Bedding Areas

[liv4archery]

My whitetail adventures for 2004 are complete and I am now looking forward to the next few months and learning the areas that I hunt so I can better predict buck movement during the rut due to terrain features, bedding areas, and feeding areas. I feel pretty confident in being able to locate terrain features such as saddles, benches, funnels, bottlenecks, inside, outside corners, etc... What I am wondering about is what you guys look for when you are finding core bedding areas. I hunt an area that is a very big area of solid timber. approx. 350 acres. Any input will be appreciated.

 

[Two Beards]

Our two best farms have thickets of multifloral rose and young hedge trees, outside of using a pair of pruners and a machete they are impenetrable. I always go in during Feb-Mar to open up some of the runs that have grown over...this has really helped with predicting deer movement. Though I'll very seldom hang a stand inside these bedding areas, some of our best stands are located on the edges.

I also look for fingers/draws that enter open fields and points that form at the end of ridges.