Hunting Pressure vs Buck Bedding and Movement

[Lockdown]

This is something I've been going back and forth with the last few years. Pressure has everything to do with where a buck beds and how far he is willing to move in daylight. We see all the time on TV and in cushy situations where bucks will travel hundreds of yards and enter a field in daylight. And we also hear guys on the forum from high pressure states like MI talking about killing bucks with other hunters a short distance away (or very near walking trails, etc). We know that often enough, they're sneaking to within 40-80 yards of those beds in order to get it done.

Living in my part of MN, I deal with very little pressure. As far as I know I shared the woods with one bowhunter last year (granted I'm usually heading in before them and get out after, so I could have missed a few). I do find stands back in bedding areas where I don't want to see them, but I feel most are gun stands. I do have a few popular spots where I expect to see hunters but lets leave them out of this equation for simplicity.

So here's my question: How are these low pressure bucks going to react to human intrusion? I can certainly see how a heavy pressured MI buck could feel comfortable in a bedding area if people rarely get closer than 200 yards. They've got VERY few places they feel safe, therefore they'll tolerate human intrusion a few hundred yards away as long as the actual bedding is left alone. Now let's look at my situation. What about a buck who is left alone ALL summer. Nobody even sets foot within 500-600 yards of his bedding and if they do its only a time or two prior to season. Now I head in to check for sign and get within 200 yards of his "sanctuary". To me that buck is FAR MORE likely to be put on alert than the high pressure buck. Does he relocate? Is he thinking "It was only once, nothing to worry about." Maybe he tolerates it the same as the heavy pressure MI buck??

One of my bedding areas at Wasteland: I hunted it twice. My set is 60 yards from the beds, they're going to smell I was there. During slug hunting I saw a pop up blind parked RIGHT in front if the thicket. No way he got that set up without boogering whatever was in there. Who knows what happened the rest of slug season and through out muzzleloader season. When I walked that bedding the first week of January, out runs a bruiser

Another one was at the Sugar Patch in September. I know for a fact nobody else sets foot out here all summer because we've encountered bucks bedding on the outside of thick cover opening day. Tyler kicked up a real nice buck just laying there 15 yards from cover when there's a nice point to lay on and and an island beyond that. We also kicked a buck out of some road side CRP in a low spot. Mature buck took us by surprise. Its super open and very hard to hunt so I always kick it to try and stack bedding even if I'm just observing pre-season. Well last fall I observed and scouted around, kicked the bedding, and nothing. I was covered in sweat and mosquito spray. 4 or 5 days later I kicked it again and out pops a nice buck WHAAAT??? Looked like a 130ish 3 year old. What gives? He had to have been able to smell I was there. It hadn't rained and I had 1/3 of a can of spray on. I literally walked within 10 yards of where he was laying.

Happenings like those make me wonder how fruitful my stacking efforts really are. Part of me wonders if a good buck will tolerate more human scent in a low pressure situation. Maybe I'm rotating through my sets too much and should be hunting the best of the best more often. I planned on doing quite a few repeated sits last year to figure this out, but time didn't allow for it.

For now my speculation on exceptionally low pressure situations is this. A mature buck is smart and he still won't move far in daylight. Maybe my low pressure MN buck will move 100-150 yards when a high pressure MI buck will only move 30-40? However the NUMBER of bedding areas he has is the greatest thing influenced by pressure. But the encounters mentioned above make me scratch my head.

Just thought this would be a good topic for discussion. Does anyone have any similar experiences? Thoughts? Comments?

[Boogieman1]

My personal experiences are a mature buck that never comes in contact with human scent and intrusion gets a whole lot more freaked out when he does come across it. Not saying first time he heads for the hills, but he will slow his roll and be a lot more alert for awhile. If a lil time goes by and he doesn't catch a whiff again in that area he will carry on usual activity.

Also, the buck has the ability detect your individual scent vs another hunter or hunters. I personally would rather a buck smell 10 diff hunters only once vs me twice.

I have areas where It's very light pressure I purposely lay down a lot of scent all summer and early season. Not in his bedding or close to my stand but on the outskirts. Plan is while there out feeding at night they will come in contact with it and eventually view it as not threatening. Then as long as they don't catch a whiff of me where I'm not suppose to be, they tolerate me.

Cameras set in tight travel corridors also revealed if these areas hold a lot of does there gonna get strangers cruising. Sometimes often better than the bucks that reside on property. These bucks don't know what the heck u have been up to, if u stomped all over the place or not. All they know is it's part of there annual travel route. Still can't get sloppy if you let the doe groups know what u r up to they change there travels which in return changes all the bucks. In any case smart and sparingly is what I try to apply.

