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Mature bucks bedding area?

Old Buck

Old Buck

Life Member
Here is one of the things I've been trying to better understand for a long time. What does a mature bucks bedding area/sanctuary look like?

For years I've been asking this of people who have patterned big old bucks. It finally occurred to me (sorry, I'm a little slow sometimes) that I've overlooked a great source of information - those on this website!

A short story of the particular buck, the description of the area, and how he used it would be very helpful.

I'm finally working on a life long dream of developing a piece of ground and need help in deciding what I want to turn it into.

Thanks,
Old Buck
 
old buck,
I had the opportunity to watch about a 150 class buck bed down during bow season. The best thing was I bumped him off the same bed twice. He left the same
way both times. This past year I found 1 of his sheds about twenty yards from the bed. The bedding area was about twenty yards from the top of the ridge. He would bed under a small white pine. He had a good view of the area below and prevailing winds were in his face. You could not approach him from behind because there is a house about 40 yards behind him. Good feeding areas (apples,acorns) very near and a small seep very close. Not as thick of an area as I would have thought but that was probably not the only place he had as a safety zone.
 
Old Buck-

I hunt a piece of ground in NE Iowa that borders a 1500 acre piece of property that no hunting is allowed. On the edge of the property is a steep bluff that drops off into the private ground. The ridge top edge is about 100 yds wide by 1/2 mile long. The area has had alot of mature timber come down and there is now 5 year old regrowth through its entirety. When the wind is out of the north-which is most of the season- it blows from an open area of 200 acre through the ridge top and down the bluff. The deer we have been seeing since 1998 beds on the downwind side of the ridge top and overlooks the whole bottom. You can see for 1/4 mile below in most of the places he beds. He has pits wore from him bedding in the same place day after day. I was fortunate enough to jump him in different beds since then and he heads down this bluff that I would need mountain climbing equiptment to get down. Talk about a way to seperate some distance from your pursurers!!!!!! We have seen this deer twice hunting and once while looking for sheds. Both times we saw him hunting was when he was with hot does. He is a beast of a deer estimated to be 6-8 years old now. He was fending off another mature deer when I saw him this year and he absolutely dwarfed him. We figure he would be in th 250+ dressed range. And now for the bone details. He is only 16" inside but an absolutely massive and high 8pt that I am pretty sure will top 160
p&Y. his g2's are pushing 13" and are 3" wide at the beam. We can never find this guys sheds but we are heading down this weekend and with the thaw maybe we'll get lucky. Take care

WI Shedhead
 
Old Buck...

Nice to talk to you Sunday and thanks for the new artwork I placed on the wall last night when we got home.

As you know, a mature buck can adapt to many different types of habitat and different enviroments. I can share with you what I have found on my ground in SE Iowa, which should be very similar to the habitat on your hunting grounds.

I think regardless of the habitat type, there are some very key things a mature buck seeks when finding a place to call home. Seclusion, a favorable wind direction, many good escape routes, (not just one) and a topographic location that stacks all of his keen sences in his favor.

It looks like this on my ground. Many steep drop off ridges all leading to a creek bottom at a common point. Bedding on a knob tip with a great view of all surrounding ridges and many great escape routes. Thick cover,....fallen trees, multi-floral rose, and lots of cedar. He beds with back facing the NE, quick lift of the head and scent checking. When I found this particular bedding site, its easy to figure out how you could never have a chance to see this buck. If he bedded there during daylight hours and didn't move he would grow to a ripe ol age. Just my thoughts.
 
Mountain man, are you hunting my area?
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Wow does that sound familiar!!

I too have got to watch a particular nice buck bed on occasion. Very similar story as mountain mans.

This deer would come out of an area filled with sumac, dead elm, multifora rose thicket that I couldn't put a stand in (lack of available trees). It was the very thick area. An area I often think of for a large bucks bedding area. Twice last year he came out of the thick stuff and bedded under a cedar tree with a ravine about 20yds away and he could see down wind into the ravine. The thick area was always up wind of where I saw him bed. He could not be approached from any angle without him detecting you. This also has a house within 100yds of what I would call his core area.

Sounds to me like you should plant some type of coniferous trees on a ridge and build a house fairly close to them.
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Pupster
 
Our farm is in a heavily hunted area, there are some mature deer in the area. These deer like logged areas that are thick and over grown with deep ravines that anyone could not stalk anything on and cedar thickets! They like to be able to either lay down or escape before you even get there. These "sanctuary" areas range from 1/4 of an acres spots to a 40 acres of the nastiest thickets you could imagine with 5 or 6 spots I have jumped mature deer. I know that there are several areas where they stay that impenetrateable, that you just hope he trails a doe out of them during the rut. Several of the areas hold these deer, but they wait until dark to feed because these mature deer are nocturnals otherwise because of the pressure the area gets. So I just hunt "fringes" or areas between 2 thickets that is within the woods. I would try to make a travel route for your bucks to use along a ridgetop between 2 thickets, away from the view of any roads. I would your thickets in a bottom or on the edge of a hill so that way you could get to a higher level to glass the deer using it from a distance. I would also make the thickets on the east and west side of the ridge possibly so you could hunt the ridge with either a northwest or Northeast or a southern type wind. Basically I would manipulate them so you could beat that bucks nose! When you do that he is very vulnerable! The best area I have to hunt is just like I have described.
 
