The Hunting Beast

[Mennoniteman]

This thread has interesting timing for me, because I was reading a lot of Jeff Sturgis (5 Reasons You Shouldn't Plant a Food Plot AND 1 Reason You Should) this very afternoon, learning that deer hunting is totally about minimum pressure, to the point that Jeff Sturgis says you should even consider not doing food plots because they are apt to lead to the wrong kind of pressure. Now this Dan guy says set up at the edge of a bedding area? Stalking? Actually invading a bucks core area? (public land has a lot of pressure already) I know he's not advocating pressure, but he's obviously willing to risk it. Our goal is to figure out how we can make these two quite different concepts, along with the 3rd concept of just planting plots and hunting right from the plot work together in harmony and improve our odds of tagging a nice deer?

 

[SIL hunter]

I found the hunting beast last fall and ordered his Hill Country dvd, a lot of good scouting ideas in it. Had a chance to do a little scouting on some public ground last spring before green up and the tactics were spot on. The way he plays the wind and uses milk weed to check thermals was an eye opener for sure. We have a few scouting trips under our belt this spring already and will do a few more yet before it warms up, a lot of good info on the forums over there. One final thing, while on the beast forums I heard about saddle hunting, if you haven't heard of it look on youtube for saddle hunting, there is a get together this Saturday 3/16 (9:00am) at Ramsey state park in IL if anyone would like to come see it in person. It's being put on by some guy's at Saddlehunter.com not be me.

 

[Chainsaw]

This thread has interesting timing for me, because I was reading a lot of Jeff Sturgis (5 Reasons You Shouldn't Plant a Food Plot AND 1 Reason You Should) this very afternoon, learning that deer hunting is totally about minimum pressure, to the point that Jeff Sturgis says you should even consider not doing food plots because they are apt to lead to the wrong kind of pressure. Now this Dan guy says set up at the edge of a bedding area? Stalking? Actually invading a bucks core area? (public land has a lot of pressure already) I know he's not advocating pressure, but he's obviously willing to risk it. Our goal is to figure out how we can make these two quite different concepts, along with the 3rd concept of just planting plots and hunting right from the plot work together in harmony and improve our odds of tagging a nice deer?

I love food plots but except for a doe shooting plot setup by the road I do not hunt the plots. They have become more or less sanctuary areas. My last four bucks three of which were my highest scoring ever for me came from within forty yards of doe beds. Due to open woods bordering the bedding areas I had interpreted the new found success to funnels. But since I posted post # 603 on my property tour, I'm thinking doe bedding areas was the reason for it all. When I posted posts 603 to 605 a light went off. And until I learn differently it's doe bedding areas for me when I'm buck hunting. And I'm only buck hunting during the best days to do so. And just maybe it is the combination of all of the best habitat features-funnel, deer bedding and break lines all in the same spot. Here is the link to the post I made that woke me up to why I think luck was coming my way recently.

http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php?threads/recreating-a-deer-woods.1088/page-31

Scroll down to posts 603 to 605 and see if you come to the same conclusion. Did I mention how convenient it was that the deer come into those areas on and off all day long so one isn't pushing the legal shooting time nor gutting deer in the fading light while the brutal cold and dark night air is moving in.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I love food plots but except for a doe shooting plot setup by the road I do not hunt the plots. They have become more or less sanctuary areas. My last four bucks three of which were my highest scoring ever for me came from within forty yards of doe beds. Due to open woods bordering the bedding areas I had interpreted the new found success to funnels. But since I posted post # 603 on my property tour, I'm thinking doe bedding areas was the reason for it all. When I posted posts 603 to 605 a light went off. And until I learn differently it's doe bedding areas for me when I'm buck hunting. And I'm only buck hunting during the best days to do so. And just maybe it is the combination of all of the best habitat features-funnel, deer bedding and break lines all in the same spot. Here is the link to the post I made that woke me up to why I think luck was coming my way recently.

http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php?threads/recreating-a-deer-woods.1088/page-31

Scroll down to posts 603 to 605 and see if you come to the same conclusion. Did I mention how convenient it was that the deer come into those areas on and off all day long so one isn't pushing the legal shooting time nor gutting deer in the fading light while the brutal cold and dark night air is moving in.

I found your doe bedding area pictures to be compelling evidence for hunting at the edge of them. I'm going to keep experimenting with this idea, but currently I'm doing half of my hunting on a new property, and it takes about 10 years of hunting a property to be consistently able to define what the patterns are vs the anomalies of deer movement. Currently, I'm seeing our does bedding closer to the plots than a lot of people say they do, and that makes hunting in the woods difficult for us. Time will sort this out for us and we'll be able to really see where the best places are to set up at. But again, thanks for that insight on hunting bedding areas.

