let's talk Bedding areas

I hunt down at Oakmulgee and to be honest I am a lousy hunter with that begin said, I have looked for bedding areas and I have only found one that I truly believed used on a regular basis. I have been told to look for matures pines on a slope where the prevailing wind would be at the deers back and where they could sun themselves in the morning. Others have said to look for pine thickets, so thick you would have to crawl through them, I have looked for and found both. What, in your opinion, should a hunter look for in the hilly big woods like Oakmulgee?

Blown down trees, creeks with plenty of saw briars, cane, and honeysuckle. The hillsides you spoke of should be good on real cold mornings. Pine thickets are great, but dang near unhuntable except for edges. Don't overlook tops in fresh cutover. A thick area for bedding doesn't have to be big. 1/4 acre or less is where I've killed and seen more mature bucks than anywhere. A 1/2 acre "bug cut" in Shelby co. produced 2 real gooduns for me in 2 years when I hunted there several years ago.

I'll second the cane thicket along a creek. I've snuck up on many a deer in a cane thicket.

Edge of pine thickets with briars and such to the back and open areas to the front. Tend to be on the east side so they catch the sun coming up. That and heavy privette patches.

Not just a thick area, but a quiet area. That may be a thicket right behind a house, just out of sight of the huntin' club cabin or in the middle of a field or pasture. Mature bucks are like grumpy old men, they don't like to be bothered. Some times they almost hide in plain sight.

Ole Red and Fred, usaully figure out the bedding patterns for me..

Careful...don't give too much info

I've seen bucks on our property bed right up against the highway. Guess its where they feel safe..

I have jumped ALOT of big mature bucks while rabbit hunting. I'm talking about walk past them and they jump up 25 yards behind you, or bust up 10 feet in front of you. Its always in some sure enough nasty stuff.

I've jumped deer bedded in lots of areas that aren't ideal bedding areas. I've been in my tree and watched deer bed in the wide open on oakmulgee also. In Alabama you never know where a deer is gonna bed honestly. One day they bed here the next they bed there. Just go hunt the sign and try to envision where all they might come from you will be right 40% of the time.

Where ever they don't smell where a human walks thru. Tiny bench on the side of a bluff. Thick cutover. Close to houses etc without dogs. They like to have more than one option if jumped.The highest point on a ridgetop gives a buck a lot of advantages and options to get away.

If you have only a few obvious bedding areas, and they get hunted, tramped out, dogs run through or what ever, that old buck is gonna think outside the box.

Now the flipside, how would ya'll like to hunt a few thousand acres of mountain, hardwood cut over that is all bedding area? Then it's more like, well where don't they bed.

2Dogs, you just trying to open up that Hillbilly vs flatland debate again...

I'm taking this as an invitation so when do I need to be there?

No, just a little something to thing about. I'm glad season is near and we're finally talking about........deer huntin'. Happy, happy, happy!

Wait patiently for my signal.

I think we all need to hunt with Shaw, he has more than his limit of big bucks, he can use the help.

Yes...It's been a pretty dry run this summer!...

Easy way to find bedding areas in my experience is to look on satellite photos for decent sized areas where sunlight can hit the ground (thinned pines, etc.). Sunlight to the ground means thick undergrowth which means safety for deer. Went scouting today on public land and bumped three groups of deer in one area of thinned pines (it was dang thick too). Guess where i'll be opening day if there's a west wind.

A lot of good info here. I'll add that deer do learn the trails humans use to access different areas. One spot that I hunted last weekend during the bow opener here in NC had a bachelor group bedded in some relatively open mature pines. Due to the way the public land I hunt intersects with private land, you almost have to walk a fire break to get back to this spot. I snuck in and decided to climb a tree where I could see this ridge but not exactly on this ridge. I was hoping to let the deer come off of the private land which is all 4-6 year old pines and watch which oaks on the public land they were going to. Unfortunately about 8 foot up the tree I watched this group stand up about 100 yards away and trot off. Those bucks were bedded where they could watch the trail humans walk in on to hunt that ridge. Saw 4 bucks, one of which would make the wall if I can kill him. It's too thick for the private land hunters to sneak behind them and they can see the public land guys coming from a ways off. I will be using an alternate but longer route to sneak in next time without a doubt.

swamps

Hope you get a chance CeeHawk. Nothing better than figuring out a smart public land deer

Know a guy that killed a mature one that was bedding right by a roadway next to a telephone pole. It was grown up around it. His house is across the road from the pole. Some kids came by and threw a bottle and hit the pole, the buck stood up and ran off to the woods where the buck sign was. The guy went and looked and found where there was several beds in the little thicket.

Next morning instead of driving to the woods with all the sign the guy hunted the pole, right at shooting time he killed the good buck going to bed down by the pole. By good, I mean mid 150's 11 point.

Good story, that ol' buck was hiding outside the box.

There was another buck, a 22 inch spread 10 point bedding right by the gate to a bowhunting club. Everyone was trying to kill the deer but a kid killed him across the road on another lease. Only after the deer was killed did few guys speak up, one guy had seen the deer by the gate on several occasions but didn't put it together. Another did and is probably what the buck ran across the road and the kid killed him.

A buddy and myself was hunting him a quarter to half mile away from the gate where all the sign was. Took us a few years to understand not to hunt the sign but the travel direction to the sign.

That's helped us kill a few good ones, but I darned if I'll ever figure them out. That's why the whitetail is known to be one of the craftiest critters to pursue. The southern ones are the really crafty ones IMHO.

This is a great conversation and some great info. I think due to Oakmulgee being mostly hardwoods and pines that the deer are afforded the ability to bed down most anywhere. I needed to get down there and do some scouting over in the area hit by the tornadoes of 2011. Thanks for the advice fellas.