[mike perry]

I’ve had similar experiences on pressured land with mature bucks using the same bedding area after scent was left by myself or others. I don’t know if this matters but both bedding areas were in areas where the buck could see danger for a good distance aproching.

Both took place during gun season, that may be a factor also. The one buck was bedded in a thick hedge row in New York, he was a solid 150 inch buck and was atleast a 4 1/2 year old. I found the bedding still hunting during the gun season a few years before while tracking some large tracks, I jumped a huge buck out of the bedding and he ran across an open field I had no chance but so we put that bedding into one of our annual deer drives and there seemed to be a good buck bedded there almost every year going into the last week of gun season. It was a thick hedge row about 20 yards wide there was a wide open field on both sides and any deer bedded there could watch anyone approaching from the farm to the north or from the road to his south. One year we jumped that 150 out of that bedding on the second to last day of gun, he broke across the field and got away clean but he was shot at several times. The next day was the last day of regular gun season and we figured we had nothing to lose so we positioned our shooters a little different and way further back so if he was in there he would not know we were waiting as we suspected the day before he saw us get set up and that was why he broke the middle of the open field instead of hugging the thick hedge row. We came up the hedge row from behind him and we could not believe he was in the exact spot that day also and again he eluded us, this time he stayed along the hedge row further then busted the opposite field. It was shotgun only back then so that definitely helped him.


The other buck was a 5 1/2 year old mid 150’s buck I was hunting in Ohio. The farm I was hunting gave permission to anyone and there were several Amish hunting there. I started getting trail camera pictures of that buck in August coming out of a bedding area on the transition of a beaver swamp that had a golden rod field to the west.

I played it safe during archery season and set up on the closest good funnel between him and a doe groups bedding area and waited for the pre rut, he never showed the few days I hunted that funnel, I had a camera on that funnel and he never once walked through it during daylight all season, a larger buck than him that was B&C ugly did come through there following a doe 3 Times in the same morning but of course I was not there that day. Never saw that buck before or since then. Gun season came around and I still hunted that bedding area that was about a 1/2 acre several days in the 6 day first gun season, I got right inside the bedding area each day. His sign was still around but he was not there any time I tried getting on him, I tried approaching from a couple different directions and I left scent all over that place doing so. When the 2 day second gun season came in the next weekend we got snow over night. I started looking for Big tracks at first light and got on his at the back of a standing corn field, he crossed the RR tracks and was heading right towards that bedding area. I snuck in there with a cross wind and shot him at 80 yards right in one of the big beds with the torn up rubs around it that I had been in several times the week before.

I guess each buck is a individual and even though pressured some bucks will tolerate more human intrusion than others before they abandon a bedding area, I’m sure many factors go into it. For this reason I would not abandon a bedding area after only one hunt.


Mike

[elk yinzer]

I think in this sense you almost have to separate specific encounters vs. the deer's general perception of the level of pressure.

Specific encounters being someone bumps a buck, like you said. As we know they bed where they bed for a reason. He survived the encounter and was able to get to safety because the location of his bed gave him the upper hand. I think he absolutely remembers that encounter but he probably doesn't significantly adjust his patterns. He had the upper hand in the encounter, why would he?

Generalized levels of higher pressure, I think absolutely makes deer more wary and nocturnal. I hunt all over my areas of PA and it runs the gamut from super high pressure to virtually none. Especially through running cameras, even though I have only been doing it for a couple years, I've started to notice I get more mature buck photos daylight photos at my areas that get lower pressure. Pressure in a general sense in my opinion definitely drives them more nocturnal.

[RidgeGhost]

I have thought about this too. Specifically checking rub lines and such before a hunt like we hear talked about on here. I feel like if I did that in some of my spots, the game would be over before I ever hunted it. But there are situations where the rubs from a buck are several hundred yards up to a half mile away from the bed. The further away the rub line, the more likely I could get away with checking it I suppose. For me, that's not a tactic I use, yet anyway.

Hunting a bed or intruding near a bedding area might not ALWAYS tip a buck off though. Maybe he just doesn't walk where you walked so he never hits your ground scent. I think there are definitely cases where you can pull off multiple sits on one spot.