 

[Chainsaw]

I found your doe bedding area pictures to be compelling evidence for hunting at the edge of them. I'm going to keep experimenting with this idea, but currently I'm doing half of my hunting on a new property, and it takes about 10 years of hunting a property to be consistently able to define what the patterns are vs the anomalies of deer movement. Currently, I'm seeing our does bedding closer to the plots than a lot of people say they do, and that makes hunting in the woods difficult for us. Time will sort this out for us and we'll be able to really see where the best places are to set up at. But again, thanks for that insight on hunting bedding areas.

You are very welcome. If by currently bedding closer to food plots than a lot of people say they do, you mean from January to now so far we "currently"are seeing the same thing here. When we dropped the poplar trees last month for the deer here it did in effect create temporary food plots and in actuality most of the poplar stands are on the edge of food plots anyhow. The deer bedded both right there in the dropped poplars as well as twenty yards away (one group of four), fifty yards away (another group of four) and 140 yards away (the group of 6 to 7). The deer were caught on camera bedding during the day in the dropped poplars and the other bedded deer groups were observed about daily from our sun room. The groups traveled down to the cut poplars when they left their beds about 9:30 am most days. During the rut here, it was much different; some deer bedded close to the bedding areas but mostly not close enough that they would be disturbed by our entry. In most cases during the rut the does were daytime bedded in traditional bedding areas in the woods but not so close to food plots. It will be interesting to see if your observations on the new property are the same.

The "problem" with hunting the bedding areas on the right days only is two fold, one you don't get to hunt much in the better spots because your tag can get filled in no time like within the first hour or two it requires one to stay out of there until the time is right; That was the case with the three largest deer taken over the last four years here. However the right timing though calendar related varies mostly each season. Fifty-plus years ago I used to hunt with a serious deer hunter in Maine. Though deer meat was a staple in feeding him and his family, he liked to kill big bucks during daylight hours. Ced always told me the "secret" to achieving that was to NEVER PICK THE TREE UNTIL THE FRUIT WAS RIPE. It all sounded like a bunch of nonsense back then as not hunting in order to kill big bucks just didn't make sense.

Secondly hunt those bedding areas too early in the fall and it is quickly game over for the rest of the season.
And I would be willing to bet that "secret" applies today in both our private and public land hunting as much as it did way back then.

 

[Tap]

I've never been to The H Beast forum or his website, but there is a guy over on the saddle hunter forum that is doing a video series of the HB bootcamp. They aren't bad. He's posted 4 vids so far with at least one more to come.

I've absorbed as much deer hunting education that I could during the last 40+ years. I've attended bootcamps of Barry Wensel, Neil Dougherty, Tony Lapratt, and also attended tours with habitat consultants that you all have heard of.
While there is pretty much nothing new to me, it's always good to learn tactics from multiple (accomplished and successful) sources.
I pretty much detest the average "hunting" show on TV. They teach almost nothing and are probably mostly a bunch of BS with baiting, high fence, etc.
Absorb what you can and apply tactics and did bits to your situation. Even the best hunters' tactics don't apply to each of our situations, and even the worst hunters occasionally have something to offer.

 

[Ryan]

I'm pretty familiar with THB. Just throwing this out there from my perspective...I believe you are comparing apples to oranges. Private property is all about enhancing the habitat to keep deer / mature bucks on you as long as possible, and create consistent movement patterns. As well as do habitat work in areas to create better access, and multiple spots to hunt (typically in between bedding areas and bedding to food travel corridors". You want to keep deer as long on your property daily, and throughout the season.

"Beast" style tactics are all about making a plan on where you think the deer are bedding on high pressured parcels, and going in at it with only couple of chances to get it done throughout the season. Beast style, you cannot worry about messing the area up for future use. Hence why you have so many different places you need to know about to hunt.

The greatest similarities between both, is the idea, thought, understanding, etc on the fact that deer are creatures of edge....which is why creating edge where we need / want it on our habitats is so critical.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I'm pretty familiar with THB. Just throwing this out there from my perspective...I believe you are comparing apples to oranges. Private property is all about enhancing the habitat to keep deer / mature bucks on you as long as possible, and create consistent movement patterns. As well as do habitat work in areas to create better access, and multiple spots to hunt (typically in between bedding areas and bedding to food travel corridors". You want to keep deer as long on your property daily, and throughout the season.

"Beast" style tactics are all about making a plan on where you think the deer are bedding on high pressured parcels, and going in at it with only couple of chances to get it done throughout the season. Beast style, you cannot worry about messing the area up for future use. Hence why you have so many different places you need to know about to hunt.

The greatest similarities between both, is the idea, thought, understanding, etc on the fact that deer are creatures of edge....which is why creating edge where we need / want it on our habitats is so critical.

That's a good observation, Ryan. Private, intensely managed land will often have so much edge that it makes it difficult to hunt. Every plot, strip, mowing, pond, water hole, woods road, orchard, tree planting, powerline, logging operation, hinge cutting project, clearing, etc. creates more edge, to the point that deer tend to cut across management projects diagonally to get where they are going if proper attention isn't given to funnels.