spot I had scouted online and got lucky and shot a decent buck.

Overall though this type of hunting seems like it pays to invest the time to learn the good spots that you find really well even if it means you only get a few spots added to the list every year. I hope in a few years I will have enough spots to hunt every time I hunt in a different spot. It's only a matter of time.