When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

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rfickes87
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When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Fri Dec 02, 2016 8:22 am

With the orange army here in PA and other states, I feel a lot of bucks are displaced now from gun pressure and the rut. At what point can I resume scouting for next year's fall archery season? I thought about doing some spot stalk hunting with the bow in mid January as a means of scouting for future hunting spots and bedding areas. If I find buck beds in mid January can I presume to think a buck using that bed is going to use that clear till next year? Or should I wait till Spring to try and scout buck bedding? Trail cameras have proven to me that bucks will bed in the same core area year after year but my question is when does he come back?? I know they disappear from mid October to ???? Because of the rut and pressure. What is everyone's thoughts?

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby Edcyclopedia » Fri Dec 02, 2016 8:52 am

My buddy tagged out in MA w/two great bucks.
When I called him to congratulate him, guess where he was...
Scouting!

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby PK_ » Fri Dec 02, 2016 9:03 am

I would say the bucks are not displaced, they are exactly where they should be and in the spots you need to know.

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby headgear » Fri Dec 02, 2016 9:53 am

PK_ wrote:I would say the bucks are not displaced, they are exactly where they should be and in the spots you need to know.

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Yep was just going to post this, if you can figure out how they survive rifle season you can really up your game. If you have time and don't care about messing up an area then scout anytime really. I will say maybe the opening weekend of rifle could be a bad time to scout because you could push next years buck right into a bullet but shortly after or towards the end of rifle season is a great time to be out in the woods. I generally hit my better spots and to try and take a little inventory (tracks) and see if I can locate any good bucks that survived.
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby Lockdown » Fri Dec 02, 2016 10:05 am

In season scouting is the best scouting there is IMO. I never do it during gun season though... Last thing you want to do is kick a buck to a gun hunter.

Last season I hit up a spot the day after muzzleloader ended and I kicked up a doe and crab claw ten. I was thinking that area would be mostly void of deer after both gun seasons. Not the case! Tough to beat intel like that. If I stayed home I would STILL be wondering if that spot is worth a sit late season.

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby Stanley » Fri Dec 02, 2016 10:34 am

Gun season starts here Saturday. I'm going to stay in the house and watch football. No way am I going out into the timber with the guns a blazing. Dad didn't raise all dumb boys. ;)
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby Tufrthnails » Fri Dec 02, 2016 11:30 am

Last year I did a ton of late season scouting middle of the day and got a lot of intel. Next couple of days the season opens during the week and I can't wait to see if I can put that intel to work. I plan to do the same this year in some areas I'm not targeting this season.
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Fri Dec 02, 2016 12:18 pm

Thanks guys. That all seems to make sense. I keep striking out on bedding and I want to try and do it right for next year. I struck out this summer. Thought I found a great spot on public. I even patterned him to the right wind but I found out later in October that he had several beds along a field edge and not just the 2 I had intially found. I burned up all my vaca early in the year on him. Since rut he's dissapearred. 2 year history with him so we'll see if he's dead or he comes back. That's why I was wondering how soon they return to they're core area. Also When I found this bed during the summer I had to swim thru 150 yards of briars. Now the DNR has figure 8s mowed thru the field I guess for rabbit hunters. So this bed really fizzled out. Time to move on I guess. That's why I've got all these questions!!

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Fri Dec 02, 2016 12:23 pm

I feel like deer "retreat" further into the thickest areas during these times. After all the vegitation and leaves are gone. No deer in their right mind would bed now where I found him bedding all summer. Briars are gone or all laid over from the elements. No more weeds for cover. I feel like the beds I'll look for during winter are more important for me to hunt hear next fall than what I had found this summer where he was 5 yards inside a wooded area off an overgrown briar patch.

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Fri Dec 02, 2016 12:42 pm

I feel like deer "retreat" further into the thickest areas during these times. After all the vegitation and leaves are gone. No deer in their right mind would bed now where I found him bedding all summer. Briars are gone or all laid over from the elements. No more weeds for cover. I feel like the beds I'll look for during winter are more important for me to hunt hear next fall than what I had found this summer where he was 5 yards inside a wooded area off an overgrown briar patch.

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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby BigHunt » Fri Dec 02, 2016 11:03 pm

right now is best before snow fall the sign from this season is still fresh. or right after snow melts in spring....
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby headgear » Sat Dec 03, 2016 1:48 am

rfickes87 wrote:I feel like deer "retreat" further into the thickest areas during these times. After all the vegitation and leaves are gone. No deer in their right mind would bed now where I found him bedding all summer. Briars are gone or all laid over from the elements. No more weeds for cover. I feel like the beds I'll look for during winter are more important for me to hunt hear next fall than what I had found this summer where he was 5 yards inside a wooded area off an overgrown briar patch.

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This is true that they aren't bedding now where they were all summer but they can change bedding a lot. They often won't use summer beds once bow season opens, a lot of this is due to changing food sources. They also bed differently from when the leaves are up, there is a lot of moving around and adjusting to nature and food. Same goes for winter, things are constantly changing. However those pressured beds are the ones I try and find and hunt most of the time, if you are on private and can control pressure that is one thing but even then they want the most secure bedding and that is often in those nasty holes of incredibly thick cover.
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Sat Dec 03, 2016 5:31 am

thanks for all your input fellas.
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Re: When can I begin scouting for beds for next season??

Unread postby rfickes87 » Sat Dec 03, 2016 5:31 am

Headgear, I attached a map of what i'm dealing with. Green dots indicate summer bedding along the overgrown green brier field I explained. Every SW or W wind this summer he was bedded in one of those beds. Never appeared on an E wind. Obviously he was bedded here catching the dominant W wind and thermals from the valley floor. The last photos i have of him using those beds was on 9/18. since then only one sighting of him by my buddies camera 10/19 just after dark in the evening working on a scrape on the lower logging road to the east at that red dot. (logging road are brown lines). I checked the wind that day and sure enough it was NE. 99% of the time he's always staying on a leeward ridge. these ridges are much too steep for deer to walk along in certain areas and get a lot of foot traffic from deer on the logging road. My plan was the rut hunt them but i never made it out to hunt then. Now i feel like he's gotta be dead or just pressured from gun hunters and only coming out at night to feed. The only ag fields are the yellow outlined field to the north which is standing corn and a few other fields to the north. He's been using those summer beds for 2 years but keeps dissapearing every fall. this area is 4 hours from home so Its been tough scouting and has taken me 3 years thus far to figure it out this much. i thought I had him figured out this year but he's dodged me again! somewhere on this map is his main bedding along with some other good bucks. Perhaps along these steep hillsides he's bedded.

Any suggestions now on where I should resume scouting for beds?

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