i've noticed that alot of the biggest jumps i jump up always seem to be in the nastiest stuff in a large timber. like this big 12 pointer i jumped up during the last day of early muzzleloader. i was just scouting for the late season muzzleloader and i walked into this dead part of the timber. it was only like an acre of dead elms multiflora rose and some small pine trees that had tall grass growing in it. i was crouched underneath a pine tree trying to make my way into this thick stuff and i heard something and this huge 12 pointer stood up 20 yards in front of me. i tried to get my gun up but my backpack was stuck on some limbs and i never got it up before he ran. i examined the area and he was bedded on a little knoll in the middle of this stuff in a big brushpile that looked like a blind. i could tell the buck has been living there for quite sometime because in the grass he was laying in was about as big as a table and was all matted down and it was all to the ground. there is no way a treestand could of ever even beeen put up in the area due to the lack of the trees. it was such a perfect spot there was no way someone could get in there undetected and he could see everything. that is the kind of terrain i run into when i see the big ones when they jump out of there beds. it always is thick and usually dead elms and smaller unhuntable trees and always in the thickest nastiest spot you can find that is secluded in a bigger timber. so good luck
 
The place where I hunt has many many steep bluffs and narrow points overlooking the valleys. There are several rocky points that are covered in multiflower rose & cedars and those always have huge rubs and big beds in them. Once in awhile I get a glimpse of the bucks that always seem to bed on them. They are big and ALWAYS know which direction I'm coming from. Good luck with the cedars Old Buck, you won't be disappointed.
 
I have found bucks bedding areas in every imaginable terrain from thick cedar ridgetops to wooly riverbottoms all the way to essentially wide open hardwoods. I have found that all of this is relative to the season, pressure, and deer food source/concentration. In otherwords, in my opinion, it changes on a daily or regular basis for a mature buck.

I spend most of my season on the edge of "suspected" bedding areas and have great luck in seeing a lot of mature animals with some good shooting light left. One thing I have noticed is I do not see the same animals emerge from the thickets on a regular basis. One example, early pre-rut in Illinois this year. I saw the same mature 8pt (135") in several different areas (5 to be exact) a good distance apart. Each time he was emerging from a new suspected bedding area. Had he come from the same ticket every time prior to me seeing him? Not likely. I am sure he was just using a different area that day for security.

There is no clear cut explanation of a bedding area other than a secure location with numerous escape routes, near daytime feeding/watering areas, and good danger monitoring factors with sight, sound and smell. The way that I find the majority of the bedding areas is to follow the rublines back from feeding areas until you find an general location with all of the features mentioned above.
 
I can think of several answers to this question, but I will try to limit my response to a few of things I have seen more often than others...

1. Do not neglect the "out of the way", take your pick:
Hay bale(s) in the middle of the 40 acre field.
Telephone pole surrounded by head high cane in the middle of the same field.
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Grassy, willow choked slough about 1/2 mile from the nearest doe concentration. ( Have you ever noticed how many guys swear they saw the biggest buck ever while pheasant hunting?)
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The middle of a taller CRP field.
Anywhere in a standing corn field of course.

Mr. Big can see for quite a ways in most of these situations and I think more big boys are bedded away from the heavy timber prior to the rut being in full swing and then again after the slugs start flying. They could be anywhere during the peak of rut of course.

2. Now in terms of classic "timber" type bedding areas...

I look for the confluence of two or more ridges in the timber proper. My thinking is this offers multiple escape options to a big deer. Generally, vision favors the deer here since they are high and they will play the wind too of course.

Similarly, a ridgetop that drops sharply on one side and slopes gently away on the opposite side, perhaps leading to a field, seems to be attractive. ( I have shot my last two bucks in this type of area BTW.) I know Old Buck practices TSI, and I would say leave a few strategically placed "tops". Deer love to nestle up next to those tangles, especially on ridgetops.

3. I liked what others said about the nearby house, etc. I have seen similar situations too. Similarly, even nearby heavily traveled roads can serve as a "backstop". It is almost as if the deer are conscious of a "known quantity" behind them. If something "sounds" different though, they become alert. In a way, they are eliminating a potential threatening approach.

Several years ago I had hunted a REALLY BIG buck on one farm and then shot a different one elsewhere, etc. Subsequently, I set out one day to take down stands, etc, and I decided to minimize my walking distance by driving down the development road on the backside of the property I was hunting. ( This road was fairly well traveled but people didn't habitually stop along the way and I had never approached my stand from this direction.)

