I have been hunting for years and have taken some trophy bucks by anyone's standard. I watch shows and read articles about hunting bedding areas and routes in between bedding and feeding areas, but no one tells you how to locate them. I do a ton of scouting and set my stands in some nice positions but now I'm ready to find these "Mythical" bedding areas to see if my racks can get bigger. I'm open to all suggestions..... [align=right][/align]

You will find a pushed down area of vegatation, usually about 3'x2' across, or somewhere along that line. If the ground is covered in snow, it will be a oval shaped area of melted snow.

I've found deer beds in all kinds of settings, including grassy fields, river bottoms, dense thickets, hardwood slopes, fence lines, and among the tangled braches of large deadfalls.

They will lay down wherever they feel secure, but they'll have favorite spots, just like they have favorite trails.

Aside from looking for them by following trails, I'll go out on wet, muddy, or snowy days and backtrail a deer to see where its last bed was. It's tough on the public land that I hunt because there are tracks from so many different deer, but it can be done.

I finf them everywhere also, Many times though I find them on hillsides about 3/4 of the way up. They can see down hill and seem to feel safe there. There is a little valley with a brook running through it on the road near my house. I can always find them bedded down on that hillside, almost at the top. THey will get up and stretch and feed several times a day, totally at ease.

I have found that hunting pressure will have a lot to do with where a buck will bed down.
I have seen the does run to the buck, hiding in the thick laurel, when the heat is on...
Weather can play a huge role also.

From what everybody is saying, it seems really pointless to look for a bedding area since it can be located anywhere and deer may change their bedding area numerous times during a season. Is that a wrong assumption?

I don't look for beds. If I run across them I put it in my memory bank, but I've been hunting the same land for 4 years and I've kicked deer up where I've walked numerous times and never thought it was a bed. I can kinda figure the general areas by amounts of deer crap on the ground. So I just try to avoid those as much as possible.

Wrong assumption... Big bucks don't just bed anywhere. There are reasons for why they bed where they do. I have killed a lot of big bucks on public and pressured land, and done so by locating the big buck bedding areas and hunting them when the time is right. I find the beds in spring and winter and stay out till its kill time after that... I actually made a 2 1/2 hour DVD about this subject. "Hunting Marsh bucks" It goes into detail about how I find and hunt bucks based mainly on bedding areas. You can pick the DVD up on my website if your interested, www.bloodbro.com

On new property I look in the winter for bedding areas to get a general idea. On the south side of ridges, briar patches, thick cedars or pines, basically anywhere thick. A lot of times you can checkthe droppings. Ifits clumpy, that deer wasn't bedded down to far from that area. Also not to far from the food source and water.