how do you guys know where the bedding areas are. Do you see sleeping deer. lol

How can i tell if a area is a bedding area

I have seen a couple different styles (environment) of bedding areas. I've seen them in the laurel in the mountains, and briar with sapplings mix.Just look for sign and alot of droppings.Usually in the thick stuff you can see a trail, and in the grass.its obviously matted down. Some are very obvious and some are in the most remote part of the area. If you decide to hunt a bedding area, stay a good 50 yrds away, depending on the wind. Glass the potential bedding area for any bone sticking up.

In my leased land I plan to spend as LITTLE time in or around their bedding area. Every managed land has to have at least 1/4 of it as sanctuary. Hunt to it, or what comes out of it, but dont enter it unless its to retrieve a deer.

Our bedding areas are usually on the south sides of ridges, thick brier patches, and our marsh. Walk around and look for clumped up droppings. That usually means the deer has been bedded down for some time and the stoll was compressed from it laying down, that is a start I guess. Our area is real grassy so the beds are easy to see.

wait a minute clumped up dropping.
Do you mean deer droppings that look like a do poo. kinda mushed balls real soft looking stuff.
If so i found some in the middle of one of the bean fields in my new spot.

Yeah looks like a human turd with lots of raisins.

I don't know if its true or not, but I always heard that the clumped up scat was a buck and the individual droppings similar to a rabbits were from does. Any truth to that?

Nope Im pretty sure its because the deer has been bedded down and the stoll is compressed when it is laying there. Both bucks, does, fawns do this.

The more you hunt an area, the more you can put the pieces of the puzzle together and determine where the deer are bedding. First things. If you find thick nasty stuff in the otherwise open woods, you can be pretty sure that at least some deer bed in that area. Alot of your understanding of deer bedding areas will be found when the hunting season actually starts and you are able to get out and see what is moving at what times, and from directions. Then you can start piecing things together.


There are some no brainer places that I just know deer are bedded when I find them in the off-season. Places high on the sides of hills with thickets (mostly pine) or mountain laurel, and those places usually have a prevailing wind that hits from the "rear" of where the deer are bedded. They use their eyes to scan below, and their noses to smell behind them ( this is not something anyone ever told me, it is just something I have witnessed time and time again).

no this was like real wet deer droppings that was all mashed to gather to can see the pellets but it is one clump

Typically thick area's.Matted area's in grassy spots or in the leaves or snow.I also think that bucks especially will bed with the wind at their back and a view in to an area they can see a reasonable distance,leaving themselves multiple exit routes.
Buck bedding area's can be identified by rub lines coming out or going in to thick stuff or clusters of rubs adjacent to thick area's.