Also, like you mentioned, multiple bedding options has to be a factor. If he only has one or two secure areas to lay, he will likely have to tolerate more pressure because of that. In my area, bedding options are almost unlimited. BUT, great bedding spots are very limited. I can count on finding the beds when scouting because of this. A buck WILL be where I expect unless some outside pressure has made him move. When I'm scouting and don't find the bed where I think it should be, I start looking for the scent wicks, treestands, cut branches, etc. But I think once pressure hits, it's not hard for a buck to move bedding areas around here.

One thing I did last year was hang cams over scrapes near access. Nowhere near where I intended to hunt. I had some limited success confirming that shooters were in the area. It helped, and didn't affect the bedding locations at all. The second buck I shot last year, I had a picture of him just under a mile away that let me know he was there.

[Net Guy]

To me, every buck is different and pressure can be different. I hunt in the big woods of Northern WI and swamps and farmland in southern WI. The bucks in the big woods rarely, if ever, see or smell people, whereas, the bucks in central and southern WI see and smell people all the time. Because of this, I do see them act differently. The bucks in the southern part of WI don't seem to move as far in daylight and can react inconsistently to human scent. Dan's illustrated this before too, but I've had deer that were definitely downwind and not spook and others that bolted the second they came remotely close to my scent. So to me, bucks in heavily pressured areas can be unpredictable when they encounter human scent/pressure because they are exposed to is frequently.

The big woods, in contrast, is a different story. These bucks (and does) are more consistent in their reactions to human pressure. Nearly all deer I see up there seems to be on high alert 24/7! Even though they don't experience a fraction of human pressure as the southern deer do, I think they experience more pressure from other predators that can kill them 365 days a year (wolves, bobcats, bears, etc.). So, anytime a deer or doe approaches my area, regardless of wind, they are on high alert. They still are limited in their daylight movement, maybe a touch farther than down south, but I don't think much. If they catch a hint of my scent or movement they bolt. It's incredible to see the difference.

Just my two cents.

[wolverinebuckman]

So I am very much in the Newbie stage, and just learning from the different resources here, so I welcome correction if I'm wrong, but this is a situation I have observed.
I just started hunting this particular piece of Highly pressured Michigan public land last fall, so since end of season I have been scouring the property looking for familiarity, sign and bedding. I came across an excellent bedding area, and it makes sense based on where I see the pressure and accessability around it. Lots of thick cattails and water.
I found the area in the marsh during freeze up, and I walked the crap out of it when I found it. Had my hands all over the rubs, got down in beds that I found, meandered back and forth. My scent was everywhere.
I took my buddy into it about two weeks later, and everything was under water, about calf deep. As we sloshed through the water talking, we jumped a big solitary deer and heard him Splash off and circle us...maybe a hundred yards out.
Another week or two later I was scouting a different area out there, and decided to go back over there to see if I could find some sheds. The water was now ankle-deep, and a few other beds had now presented themselves with the lower water, freshly laid in with hair in them. As I sloshed through the water, a large solitary deer jumped from the exact same spot as before! I heard him slosh through the water and circle me again at about a hundred yards. I don't plan on going back until opener.

Personally, I think that this area is going to remain good bedding, it has many advantages, and to the deer that has been jumped out of there twice he knows this... He can survive predators when they come into the area, that makes for a good bed(IMO) . I feel like even if he moves out, (or I kill him this fall ) another big buck is going to move in just because of the location. But I may prove myself completely wrong!

[mainebowhunter]

This is something I've been going back and forth with the last few years. Pressure has everything to do with where a buck beds and how far he is willing to move in daylight. We see all the time on TV and in cushy situations where bucks will travel hundreds of yards and enter a field in daylight. And we also hear guys on the forum from high pressure states like MI talking about killing bucks with other hunters a short distance away (or very near walking trails, etc). We know that often enough, they're sneaking to within 40-80 yards of those beds in order to get it done.

Living in my part of MN, I deal with very little pressure. As far as I know I shared the woods with one bowhunter last year (granted I'm usually heading in before them and get out after, so I could have missed a few). I do find stands back in bedding areas where I don't want to see them, but I feel most are gun stands. I do have a few popular spots where I expect to see hunters but lets leave them out of this equation for simplicity.

So here's my question: How are these low pressure bucks going to react to human intrusion? I can certainly see how a heavy pressured MI buck could feel comfortable in a bedding area if people rarely get closer than 200 yards. They've got VERY few places they feel safe, therefore they'll tolerate human intrusion a few hundred yards away as long as the actual bedding is left alone. Now let's look at my situation. What about a buck who is left alone ALL summer. Nobody even sets foot within 500-600 yards of his bedding and if they do its only a time or two prior to season. Now I head in to check for sign and get within 200 yards of his "sanctuary". To me that buck is FAR MORE likely to be put on alert than the high pressure buck. Does he relocate? Is he thinking "It was only once, nothing to worry about." Maybe he tolerates it the same as the heavy pressure MI buck??

