Bedding Area Adjacency To Food Sources

[Bottomland]

I'd like to hear some opinions on what the ideal distance is between bed and food? Excluding topography and hypothetically in a heavily wooded environment.

I have some areas on my farm in SW MS where I would like to improve bedding cover. A major problem we have in that area is not lack of bedding, but an extreme over abundance. Since the vast majority of our property and the surrounding lands are wooded with the only openings being roads and fields, deer can lay down almost anywhere. We have already created some clearcuts and select cut areas on the interior our farm that are super thick and serve as sanctuaries, but many deer still come from off the property in to food sources. I am looking to take some open hardwoods between a major deep creek system and my food plots and do some chainsaw work to create some "satellite" bedding. These areas will be 75-175 yards from two of my food plots, which are 1 and 2 acres.

Do you think it would be beneficial to create prime bedding that close to my major food sources or could it have negative effects? Basically, do I want the deer bedding that close or no? Will it increase daylight activity or cause the deer to move later since they are more adjacent to the food source?


"I believe the good that men do lives long after they're gone." -Mr. Fox Haas

 

[Buckly]

Paul Knox aka Lick Creek believed in putting bedding right next to the food. Jeff Sturgis, a consultant believes you should put bedding close if not right out in the plot. The closer the better.

 

[JDunham]

Depends on access to your stands. If you can get to your stands undetected it is all good.

 

[Fish]

I own 40 acres, so its pretty hard not to have bedding close to the food. Deer can simply get out of their bed and walk to food and i would never get a crack at them because the property doesnt lay out for me to hunt that way.
I hunt the edges now and see plenty of deer still.

 

[Native Hunter]

Depends on access to your stands. If you can get to your stands undetected it is all good.

I totally agree with this ^^^^^^^^^^^^.

I will add that I like thick cover to come right up next to food. Deer will come out earlier in the evening to the food - even if they are bedding a good distance away.

 

[HB_Hunter]

My plan is to create doe bedding right next to the food. Mature bucks don't seem to want to bed with them anyway and I am trying to kill the mature bucks.

How you hunt it depends on how it sets up. As others have mentioned, it depends on your stand access. If you can get the food in the middle, does bedding next to it and have stands setup to hunt bucks cruising the downwind side of those bedding areas, you would never hunt the food plot.

 

[JDunham]

I have quit hunting most of my plots, as hard as it is to do. At least for bowhunting, rifle stands are a ways off where we can see the plot but the deer don't know we are there. Unless it is a plot they move through on their way to a larger destination plot and I can get out undetected after dark it isn't worth it. It is hard to hunt them in the morning without blowing deer off, so I almost never do. With that in mind I like having does bed close to our plots. You usually have much more daytime activity in those plots if they are close. A lot of it does depend on how your property is set up.

 

[THE LLC]

Here's my experience. When we first bought the farm a lot of it was year old clearcut and other parts were 5 year old planted pines. Both were extremely thick and excellent bedding areas. Had lots of bucks staying on the place and, since they didn't have far to travel to plots, they stayed in them longer and traveled less. I found TONS of sheds every winter back then. As the pines and clearcut have grown and the underbrush thinned out, the deer bed further and further away. So now they spend more time traveling and less time eating which causes them to shed between feeding and bedding making the numbers of sheds found go WAY down. So, since I love to shed hunt, to me, the closer the better.

 

[Bottomland]

I have quit hunting most of my plots, as hard as it is to do. At least for bowhunting, rifle stands are a ways off where we can see the plot but the deer don't know we are there. Unless it is a plot they move through on their way to a larger destination plot and I can get out undetected after dark it isn't worth it. It is hard to hunt them in the morning without blowing deer off, so I almost never do. With that in mind I like having does bed close to our plots. You usually have much more daytime activity in those plots if they are close. A lot of it does depend on how your property is set up.

I agree. We bowhunt 90% of the time, and unfortunately, the way most of our food sources and bedding lay in relation to topography (which is pretty extreme), it's difficult to bowhunt the food.


___________________________________________________
"I believe the good that men do lives long after they're gone." -Mr. Fox Haas