I often struggle to find a particular bucks exact bedding area. I walk and walk and walk, but it seems that I rarely can find the beds that I'm looking for. What do some of you guys that target certain bucks do to find their beds? I have one 3.5 year old that I know exactly where he beds, but that's only because I found his sheds laying in his bed last year. It clued me in to where he beds, and this year I saw him several times coming and going from his bed. But, other than that I have a really rough time finding what I'm looking for. Any help will be much appreciated.
Check out Hunting Beast, the most informative hunting site I've ever seen revolving around hunting tactics. What kind of land are you hunting, swamps, hills, farmland, or a mix? Throw up a topo and aerial photo and maybe some of us could try to point you into the right direction. I'm still learning about hunting buck beds, but starting to grasp the idea.
I'm hunting flat ground, a big tract that sits rights against the Mississippi River. There are some really big fields on the property and some big chunks of timber. The is mainly sycamore, maples, hackberry, cottonwoods, and willows. The timber was harvested within the last 5 years on the place and there are several really thick and nasty areas. I've walked through almost all of these areas and still have not found what appeared to be a single buck bedding repeatedly. I've tried following rublines from the fields back into the woods, but they seem to just disappear after 15 or 20 yards off the field. There are places with literally a hundred rubs or more on several different places of the property. I have never been able to find a solid rub line all the way back to a buck's bed on this property. It seems that instead of establishing individual rub lines back to their bedding areas that all the bucks find a place with a bunch of little willows and just wear them out. The only solid thing that I feel that I have to go on is the water. I have noticed from this year and the past that the bucks love walking the edges of the water, especially a chute that runs through the property. They get a west wind and nothing can get to them, all the while they can cruise for does, bed, and feed without any worries. Maybe the majority of them are bedding next to this chute? I'm not sure, but I'm going to start walking as soon as I get done making some new bedding areas on another farm that I hunt. Hopefully I can find some sheds laying in their beds so that I will know for sure that's where they are staying.