One of my bedding areas at Wasteland: I hunted it twice. My set is 60 yards from the beds, they're going to smell I was there. During slug hunting I saw a pop up blind parked RIGHT in front if the thicket. No way he got that set up without boogering whatever was in there. Who knows what happened the rest of slug season and through out muzzleloader season. When I walked that bedding the first week of January, out runs a bruiser

Another one was at the Sugar Patch in September. I know for a fact nobody else sets foot out here all summer because we've encountered bucks bedding on the outside of thick cover opening day. Tyler kicked up a real nice buck just laying there 15 yards from cover when there's a nice point to lay on and and an island beyond that. We also kicked a buck out of some road side CRP in a low spot. Mature buck took us by surprise. Its super open and very hard to hunt so I always kick it to try and stack bedding even if I'm just observing pre-season. Well last fall I observed and scouted around, kicked the bedding, and nothing. I was covered in sweat and mosquito spray. 4 or 5 days later I kicked it again and out pops a nice buck WHAAAT??? Looked like a 130ish 3 year old. What gives? He had to have been able to smell I was there. It hadn't rained and I had 1/3 of a can of spray on. I literally walked within 10 yards of where he was laying.

Happenings like those make me wonder how fruitful my stacking efforts really are. Part of me wonders if a good buck will tolerate more human scent in a low pressure situation. Maybe I'm rotating through my sets too much and should be hunting the best of the best more often. I planned on doing quite a few repeated sits last year to figure this out, but time didn't allow for it.

For now my speculation on exceptionally low pressure situations is this. A mature buck is smart and he still won't move far in daylight. Maybe my low pressure MN buck will move 100-150 yards when a high pressure MI buck will only move 30-40? However the NUMBER of bedding areas he has is the greatest thing influenced by pressure. But the encounters mentioned above make me scratch my head.

Just thought this would be a good topic for discussion. Does anyone have any similar experiences? Thoughts? Comments?

You ask all the same questions all serious guys do. I really think its why you scout, observe and make plans according to what you find. General principles apply but in the end, the deer will show you what you can and cannot do in the areas you hunt. It has been a real eye opener for me listening to hard core guys share their experiences and how much they differ from mine.

[elk yinzer]

You ask all the same questions all serious guys do. I really think its why you scout, observe and make plans according to what you find. General principles apply but in the end, the deer will show you what you can and cannot do in the areas you hunt. It has been a real eye opener for me listening to hard core guys share their experiences and how much they differ from mine.

This! Being a woodsman is all about read and react. Look, listen, and draw your own conclusions. I find my preconceived notions usually just set me back. I really picked up on that studying Dan and how he was self taught, with that blank slate being an advantage of sorts. The Beast is such an amazing pool of resources but you still have to put the puzzle together. If I ever find myself in a Wisconsin marsh I have a tremendous head start, I've learned the basics here that would take months or years to learn alone, but there will still be some things I would have to figure out on my own. Similarly I suspect if you plopped some of the cheeseheads at 2,500 feet elevation in a mountain laurel thicket they would have some learning to do but the true beasts would figure out how to get it done.

[JoeRE]

I would mention there is a huge difference in behavior between a 3 year old and a 5 year old buck in lower to moderate pressure areas. 3 year olds still act pretty dumb around here in lower pressure areas. Even some 4 year olds run all over the place in the rut. But the big change in behavior that I see is when a buck hits 5 they become far less tolerant of human intrusion. That's when they become that ghost, basically no comparison to how visible a 3 year old might be or what they will tolerate when they are bumped. So don't assume if you are bumping 3 year olds that an older buck would stick around...

To be clear I think that is completely regional and like you guys are mentioning depends on pressure. High pressure areas probably have 3 year olds that act like 5 year olds around here.

Completely eliminate competitive pressure like you see in the hunting estates on TV and that's when the 5 and 6 year old bucks start wandering around 2 hrs before dark. Not to mention that age class of deer actually exists unlike in other parts of the country!

