Public Land Hunting
Bedding
Areas
How Close Is Too Close?
If you have ever scouted public land you
have without a doubt looked for deer
bedding areas. If you haven’t been looking for bedding areas, you better start.
How to find bedding areas on public land
is a topic for another issue.
Lets assume that you have properly scouted
your public land hunting hot spots and
have found what you believe to be
where deer are bedding. Now that you
have found it, how do you hunt it? Specifically, how close to the bedding area
do you put a stand?
This is a tricky question for those who
hunt private land, let alone those who
have to deal with the heavy hunting
pressure and the always confusing decisions of other hunters. There are a variety of factors that go into making the
decision of how close to a bedding area
to hunt. The fact that you are hunting
public land makes the decision totally
different from if you were hunting private land. Lets first look at if hunting
near a bedding area is a good idea on
public land, then we will discuss how
close you should hunt.
Hunting near a bedding area is almost
always never a good idea on private
lands. In my opinion you are just asking
for trouble. There is no reason to be
putting unneeded pressure on your deer
herd. However, we are not hunting private land. I believe hunting near a bedding area is a good tactic on public land.
But certain rules must be followed. First
of all, public land whitetail hunting is
every man for themselves. If you don’t
hunt near the bedding area, sure enough
somebody else will. You have to be
more aggressive on public land than you
do on private. It is that simple. There is
still a fine line between being aggressive
and being to aggressive. You have to
know when to be aggressive and make
smart , educated decisions.
On the piece of public land we will be
hunting this year in Nebraska we will be
hunting near what we believe is one of
the main bedding areas on the property.
Because of this we have set up very specific rules for when we will and will not
hunt that stand location. The main one
being that the stand is off limits until
very late October. The main reason being is that we do not want to spook any
does during the early season. Putting
unneeded pressure on the does may
cause them to change their bedding area. You spent all that time in February
scouting the property, why screw it up
now. Sure you might be able to go in
and see deer but does will surely know
you were there, whether you spook
them or not. If you are not targeting
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