I drove halfway down and pulled my truck over to side and jumped out, hopped the fence and promptly jumped Mr. Big. He was bedded 40 yards off the road and I believe he was "using" the road behind him as a barrier. With the road upwind and behind him and a great view of the valley below and heavy escape cover to either side, he was set. No wonder he was so big!
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Thanks guys. Great info. I've been planting thousands of cedar, they don't eat them quite as fast as pine. If I have to put a house on every bedding ridge this is going to cost a lot more than I thought!

Old Buck
 
Larry I just took this picture a couple days ago while I was out shed hunting. I have picked up 3 antlers all from the same buck right here between these 3 trees.I found a forth a few hundred yards away. There is a low spot in the ground right there from the buck bedding there.
I know the buck does not bed there every day but pretty often.
The wind would be blowing in your face as i took the picture most times.In the back ground you can see he he is right on the DOWNWIND EDGE of a 3-4 ac thicket . I am standing at the top on a steep ridge. From his bed he can see a good 200 yards with the leaves down and yet cover his but with his nose. I will post a pic of the shed.....Joe
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Here are the shed like I said the 3 fresh looking ones I picked up right in the low spot of the bed over a 2 year period. The other older looking match i found a fe hundred yards away a year later. The buck scored 164 then 169 the next given a 18" spread. You can see they are off the same buck the G-2's lean back and the g-5 close to the end of the right beam.
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old buck,
well i don't how much this will help you out, due to terrain difference, since i am from ohio. but anyways i 'll tell you my experience. most of our terrain here is lots of hills and fields between these hills, some real small some really big. most of the areas i hunt are high ridges and or creek bottoms, as far as hunting in the deep woods, 65% very thick and 35% very open. my past hunting experiences involving bucks coming in to bed and or bumping them is shelves, shelves, shelves!!!!! if you were to take a walk in any patch of woods of any size, as long as it has a shelf on a hillside you will see a buck. these are my fav places to hunt, it's where i do 85% of my hunting. i have witnessed many bucks come to bed around my treestand on these shelves. they will do what they can to find a thick patch or a thicker stretch of shelf and bed right on the edge over looking the bottom below. i passed a 120 class 8 pointer 9 times this past bow season. 7 of the times i passed him up, i was already in my stand and he came to bed and laid in the exact same spot everytime also they will run the hell out of these shelves during the rut. another thing is that small patches of thick brush in the middle of a 100 acre field are hot spots also. i strongly feel that a lot of bucks especially mature bucks take up home in these small patches, and i do feel that some old bucks will not stray very far from these patches evn during the rut, due to felling so secure in these patches. of course these small patches of brush are patches that you can't hardly see in to and when you do jump a big one out you always wonder how in the world he didn't hang himself. does this help?
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I may not be qualified to answer this but I am stuck with the theory that a mature buck will usually have more than one bedding area in his home turf. It seems from my experiences that, when it gets nasty, they head for the thick stuff, especially pines and cedars. ON the other hand I have spooked them out of the smallest patches when the weather is fair. As an example there is one buck I have 2 years of sheds from that came from about a 20 yard square patch of trees surrounded on three sides by fields and one by pasture. He's been in this area for at least 3 years.Big timber is only 150 or so yards away. I see no other deer in this patch and have seen him bed in one other stand of cedars 200 yards away. A lot of that activity is in rough weather. Just my 2 cents.
 
Ive noticed mature bucks bedding on fencelines, hedge rows, and just really crazy spots that you wouldnt think a deer would be... I guess thats why they grow old, I know they thrive in the thickest of cover and I've seen them in there also but I recall more often then not theyve been jumped or spotted in odd locations, are they odd, who knows..
 
I'm not the authority on mature bucks like most on this site but I'd have to agree with Alaskan. The biggest buck I have ever seen was bedded within 40 yards of my gate in a bunch of "living" brushpile trees that I had cut over for the quail. I noticed a rub where I had never seen one before- walked down to investigate & he exploded out of there. Lots of great undisturbed cover all around but he was in a place most would consider too thin to hold any deer.
 
a place where i hunt, there is an island of trees in the middle of a monster corn field every year, there is a monster buck out there with does, i think he heards them there at night and keeps them away from the others, and i also think they bed in a small draw that has alot of buildings about 75 yards away from it
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If I knew the answer I'd kill a giant every yr but it's a guessing game to me. I think that the big boys in my neck of the woods bed in thick alder flats grwing along the top of ridges leading down to the river, the river is small enough to swim across if bumped and the thick spruce on the other side provides a good sanctuary for them when pressured. I think they bed on the side without the thick spruce based solely on its availability to the alfalfa, they'd rather not swim the river each night I don't think. Anyways, I've found some big sheds and huge beds on the tops of these ridges. Don't overlook "strange spots". My uncle who hails from Biggar killed a nice mid 160'2 5x5 with a 7" drop a few yrs ago as he was driving from A to B to make a drive of the bigger timber. The buck jumped out of a little 100 square foot rock pile with high grass out in the middle of the stubble. Many truck likely passed him until my uncle came by too close for comfort. Did you get up my way to shoot a bear with your bow?
 
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