Dan and other experienced Beast-style hunters... thoughts???

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whitetail_addict
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Dan and other experienced Beast-style hunters... thoughts???

Unread postby whitetail_addict » Tue May 20, 2014 2:05 pm

I discovered this spot last year and bowhunted it a few times with little luck at all. I sort of stumbled upon it so I may have messed the spot up before I sat it last year and plus it was after the standing corn that had been in the field adjacent and south of the bedding area was cut so I think the removal of that cover in this fairly flat featureless area may have had something to do with it as well.

Anyways, the bedding area itself is labeled on the maps by the pin and I would say that specific bedding area is maybe a 20 x 20 yard tangled thicket next to a seasonal wetland pond (usually only filled with water in spring). The woods around and to the north are all flat and open with little cover. The field to the south was standing corn last year before being cut. There were several new and old rubs in and around the bedding area last year with a couple of big buck rubs along the trails marked in yellow running east and west. There was also a good scrape right outside the bedding area just on the north edge of it too.

I suspected with the woods to the north and the field to the south, along with the predominant northerly winds in this area, that a buck using that spot would be bedding there on a north wind to take advantage of the wind coming through the woods and he would maybe be facing south to watch the field edge.

After a couple of sits there I noticed that the north wind (blue lines) tended to come straight through the woods as suspected but then when reaching the open field it seemed to wrap around and all sort of funnel right into the bedding area. There lays my issue. With that being the case I'm not sure how to best set up here without being winded. I was setting up about 20-30 yards down the yellow marked trail hoping my wind would carry past the bedding area but as I said I now think it may have been wrapping right around to any deer in there.

What would you do? Do you think I'm right in thinking a buck will use that spot on a north wind or do you think a buck might actually be using it on another wind? I did jump a nice buck in there during gun season on a north wind but with that being some of the only cover on that property I'm not sure the wind direction was a main reason for him being there.

I think the best time to catch a buck using this spot would be early season and I'll mention that this is a spot that is thick enough that I could get within 50 yards of the bed without being seen because of the thick underbrush and vegetation in the thicket.
Last edited by dan on Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: REMOVED IMAGES PER REQUEST


dan
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Re: Dan and other experienced Beast-style hunters... thought

Unread postby dan » Tue May 20, 2014 8:31 pm

The more I look at buck bedding areas, the more I am convinced they take advantage of terrain features that funnel scent to them. Beating that is the name of the game and a l;ot of the time the exact position of the stand is what gets the job done.
Last november I was hunting one of Andraes farms after a particular couple of bucks and when I fin ally got one of the target bucks on the last day it was in one of Andraes set stands. He said he had seen the buck in the area and had some trail cam pic's of it along a certain ridge.

He said he had a killer set up on that ridge along a corn plot but that the mature bucks always stuck to the timber behind the stand and on the leeward wind the swirling, pooling, and land features would usually get him busted. But one day in the stand he noticed that milkweed dropped from a seated position would go right to the buck trail, but let go over his head it would float over the valley. So he positioned the stand 10 feet higher.

Then it became a killer set up.

If you got north winds and its pulling your scent back up into that bedding area you need to find the spot that will blow your scent out over the field due to terrain and or height. Or maybe you need to find the just rioght off wind that the buck is still bedding there but not getting your wind. So, HE IS PROBABLY BEDDING THERE ON A NORTH wEST WIND too. So on a north west your probably not getting a back draft as much on the S.E. position.
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Re: Dan and other experienced Beast-style hunters... thought

Unread postby PK_ » Tue May 20, 2014 11:32 pm

Did you check with milkweed at southern tip of bedding area? That wind should be pulled towards the bedding area but then be redirected back south. If the wind is steady and that is flat ground you will have some turbulence at the tree line and the wind will follow the tree line but should not double back. Think of the tail of an airplane and how air flows past it then swirls. The wind surely swirls just off the southern tip but I doubt it moves back north into the bedding area on a steady wind. Unless he beds right on the edge at the tip I think you will be ok. The only way the air can move back to the north there is if there is an elevation change.

My guess.

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