[ScottSpitzley]

I would mention there is a huge difference in behavior between a 3 year old and a 5 year old buck in low pressure areas. 3 year olds still act pretty dumb around here in lower pressure areas. Even some 4 year olds run all over the place in the rut. But the big change in behavior that I see is when a buck hits 5 they become far less tolerant of human intrusion. That's when they become that ghost, basically no comparison to how visible a 3 year old might be or what they will tolerate when they are bumped.

To be clear I think that is completely regional and like you guys are mentioning depends on pressure. High pressure areas probably have 3 year olds that act like 5 year olds around here.

This is true. I would guess that the 3-year-old here in Michigan is equivalent to the 5-year-old in Iowa.

[magicman54494]

Every deer will act differently. Another important thing to keep in mind is how the deer was bumped. They pick their bedding carefully for both solitude AND the ability to escape danger. If you bump them and they escape it might reinforce them to use that bed again.
I have a different opinion of big woods bucks and human scent then most here have stated. They seem to tolerate scent much more in the big woods. Ya, if you are hunting and they smell any human scent they will come unglued for sure. there is zero tolerance at that point but they will tolerate scent in their area and still bed there and even move earlier in the evening compared to their southern counterparts.
less scent is always better but if I didnt in season scout in the big woods my success would go way down. I cant tell you how many times I stunk up an area and returned the next day and had success.
I would never try to stack big woods deer because there are just too many bedding options for them.

[dan]

Great post and great comments so far... One thing I will add is that mature bucks (5 or older) no matter where you hunt really seem to lock to certain bedding areas better than the young bucks. Part of the reason guys like Andrae have been successful with bump and dump tactics and pushing a buck out of bedding is mature bucks don't want to leave secure bedding... Ive noticed that when you bump 2 or 3 year olds they often relocate... And truth is, most guys here hunting state land have very few actual mature bucks so they likely are not seeing this difference...

Its part of the whole "over looked" and "1st sit" logic... Big bucks either get big by finding a great hiding spot, or from life lessons end up there... There is pretty much no place people never go, so they learn to put up with the occasional interference.

I often look at a property in the view of where is there cover where no one goes? That's often where the actual mature resident lives. Big woods, suburban, farm, hill, etc... Pressure or not... That's where the giant is till he is slayed unless you make living there to unbearable before you kill him.

Don't get me wrong, I believe every buck seems to have his own personality, but older deer really seem to lock down in small home areas most of the time.

[Lockdown]

This is something I've been going back and forth with the last few years. Pressure has everything to do with where a buck beds and how far he is willing to move in daylight. We see all the time on TV and in cushy situations where bucks will travel hundreds of yards and enter a field in daylight. And we also hear guys on the forum from high pressure states like MI talking about killing bucks with other hunters a short distance away (or very near walking trails, etc). We know that often enough, they're sneaking to within 40-80 yards of those beds in order to get it done.

Living in my part of MN, I deal with very little pressure. As far as I know I shared the woods with one bowhunter last year (granted I'm usually heading in before them and get out after, so I could have missed a few). I do find stands back in bedding areas where I don't want to see them, but I feel most are gun stands. I do have a few popular spots where I expect to see hunters but lets leave them out of this equation for simplicity.

So here's my question: How are these low pressure bucks going to react to human intrusion? I can certainly see how a heavy pressured MI buck could feel comfortable in a bedding area if people rarely get closer than 200 yards. They've got VERY few places they feel safe, therefore they'll tolerate human intrusion a few hundred yards away as long as the actual bedding is left alone. Now let's look at my situation. What about a buck who is left alone ALL summer. Nobody even sets foot within 500-600 yards of his bedding and if they do its only a time or two prior to season. Now I head in to check for sign and get within 200 yards of his "sanctuary". To me that buck is FAR MORE likely to be put on alert than the high pressure buck. Does he relocate? Is he thinking "It was only once, nothing to worry about." Maybe he tolerates it the same as the heavy pressure MI buck??

One of my bedding areas at Wasteland: I hunted it twice. My set is 60 yards from the beds, they're going to smell I was there. During slug hunting I saw a pop up blind parked RIGHT in front if the thicket. No way he got that set up without boogering whatever was in there. Who knows what happened the rest of slug season and through out muzzleloader season. When I walked that bedding the first week of January, out runs a bruiser

Another one was at the Sugar Patch in September. I know for a fact nobody else sets foot out here all summer because we've encountered bucks bedding on the outside of thick cover opening day. Tyler kicked up a real nice buck just laying there 15 yards from cover when there's a nice point to lay on and and an island beyond that. We also kicked a buck out of some road side CRP in a low spot. Mature buck took us by surprise. Its super open and very hard to hunt so I always kick it to try and stack bedding even if I'm just observing pre-season. Well last fall I observed and scouted around, kicked the bedding, and nothing. I was covered in sweat and mosquito spray. 4 or 5 days later I kicked it again and out pops a nice buck WHAAAT??? Looked like a 130ish 3 year old. What gives? He had to have been able to smell I was there. It hadn't rained and I had 1/3 of a can of spray on. I literally walked within 10 yards of where he was laying.

