Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

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Defiant56
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Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Defiant56 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:40 am

Wondering if any fellow beasts can shed some light on observations they've seen when bucks bed alongside roads (points/corners of timber lots especially, wind usually at back, alongside small bridges (water and cover transitions), food and woodlot transitions,etc... I hunt a lot of farm country and recently bumped a deer when walking into my stand.
This particular deer was in a woodlot point (tangled mess of brush and teees) with wind at back watching over his soybeans across the road and a transition line of tall grass I was walking thru and he busted me. He didn't blow at me but sounded like a horse stomping off. Got me thinking about why I was hunting the center of the woodlot when I should hunt the roadside. Where I hunt is tons of agriculture and gravel roads with woodlots. Do deer specially bed on woodlot corners along roads like I observed? Is wind always going to be at their back? Will they typically exit out the road with wind at back or parallel the road for a ways first?


Defiant56
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Defiant56 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:03 am

Maybe to make it more specific...
Hunting farm and riverbottom country. Very limited tree cover. Often woodlots are in chunks with fencelines connecting. The only time there is cover along a road is when it is a waterway (ditch, creek, or legitimate creek/bridge) that runs into it or a small block of timber. Everyone farms every inch of ground they possibly can. The timber will have a hard edge where the next fence line begins or where the crop field starts so there is always two corners/points of timber along the road. Has anyone keyed in on hunting these "corners" of timber along roads?
hunter10
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby hunter10 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:10 am

Post a map of what your talking about. I'm confused with what your getting at
Blinginpse
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Blinginpse » Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:57 am

Little lost here. Diagram maybe?
Defiant56
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Defiant56 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:13 am

Blinginpse wrote:Little lost here. Diagram maybe?


I can't figure out how to upload photos from my phone. Dan has mentioned bucks being taken very close to a road many times now. Some sets where he feels like people would think he's crazy if they drove by and saw him. Basically any way that this can be applied specifically to farm and riverbottom country (no swamps,marshes or hills anywhere around this spot).
Any tips on how bucks use tree cover that runs alongside the road? Tactics for hunting this cover that runs along the road?
Has anyone ever tried hunting alongside a bridge right by the road?
Blinginpse
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Blinginpse » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:40 am

Defiant56 wrote:
Blinginpse wrote:Little lost here. Diagram maybe?


I can't figure out how to upload photos from my phone. Dan has mentioned bucks being taken very close to a road many times now. Some sets where he feels like people would think he's crazy if they drove by and saw him. Basically any way that this can be applied specifically to farm and riverbottom country (no swamps,marshes or hills anywhere around this spot).
Any tips on how bucks use tree cover that runs alongside the road? Tactics for hunting this cover that runs along the road?
Has anyone ever tried hunting alongside a bridge right by the road?


Pm me a number if u can text pics I'll post them for u
Blinginpse
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Blinginpse » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:03 am

Posting for OP
Image

Green is buck bed for NW wind, blue is for bedding. This is in MO. Very flat farmland he says too.
hunter10
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby hunter10 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:15 am

Looks like he is bedding there to watch the road where majority of danger comes from. Wind at back will cover the woods for him and likely the buck knows your there before you get out of the truck. I see a lot of these types of points and road connecting woodlots in my area. Deer use them to cross the roads without giving themselves away in these spots, they stage before dark then cross the road to food sources. Also look at that point..it's overlooked being that xlose to the road. Most hunters would take the easy route of getting out of truck and walking straight into woods down where the woods meet the road side to the north
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Tufrthnails
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Re: Roadside Buck Bedding Tendencies

Unread postby Tufrthnails » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:31 am

I hunt very similar land to this on the family farm in KY. This is almost guaranteed low area with a ditch style water way going though. It will stay sorta wet and can get super thick with thorns and stuff. The bowls and points no matter how subtle can be a great place to look for bedding generally much heavier on the leeward side of the primary wind direction. Observation stand go a long way towards dialing in where I want to target. Most of my morning hunts in KY on farm are observation hunts anymore. Very rarely am I diving in targeting a buck in the morning on the farm unless I got trail cam footage or something telling me he or they are moving later in the morning. I do WAY better targeting the evening getting in midday, because if I do bump something it has plenty of time before go time to get settled back in.

Side note I tend to do way better slipping very slowly straight in from the field instead of walking in from the road or walking down the transition line and cutting in. Which is one of the reasons that observation sit can be the key for me.
Tuf- The below average hunting beast


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