Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Perfect area would have more than one of these, but if you only had one choice?

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I have taken all my bucks in swamps, but I guess it is pretty much there bedding area?

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I have taken most of my bucks just outside their bedding areas. I try not to "invade" their bedding area by getting too close, thus in return making me successful. When setup just outside their bedding areas during the rut, I like to rattle lightly for about 2 minutes about 20 minutes before dark, then wait about 5-10 minutes and rattle again.By doing this, im not spooking the bucks from the bedding area, but attracting them to my calling. It has been working for me the lastfew yearswhenI decided to start setting up outside the bedding areas. Heres the one I got in Nov 2005.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I can't pick one. I hunt all of them different times of year. They only one haven't had that much luck at are rub lines.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Setting up in a bedding area for a mature buck, in my opinion is the worst thing to do unless you have wings to fly into your stand. You will jump a mature buck almost everytime. Set up just off a trail NEAR (100 yards) the bedding area.

Just my opinion though.

Remember, a buck didn't get old a mature by being stupid.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I had a tough time picking one answer as well. The buck I was hunting this year (never got him with bow or rifle), bedded about 350 yards from my stand, had about a half dozen scrapes and a bunch of rubs in the tree line I was nestled in. The tree line also bordered the feeding area. So, everything he needed was within 400 yards of where he bedded.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I'd add funnels to the list, especially during the rut.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Amen Rob, You just can't beat a good funnel.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

I'm on a monster buck/state record that utilizies a knuckle, sandwiched in between a point and a ridge in semi dense cover. This is and has been his core bedding area during the late season hunt ever since I spotted him four years ago.

During August, September and October he is on the other side of the 200 acre farm using a very similar set up. All I have to do is get between his bedding area and his preferred water source. He prefers two underground spring fed ponds vs. a stream that is full and flows year round.

If you know the core bedding area ones average of seeing and scoring goes way up... They may not show up in other areas such as food plots, junctions etc. until after dark, but most of the time will browse comfortably and somtimes carelessly in their bedding areas.

I'm talking bucks, big bucks...

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

bait pile and spotlight:Djk

i like rub lines pre-rut, wherever during rut, and icant find them late season.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Don't need wings...................lol

Just gotta get in before him:)

I will still take a bedding area any day.................but them funnels close to a bedding area would be my next best choice................

But then again I suck:D

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Dominate buck being a breeder, During the rut I like inside corners off of food sourcesthat does use daily.

Dominate buck in the pre and post rut.. either in his bed or at his food...

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Completely depends on the time of year. Early season - feeding areas, pre rut -rubs andscrapes, post rut - bedding areas.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Sometimes it works to go to the most unlikely spot where no one else would ever even glance at.Take a few try's in these unlikely spots and get results. This works often for me at any time of season. Remember, what looks good to the human eye, is not always what a mature buck has in mind. And more often than not I have scored by thinking opposite than good looking bedding, or bottle neck, or scrape line. Sometimes a low dip in a pasture, or lone hedge tree in a grass feild has filled my tag. Sometimes if I'm eating tag sandwich, I go to one of these spots where I could'nt even hang a stand, and where there is no deer sighn. This works alot for me in the mid-west.

RE: Where is the best place to set up 4 a dominate buck?
 

Awesome buck don128!!!!!!!!! I have found the exact thing to be true..... Bucks are very smart and they figure out really quickly which terrain is overlooked by hunters........