Happenings like those make me wonder how fruitful my stacking efforts really are. Part of me wonders if a good buck will tolerate more human scent in a low pressure situation. Maybe I'm rotating through my sets too much and should be hunting the best of the best more often. I planned on doing quite a few repeated sits last year to figure this out, but time didn't allow for it.

For now my speculation on exceptionally low pressure situations is this. A mature buck is smart and he still won't move far in daylight. Maybe my low pressure MN buck will move 100-150 yards when a high pressure MI buck will only move 30-40? However the NUMBER of bedding areas he has is the greatest thing influenced by pressure. But the encounters mentioned above make me scratch my head.

Just thought this would be a good topic for discussion. Does anyone have any similar experiences? Thoughts? Comments?

You ask all the same questions all serious guys do. I really think its why you scout, observe and make plans according to what you find. General principles apply but in the end, the deer will show you what you can and cannot do in the areas you hunt. It has been a real eye opener for me listening to hard core guys share their experiences and how much they differ from mine.

I actually had you in mind when I was typing the original post... was hoping you'd chime in. Only problem was your post was about 10x shorter than I was hoping for

[Lockdown]

I’ve had similar experiences on pressured land with mature bucks using the same bedding area after scent was left by myself or others. I don’t know if this matters but both bedding areas were in areas where the buck could see danger for a good distance aproching.

Both took place during gun season, that may be a factor also. The one buck was bedded in a thick hedge row in New York, he was a solid 150 inch buck and was atleast a 4 1/2 year old. I found the bedding still hunting during the gun season a few years before while tracking some large tracks, I jumped a huge buck out of the bedding and he ran across an open field I had no chance but so we put that bedding into one of our annual deer drives and there seemed to be a good buck bedded there almost every year going into the last week of gun season. It was a thick hedge row about 20 yards wide there was a wide open field on both sides and any deer bedded there could watch anyone approaching from the farm to the north or from the road to his south. One year we jumped that 150 out of that bedding on the second to last day of gun, he broke across the field and got away clean but he was shot at several times. The next day was the last day of regular gun season and we figured we had nothing to lose so we positioned our shooters a little different and way further back so if he was in there he would not know we were waiting as we suspected the day before he saw us get set up and that was why he broke the middle of the open field instead of hugging the thick hedge row. We came up the hedge row from behind him and we could not believe he was in the exact spot that day also and again he eluded us, this time he stayed along the hedge row further then busted the opposite field. It was shotgun only back then so that definitely helped him.


The other buck was a 5 1/2 year old mid 150’s buck I was hunting in Ohio. The farm I was hunting gave permission to anyone and there were several Amish hunting there. I started getting trail camera pictures of that buck in August coming out of a bedding area on the transition of a beaver swamp that had a golden rod field to the west.

I played it safe during archery season and set up on the closest good funnel between him and a doe groups bedding area and waited for the pre rut, he never showed the few days I hunted that funnel, I had a camera on that funnel and he never once walked through it during daylight all season, a larger buck than him that was B&C ugly did come through there following a doe 3 Times in the same morning but of course I was not there that day. Never saw that buck before or since then. Gun season came around and I still hunted that bedding area that was about a 1/2 acre several days in the 6 day first gun season, I got right inside the bedding area each day. His sign was still around but he was not there any time I tried getting on him, I tried approaching from a couple different directions and I left scent all over that place doing so. When the 2 day second gun season came in the next weekend we got snow over night. I started looking for Big tracks at first light and got on his at the back of a standing corn field, he crossed the RR tracks and was heading right towards that bedding area. I snuck in there with a cross wind and shot him at 80 yards right in one of the big beds with the torn up rubs around it that I had been in several times the week before.

I guess each buck is a individual and even though pressured some bucks will tolerate more human intrusion than others before they abandon a bedding area, I’m sure many factors go into it. For this reason I would not abandon a bedding area after only one hunt.


Mike

Good stuff Mike!! Love hearing first hand experiences. Very interesting for sure...