How to make a better bedding area???
 

Our property is 103 acres, all wooded with mostly hardwoods. There are some areas with pines also. Also, I do have the one 1/2 acre clover plot that I put in. We timbered (select cut) 3 years ago. It is coming along well. Alot of regrowth....the deer are really browsing well now. Before they hardly had anything. I have an area behind my house that is mixed with pine, laurel, and some hardwoods....it is the thickest area on our property. The deer do bed in it, but I'm not sure how much or often. As it is now, it is ok...and we stay completetly out of it pretty much all the time. I did go through there a week ago (a couple days after the fresh snow) to see what it looked like. There were plenty of beds in small (2-3's)groups up to as many as 8 or so together. I figure does and fawns. This was the first time I had even walked through this area since last year. I would guess it is about 10 acres total, with probably 5 or so that actually have the makings of a decent bedding area(starting to get thick). Some of the hardwoods in the area were taken when we timbered, but not that many. There weren't a whole lot of decent sized trees in the area. Just below it is a big year round stream, so they have plenty of water within 150 yds. Also my clover plot is about 300 yds from it. Bordering 2 sides are good hardwoods that had plenty of mast (this year).
I would like to make it a "great" bedding area eventually. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to enhance this area?

Thanks :)

RE: How to make a better bedding area???
 

Your bedding area already sounds pretty good. I would suggest that if you have fast growing soft, hardwoods, like birch, or poplar growing there as well, knock a few down each year so they cannot shade out the thick growth. We've lost a couple good bedding areas over the 20 yrs I've hunted by letting the poplars grow unchecked. Now, we're knocking some down each year to "reclaim" them.

Our best area, we call "the sanctuary" is about 10 acres, and has alot of Red Osier Dogwood, Willow Whips, Poplar, and the ocassional apple tree, that is icing on the cake. Maybe the pics below will give you an idea on how it looks, plant a couple apple trees in the middle, and keep them open if you can, by trimming one a year.

RE: How to make a better bedding area???
 

Yeah man!!! Add some pine's and WOW!!!

Romans 10:9 Psalms 42

RE: How to make a better bedding area???
 

FH...man that looks good!!!
Mine looks nothing like that. I wish it did.

The area has a logging road around 3 sides of it, with my house on the fourth side . So when we travel through the propery back there, we always use the logging roads or the property outside them. It set's up an area, that has potential to be a good "sanctuary". There is really no reason that we ever have to go in there, unlike some of the other areas on our place.

The thicker part of the area has a mixture of white pines and va pines of various sizes. It's not really thick like in your pics, but more like alot of pines, that you can't see past. Most of the beds I've seen, have been in those pines. The hardwoods are mostly oak, and some hickory. There is some laurel mixed in as well, and some of the area has some misc underbrush. I honestly don't know how good of a bedding area it actually is. The main thing is, we don't go in there, so I would like to enhance the core of this area, and make it a good bedding area for sure, (or at least try).

I know they use the area alot, but haven't done alot of homework to see if there is much buck sign in there or not. There are plenty of trails going through it though. I would have to guess that if the bucks are bedding on our place at all, this would be where. I can't say if we have jumped any nice deer out or not, since we pretty much never go in. I did see a fresh rub in there, on a pretty good sized tree about 3 years ago, on top of the snow at the end of Dec. And for the last couple years there have been some decent rubs around the fringes of the area. However, we've never actually seen a buck in there.

I forgot to mention, that I do have a mineral lick set up on one of the trails leading into the area. They use it alot. Hopefully someday I'll be able to get a trail cam, and see what it hitting it.

I realize that it takes time to create a prime bedding area. Do you guys have any suggestions as to what I could plant that would grow up thick and fairly fast? I'm probably gonna wait until after the season (probably mid Jan) to start researching the area and seeing what I may actually be able to do. If I determine I need to take out some trees, I defintely will.

Thanks.

RE: How to make a better bedding area???
 

farm hunter's right on the money. Just make sure you have sheltered escape routes from the bedding area to make the deer feel more secure.

Dan O.

RE: How to make a better bedding area???
 

WV hunter -

One other suggestion, especially if the soil is acidic, and or dry, would be blackberry. Blackberry transplants real well, in the spring well before any leaves form, take a set of clippers and a spade and head out to an overgrown feild. Its easy to get permission to dig up blackberry. Cut the stems about 6" above the ground, and dig out the roots, each root clump is about the size of a 3 lb coffee can, you can fill the bed of a pick up truck in less than an hour.

Plant them in stategic locations, about 5 ft apart. They will do best if you have at least 50% sunlight. The first year you will get 4 ft of growth, and the second year they start spreading. Black berry is a 2 year cycle for berry production. The new shoots that come the first summer will not produce berrys that year. The second year they will, the thrid year the stalk will die, but others will be shooting up from the root ball each year.

Its tough to beat a good briar patch for bedding, and browse. Rabbits like it alot too. Especially if some young pines are intermixed (maybe you can leave some selectivley). This way you'd have a thicket in two years time.