Yesterday I snow tracked a good buck deep in a cedar swamp back to his bed. The conditions are perfect, in that I didn’t sink through any frozen water and managed to stay on top. All of the bucks entrance and exit trails were clearly visible in the snow, which made reading the bedding area like looking at a map.
The orange is the outline of a very mature stand of cedars on a high ground island. The island is just over a hundred yards across and the visibility through the mature cedar trunks is good. The surrounding swamp is a tangled mess with very low visibility. A high resolution topo shows nothing as the difference in elevation is negligible when comparing the island to the surrounding swamp. Yellow is the wind direction, it is also the prevailing wind and blows this direction more than any other. Red is the buck’s approach to his bed and the yellow dot is the bed itself. This island is remote and a long way from any trail or road.
The buck’s approach to his bed is fairly typical in the cedar swamps I hunt. After he ran the transition of the edge of the island he went back out into the main swamp, hooked around and scent checked / cleared his bed. He moved just back up onto the island, turned around to face his tracks that were immediately behind him and lay down. The snow is about 5 inches deep and the bed is “primary”, there is one other bed nearby he uses in atypical wind directions, but this “primary” bed is melted down to the ground and is used A LOT.
Most interesting is that the buck faced downwind, his leg position in the bed is clear and definite. This defies human nature and our poor noses in that the buck is facing the wall of the swamp with the open island behind him. He has less than 20 yards of visibility in that direction as he looks over his approaching tracks in the snow. The bucks is completely reliant on the wind to cover his backside and obviously very comfortable with it. If it were me, I would want to watch the direction a predator would most likely come from- across the open cedars to the entry trail that ran the edge of the island when he first arrived, which would also mean looking into the wind. It is more than fascinating to see these bucks stare at the “wall” of the swamp and ignore looking at the open island. The comfort that a super sense of smell gives these bucks is remarkable.
When I mention “mature” cedars, the two trees this buck beds against are well over 2 feet in diameter, approaching 3 feet. We are talking trees that are over a hundred years old. There is no “browse” line and the lower limbs are far beyond any hope of a whitetail reaching them, and yet this big buck does not have to leave this island the entire winter if he does not want to. How can that be? Well, when the cedars are of this age the wind knocks down fresh, green white-cedar leaves (flat needles) all winter long by the countless thousands right on this little patch of buck paradise. The buck doesn’t even have to get up, if you look closely at my picture you can see green white cedar leaves begging for him to munch on. A buck can survive a brutal northern winter with only white cedar and water. No other buck food, browse / crop or otherwise can do this. If white cedar is not available, bucks have to eat a combination of food stuffs or they will starve to death in the terrible conditions. Along the bucks approach trail when he first hit the island is a spring fed creek with open water where he can drink almost all winter long and not have to eat snow. The thermal protection and little snow depth on the island are obvious. There are two different doe families bedded nearby.
Food, water, heavy cover, thermal protection and doe families all contained within this tiny microenvironment. The buck never has to come out all winter if he doesn’t want to, and this certainly can lend itself to putting some age on the buck. This is why you often hear me state that cutting down a mature stand of white cedar is a crime that should be prosecuted- it takes over a hundred years to replace them and the attempts typically fail.
But if you recall, I stated that this is a “primary” buck bedding area… how would I know that? It is very remote and looks like a wintering spot. Well, over the last 5 or more decades my family members have killed some very good bucks during the fall just off of the photo to the right… ‘nuff said.
