The Hunting Beast

mipubbucks24 wrote:This is a cool idea. I’ll be hunting my local public the first few days so can’t participate in the challenge. My wife and I are celebrating 10 year anniversary starting on the 4th, so won’t have time to drive to new properties the first 3 days.

Great Idea I will be following along.

Singing Bridge wrote:

mipubbucks24 wrote:This is a cool idea. I’ll be hunting my local public the first few days so can’t participate in the challenge. My wife and I are celebrating 10 year anniversary starting on the 4th, so won’t have time to drive to new properties the first 3 days.

Great Idea I will be following along.

Congrats on the 10 year!!

Hawthorne wrote:I’m doing a Wisconsin challenge right now. Never been here until today. I’m after a few target bucks back home on ground I know. Not sure if I want to give that up. I hope you get some participation

Joe68 wrote:Sounds like a great challenge. I’m in

oldrank wrote:I'll play. I don't have any time off of work but I will find something new to hunt locally. It will be fun.

These next 2 weeks, just prior to the Michigan Bow opener, will provide a scouting opportunity that is seldom discussed.

The Michigan youth hunt is open and guns are a blazin' and they have been in preparation.

Tomorrow the small game season opens and there will be thousands upon thousands of hunters wearing orange hats and dogs running everywhere.

The bow hunters that are procrastinators or that use bait are hitting the deer woods hard right now, setting stands / putting bait out / searching for a place to hunt. Baiting is now illegal in the entire lower peninsula but the law will have no impact... it will continue as before. It should be an excellent revenue generator for conservation officers but there are not enough of them to make any real impact.

So what is the opportunity I am discussing? Mature bucks are reacting to all the chaos and disruption I described above. They are moving to their most secure bedding areas and there are only so many in a given range.

I often get asked how I know if a buck bedding area is active... well, if it is a primary bed it gets used almost the entire year so when conditions are right I move in and hunt it. I don't worry too much about whether or not the bedding area is going to be active.

But outside of that, There's a lot of bucks that move to "pressure bedding" when the heat is on. We've had some great posts about pressure beds that you can search up here on the Beast.

So, what's the plan? Well, now's the time to recon these bedding areas from a distance. You know, those beds you scouted in security zones... or the beds you have never scouted but located on maps or drive by's. Now is the time to check for oversized tracks crossing dirt / sand and woods roads. Also, checking these security zones from afar while playing the wind by glassing or an observations stand- being ultra careful of your entrance and exit to make sure you will not be detected... can give you verification that the buck bedding area / security zone is active with a target buck.

And before I forget, no... now is not the time to put trail cams up or check those that are anywhere close to buck bedding.

Bridge

Trout wrote:Sounds like fun, I'm in!