Feb. 24: Deer Beds - How Close Should you Hunt? | Bowhunting Whitetails w/ Bill Winke
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2024
- Jordan and I go for a walk on two of the bedding ridges we plan to hunt a lot this coming season as we pursue the "Jordan Buck" the deer we believe will be the biggest on the farm. As we look for his antlers in these two bedding areas, we also talk about how close can we hunt to the actual beds. Getting close is the key to action, but how close is too close?
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Awesome video Bill! Love the diagrams and walking through your thought process.
Thanks for the comment Dan. Jordan does most of the editing now and she is getting really good at using diagrams to help support what I/we are talking about. Have a great day.
I think it would be interesting to put a cell cam so you could leave it for long periods of time right in those bedding areas and see what pictures you get.
That's what I want to do. I need to get some as I don't have any cell cameras now. I think the information I could gain from learning what deer use which beds and how often would be super interesting. Have a great day.
Adding the photos with a diagram is very helpful. Would be very tough to follow what you're doing without those. Good content. Thanks
I'm at work but I can't wait to see your take on this subject later!
Thanks Josh. We appreciate the support.
Very informative Bill. Can’t wait to see what pics you get in those areas. Just based on that scouting trip it seems the puzzle is coming together.
I agree. It takes time to figure out how to hunt a farm and the individual deer that live there. Sometimes it is the time spent just learning the behavior of one deer that is so fascinating. I have had bucks I hunted for four seasons. It took that long to figure out their weaknesses and sometimes the deer themselves had to change (more daylight active, slightly different range, etc.) that made them killable. It is a lot of fun - like solving a puzzle or playing chess. Have a great day.
Great job Bill and Jordan. Thanks for the video.
Thanks Art. Hope you have a great day.
You should try lader stands or saddles for those tough, tree setups. I've used both successfully for years.
Another great video awesome time for really scouting hard and shed hunting of course
Great video guys,it’s so much fun to get out and do this
Exactly. When the weather is nice, it it hard to stop walking! Good luck.
Awesome piece of property with the ridges and valleys. Definitely have to come up with a strategy to get in and out of the woods depending on the wind. Thanks for the informative video! Brandon
Yes, that is the biggest challenge on this farm. The farm we had in southern Iowa had a county road through it so it was pretty easy to slip in and out of a lot of places. While I like the remoteness of this new farm, the access to the key hunting areas is a huge challenge.
@@bill-winke Bill, appreciate you keep all the viewers updated on how you are managing the farm and different ideas in order to make it better. Your educational tips I am storing in my memory bank in the event I am able to own my piece of property. Much appreciated! Brandon
Great video 👍
Enjoy your videos! Looked like your dog was trying to show you another tree to cut down :)
Bentley thinks there is a chipmunk in every dead hollow tree. He will spend an hour trying to chew a hole into the tree! He never succeeds!
Not saying I’m right but I set up on a super windy day about 40yds from bedding super thick bedding. Snuck in about 2.5 hours before daylight to hunt, sat all day and killed two deer 2.5 year old buck and a doe and probably seen 10 more doe. Probably just got lucky but I’ll take luck once in awhile. ( It was public land in MI )
The wind and the thick cover are the key there, but my fear is that you get an outlier - a deer bedding in the same general area, but not one of the established beds, and you bump it by trying to get too close. The closer the better, for sure, but you still have to be careful. Congrats by the way!
I love how this video shows the ridges with enough detail to fit the story you are telling. I almost think I would sacrifice one of the ridges to sneak in behind the other ridges/points and play the wind accordingly...just a thought and wondering if this is possible?
I noticed the first deer bedding You showed was by a tree that was laying parallel with the hill and it was also all of the way on the ground. That was probably a mature buck bed. If You wanted to fell a few trees and have them rest against other stumps, they won't roll down the hill. This will create more bedding options. Thanks for sharing Your knowledge with Us.
Great info!
Our deer beds are a lot like yours.
We found two nice sheds, and sadly, a real nice 8 point “dead head”, yesterday, the 24th.
Are you going to clear some paths now to sneak into those new spots more easily? Clearing the brush/and dead trees out and mowing the path?
Quality content
Thanks Richie. Much appreciated.
Maybe dropping a few trees at chest level for a screen on the flatter ridge ?
I think that is a good plan. Yes, it would allow you to get closer. Good point.
Good morning, Bill, love the content. Looking to get your opinion on goose berry. I have acres and acres of this stuff that creates an invasive-like presence, similar to the honey suckle thickets. Do you have any experience controlling this, although it is a plant native to Iowa?
