Creating Beddings Areas For Deer

Having bedding areas on a property is a huge step toward enticing whitetails to call your property home, but as any land manager knows, beddings areas come and go. Timber matures and canopies close resulting in less forest floor cover and fewer deer utilizing the location. Fortunately, with a little bit of leg work, we can get into these areas and reclaim them.

Most deer hunters are working with small tracts of land. It’s important to diversify as much of your property as possible and having a bedding area or two can greatly increase the number of whitetails that use your property. The Shoopman family farm had a few of these areas, but over the years they’ve become less desirable to deer because of an influx of Bush Honeysuckle. The abundance of Bush Honeysuckle has limited the amount of low growing vegetation because of the quick establishing canopy it produces. With a good afternoon of work with a chainsaw and some herbicide, Casey, Chase, and Jeff were able to clear out a sizable area that was overtaken. By clearing this area out, they’re opening it up for some future plantings of more desirable species of mast producing trees and the sunlight will now be able to hit the forest floor and an influx of low growing native species will begin this year. These low growing plants will provide an abundance of forage for whitetails and greatly increase deer activity in the area.

For hunters on small tracts of land, this is a great way to improve your property. A bedding area doesn’t have to be 10 acres or larger. Manipulating and improving even a small area like they did can have huge effects come this fall.