The mobile mind set...

[wanderer]

in other words, bucks will often position themselves to smell threats, but if it's too much or constant, they will move upwind and rely on their other senses to keep track of those same threats. thoughts?

[Twenty Up]

Something I'm beginning to pick up on, still learning...

Is that the mature deer (4yrs+ around here) seem to favor those overlooked spots near parking lots, check in stations, ect.. They seem to have the area figured out and have dominance where they can fight off any other deer for this prime real estate. Then the secondary bucks seem to bed further off, deeper in the woods and further away from major food sources.. Still decent bedding but not the best.

It seems like common sense but I would have never expected a 160" beast to bed not 150 yards from major parking lots.. Everybody made it out that they were 1+ miles deep in the woods and you had to climb mountains just to see them when really they're watching you spray on $25 worth of "Scent Killer" and working on that fancy face paint design..

Glad I stumbled upon this site, I've learned more on this here and physically scouting than years of TV hunters

[DaveT1963]

[quote="Twenty Up"].......mature deer (4yrs+ around here) seem to favor those overlooked spots near parking lots, check in stations, ect.. quote]

Yes I believe this happens, maybe more then we think - however, it really depends on human/predator encounters. The reason they bed there IMHO has little to do with their preference and a lot more to do with a lack of intrusion by predators and humans.

There are WMAs I hunt every year that you will never find a mature buck anywhere near an access point as they get pounded all year by a variety of intrusions (fishing, horseback riding, dirt bikes, hounds, people walking dogs, etc....). I personally don't believe there are any hard and fast rules when it comes to where a buck will bed except that it will give him an advantage to survive. Whether that is close to a building, road or trail has more to do with what the local HUMAN and predator populations are doing then it does with the buck himself. They simply gravitate where they are safe or they die - thus the older bigger bucks have survived so their selection process, for whatever reason, was better.

For example - if a ton of beast hunters start hunting a local cattail marsh, hitting all the points and islands hard every year, it won't take the deer long to develop a new pattern and soon the bucks that live 4 to 5 year old will be doing it some place other then a point, island or edge. Whitetails are adaptable and this IMHO is the #1 reason they thrive where other species decline. You have to stay on top of what is happening where you are hunting - and this means paying attention to threats (humans/predators, etc.) as much as it does studying the deer themselves. I have seen survival patterns used (i.e. older bucks alter their routine and completely change where they bed) year after year as they react to a single hunting season pressure. The ones that do this best, for whatever reason, are the ones that survive and create the "new norm." A great example is down south where we have a lot of dove and quail hunting. I have seen huge bucks bed in CRP land in several states.... but as soon as a place gets popular for quail hunting you can kiss that good bye as they get bumped too many times. When I was first starting , I would study the bucks all year and get a pretty good idea of where I was going to ambush them come the Oct 1st opener. Then something called dove season started Sept 1st and the deer completely changed their habits and locations. Took ma a couple seasons to realize gathering intel based solely on August glassing was NOT going to help me come Oct 1st. I had to start paying attention to what the dove hunters were doing and how the deer reacted to it.

Same thing with the effect hogs have on deer bedding. The very best bedding spots down here in TX are often forgone by deer due to hogs choosing them as well. If you tried to apply "normal" bedding scouting down here you are probably going to be spending a lot of time in the trees watching the local squirrel populations giving the hogs the what for.....

[dan]

Dave is spot on...

.......mature deer (4yrs+ around here) seem to favor those overlooked spots near parking lots, check in stations, ect.. quote]

Yes I believe this happens, maybe more then we think - however, it really depends on human/predator encounters. The reason they bed there IMHO has little to do with their preference and a lot more to do with a lack of intrusion by predators and humans.

There are WMAs I hunt every year that you will never find a mature buck anywhere near an access point as they get pounded all year by a variety of intrusions (fishing, horseback riding, dirt bikes, hounds, people walking dogs, etc....). I personally don't believe there are any hard and fast rules when it comes to where a buck will bed except that it will give him an advantage to survive. Whether that is close to a building, road or trail has more to do with what the local HUMAN and predator populations are doing then it does with the buck himself. They simply gravitate where they are safe or they die - thus the older bigger bucks have survived so their selection process, for whatever reason, was better.

For example - if a ton of beast hunters start hunting a local cattail marsh, hitting all the points and islands hard every year, it won't take the deer long to develop a new pattern and soon the bucks that live 4 to 5 year old will be doing it some place other then a point, island or edge. Whitetails are adaptable and this IMHO is the #1 reason they thrive where other species decline. You have to stay on top of what is happening where you are hunting - and this means paying attention to threats (humans/predators, etc.) as much as it does studying the deer themselves. I have seen survival patterns used (i.e. older bucks alter their routine and completely change where they bed) year after year as they react to a single hunting season pressure. The ones that do this best, for whatever reason, are the ones that survive and create the "new norm." A great example is down south where we have a lot of dove and quail hunting. I have seen huge bucks bed in CRP land in several states.... but as soon as a place gets popular for quail hunting you can kiss that good bye as they get bumped too many times. When I was first starting , I would study the bucks all year and get a pretty good idea of where I was going to ambush them come the Oct 1st opener. Then something called dove season started Sept 1st and the deer completely changed their habits and locations. Took ma a couple seasons to realize gathering intel based solely on August glassing was NOT going to help me come Oct 1st. I had to start paying attention to what the dove hunters were doing and how the deer reacted to it.

Same thing with the effect hogs have on deer bedding. The very best bedding spots down here in TX are often forgone by deer due to hogs choosing them as well. If you tried to apply "normal" bedding scouting down here you are probably going to be spending a lot of time in the trees watching the local squirrel populations giving the hogs the what for.....

[Boogieman1]

Bumpidy bump bump!