Hunting Bedding Stands Early

A few shows ago we mentions sitting some bedding stands earlier than you traditionally would hunt these kinds of stands.  These bedding areas are different than the ones that usually get hunted during late October into November.  The best bedding to hunting during the pre-rut and rut time frame are known doe bedding areas, large in size and are in easy travel areas leading to another thicket.  We will leave these spots alone until the mature bucks are on their feet more looking for that first hot doe.  The bedding we will be focused on early are much smaller in size, won’t hold a lot of deer and are dead end travel corridors.  These areas won’t be nearly as good for rut hunting.

One thing we are going to be paying attention to when hunting these bedding areas early is the Moon rise and set time.  We want to moon high in the sky when we are walking to our stand so the deer are still out in the fields.  For Missouri’s opening weekend this was the case but we weren’t willing to get aggressive yet.  Looking ahead it looks like October 12-16 will be the next time we will be able to take advantage of the high morning moon. This small window will be when we will be trying to catch a mature deer still on his nocturnal feeding pattern as he comes back to lay up for the day. 

By no means do we have this idea down to a science.  As we try this more and more we will learn alot about what to look for and when it is a risk worth taking.  We might even jump into a bedding stand or two before October 12th just to see what happens but as of now October 12-16 is our target date for the majority of these types of stand locations.