No. I have never had a bad infestation. The current farm has a few thick spots. I don't believe fire will kill it
The best bet seems to be to cut it off close to the ground and treat the little stumps with something like Garlon 3. If you can get to it with a brush mower, great. Otherwise, best bet will be a medium powered clearing saw. Like a weed eater with a saw blade. You can likely find some kind of dab type dispenser to hit the stumps without having to bend over. I made one out of pvc tubing with a sponge over the end.
Bill what’s your thoughts on water holes? Do you have any on the farm or plan on putting some in? Love the content! Thanks
I think they are very effective. I will probably build a few eventually - on the ridges. My farm has many cattle ponds scattered around so having water sources is not super critical from an overall health standpoint, but waterholes on the ridges definitely are great spots for the rut. It makes sense, if you are going to create one, to put it in a place that makes sense even if the water isn't there - just gives them another reason to use that travel route. Good luck.
So this focused on the “Jordan” buck, but what about other potential shooters? Surely you’ve got a couple more at least? Would you hunt them similarly and/or in the same areas as this buck?
There are a couple others that I was hunting last year that are likely still here, and yes, I would hunt them very similarly but in a different part of the farm. Those bucks are also living very close to a food plot I have up on that ridge, and that would allow me another way to hunt them. This episode focused on only one method of hunting - setting up near beds. That is a really strategy for the rut as bucks are out looking for does in their bedding areas, but there are also other good ways to hunt - including funnels between feeding and bedding areas and even funnels between two bedding areas. I will do an episode about each of those also. Good luck.
Dream Big brother 🙏
Thanks Edward. You too.
Do you do anything for the health of your dirt in the food plots like compost or do you use all artificial fertilizer
It is mostly no till and crop rotation helps so there is a good bit of organic matter that works its way back in but I can't even imagine how I would compost 25 acres of food plots every year. Mostly it is artificial fertilizer.
@bill-winke ofcoarse this won't work everywhere but I know a guy that cleans horse stalls with a skid steer for huge stables that are all over where I live.he gets a few hundred yards a year and sells it locally to people for their gardens.and potash can come from burning your clear cut wood and using the ash.and then lime can be bought to level all the pH out.
Did any of those apples hang until late season? That might have also lead to more food for them in the woods!
They were piled two deep on the ground in November but now they are gone, so the deer ate them late also. We plan to release a video about the apple trees on the Dream Farm series on Tuesday.
@@bill-winke love it, thanks for the heads up!
Is the red, white & blue trucker a Richardson brand hat?
The hat itself is manufactured by Legacy.
Good information Bill, fo you think it's a "1 mature buck per ridge" rule or if there is enough dense cover could another buck make a bedding area on the same ridge?
Super tough question to answer. One per ridge would be a great long-term goal on this farm - I would definitely take that. I have talked to many experts about this stuff and their opinions varied widely on how many acres it takes for each mature buck. I do think the overall neighborhood plays a huge role. If there are tons of mature bucks around, your farm will naturally hold more as they have to live somewhere. In my experience with average to better neighborhoods, the thicker the cover is, the more mature bucks I seemed to be able to hold as they didn't seem to interact as much and weren't as likely to push each other off. There are so many factors to this question that it is probably not possible to answer it with good accuracy. But, one per ridge is probably on the high side for most average neighborhoods.
@@bill-winke appreciate the reply and your input (and experience) dealing with these scenarios!
Do you think your 4 wheeler trail and your activity using that is too much pressure and that’s possibly why less deer are using these ridges ? Is there a possible way to access from top? Than through the timber ?
THANKS FOR ANOTHER GREAT VIDEO ENJOYED IT MUCH.
Nic, I am not sure that less deer are using those ridges. In fact, the spot where I was getting the most daylight trail cam photos last fall was right on that 4 wheeler trail. But, when actually hunting it I would have to be careful so they didn't know we were coming in. In some spots you can access from above, for sure, but they you have to exit by a different route as exiting out the top would take you right to the food sources where the deer will be headed at the end of the day. The entry and exit puzzle is by far the hardest chess match we have to win. Good luck.
Did you and Jeff Sturgis coordinate today? Same topic. Same time posting the video. Crazy coincidence 😂
Difference is the other guy hasn’t killed anything big
😲
No, that was purely a coincidence. I guess this is the time of year we start thinking about stuff like this as we shed hunt.
@@bill-winke yeah I figured. Great video btw. Seeing this side of strategy is very educational 👍Go Hawks!
I don't see rubs. If this is his core area, there should have been some rubs. Mostly doe bedding areas imo.
Maybe, but I have also seen entire farms with decent buck numbers with limited rubs. I have never quite figured out why some bucks rub and others don't. I think it is a behavioral thing and likely is also related to something in the age structure of the bucks in the herd and even dominance. Again, I am not 100% sure why it happens, but just because there are no rubs doesn't mean there are no bucks.