sticknstring
5 year old buck +
Good stuff gentlemen. Great illustrative video. It's rewarding as heck when your hard work pays off!
B
bat man
Guest
I wanted to steer most of the deer onto one trail in front of the orange pin with great access from the buildings where deer seldom go. Working great so far. Video below.
I think this shed might be from the deer that looks rough and may be a shed out buck. He looks like he may have lost his left eye. Found it about 40 yards from the camera.
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B
bat man
Guest
Its one more spot he can shoot, yes.
SmallChunk
5 year old buck +
Awesome job at steering those deer where you want them!
Now please come out with that app so that I can use it!
Now please come out with that app so that I can use it!
B
bat man
Guest
For really mature bucks we use polka music, and for the younger ones any kind of soft pornographic does the job.
B
bat man
Guest
Look at lots of pics and videos. I messed up my first few as I hinged most stuff too low. It got thick but was more of a blockade than a bedding area.
sticknstring
5 year old buck +
Worked to perfection. Should have a few decent bucks for next fall cruising through there. I love doing habitat work as much as hunting.
shawnv
5 year old buck +
Me too, I listed to a couple "experts" online that said to cut at waist high so I did that the first time until I saw the result.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
if you were going to create a hinge cut travel corridor....or sidewalk as SteveB calls them....what height would be optimum? how wide of a swath? i'm trying to connect 3 points of interest...2 bedding areas and food.
B
bat man
Guest
MN Slick
5 year old buck +
Roger that. I guess I'll see if the old saying "does bed for convenience" is true and it's really as simple as creating hinged bedding areas where I want them to bed. I've built a couple bedding areas on another farm and got some nibbles but I put them in strategic locations based on topography. Part of me thinks that like mature bucks does still look for certain "ingredients" when selecting a bedding location.
Steve Bartylla
5 year old buck +
In my experience, you need to add a couple words to your sentence, MN. "does bed MORE for convenience THAN BUCKS." That doesn't mean you can get them to bed anywhere you want them to. It's just that you have more wiggle room in accomplishing that. You flat aren't going to get them to bed on a steep side hill, when they can bed on a flat top or bottom. You aren't going to get them to bed in a hinge cut on a north facing slope during the cold, when they either have thermal cover or a south facing slope. Good luck stopping them from bedding on the edge of a nearby swamp and so on.
Bucks are almost always going to bed in areas that offer them certain traits or a combo of traits. Start kneeling down in all the beds you believe are made by bucks, look around and ask why, if I'm a buck, do I want to bed here. Do that enough and it actually starts becoming easy to guess where bucks are bedded on your hunting grounds. The catch is that you aren't going to have very good luck at all getting them to shift away from spots that offer those traits to a spot you make a bedding cave for them that doesn't have those features. Does don't have those hard and fast strong tendencies, but you can still only push them so far, if that makes any sense.
P.S. Cut at chest to shoulder level when making doe bedding areas. They seem to REALLY like being able to more around inside freely. My goal is to drop the biggest trees first and then lay the smaller ones on top, creating a false ceiling. That said, when the big ones snap or the woods just doesn't work for the false ceilings, I create little 10ish yard diameter openings inside, either by cutting out those trees or getting them to hinge in directions that create that naturally, and even create an entrance and exit trail, when it is hard to maneuver inside.
Bucks are almost always going to bed in areas that offer them certain traits or a combo of traits. Start kneeling down in all the beds you believe are made by bucks, look around and ask why, if I'm a buck, do I want to bed here. Do that enough and it actually starts becoming easy to guess where bucks are bedded on your hunting grounds. The catch is that you aren't going to have very good luck at all getting them to shift away from spots that offer those traits to a spot you make a bedding cave for them that doesn't have those features. Does don't have those hard and fast strong tendencies, but you can still only push them so far, if that makes any sense.
P.S. Cut at chest to shoulder level when making doe bedding areas. They seem to REALLY like being able to more around inside freely. My goal is to drop the biggest trees first and then lay the smaller ones on top, creating a false ceiling. That said, when the big ones snap or the woods just doesn't work for the false ceilings, I create little 10ish yard diameter openings inside, either by cutting out those trees or getting them to hinge in directions that create that naturally, and even create an entrance and exit trail, when it is hard to maneuver inside.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
thank you!
Steve Bartylla
5 year old buck +
Phil, height isn't as important when creating sidewalks. That said, I like to make cut them around belly button-chest high, as that gives more instantaneous cover than when cutting lower, as you have to wait for regrowth to get up to their head level on low cuts to give them that feeling of increased security cover.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
got it! thanks Steve! Do you ever find that you end up with deer bedding up along side the sidewalks?
