Q: At a high level, how important are bedding areas to you during the rut? What changes for you from October to November when it comes to hunting bedding areas?

Dan: Bedding areas are always in the equation. My biggest and oldest bucks taken during the rut were shot in relation to bedding areas, not funnels. Generally the younger bucks, 1 and 2 year old's, run the ridges and funnels. 4 year old's and older bucks do not get that old by running through funnels during the rut. They most likely have learned some hard lessons about running around in daylight. That doesn't mean they don't make the occasional mistake, it just means that for older bucks, you need to hunt different.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there is hunting funnels, or sitting over a scrape or rub. How many giant bucks are these average guys shooting? If you hunt like everyone else, expect results like everyone else.

I just finished a hunt in a large area on a hunt where you draw for areas. I was hunting with a young hunter who drew it for most of the season from early September through November. I just drew the 1st couple weeks of November. He was hunting all the classic funnels, pinch points, points leading into the swamps, and the rub and scrape lines that were popping up everywhere. He was going over his frustration with me that he was seeing lots of deer every sit, but no shooters. He only saw one shooter from his treestand the whole time he had been hunting. Meanwhile, I was seeing very few deer, but about one shooter every two sits.

So what was I doing different? I was out in the swamps hunting off the ground and out of small trees in water, in the doe bedding areas. Bucks change their patterns during the rut and go to the does. But they keep them corralled in thick cover. During the pre-rut, I often find them shifting to what I call rut beds. These are usually located adjacent to doe bedding, where they can monitor the does as they come and go from bedding.

Another thing that is a golden tip, is if you have a primary bedding area where a scrape shows up in staging within 100 yards of lots of bedding, that's one scrape that should be sat over. My two biggest bucks came from scrapes within 100 yards of two bedding areas where competing bucks would stop by every evening after getting out of bed.

Q: During the rut, how do you identify a bedding area? We hear the term all of the time, but I think some guys have trouble knowing exactly what to look for, and if anything, what changes once the rut starts.

Dan: That's a tough question to answer. Easier to show. If you do a lot of spring scouting, and looking at bedding areas, and where you saw deer during the season, you start to get real good at looking at terrain and making an educated guess. You're going to be wrong sometimes, but you need to get over that and just keep moving till you get onto the buck you're looking for. The spots he beds during the rut are going to areas the does were bedding before the rut, with the exception that bucks will try to get the does into thick cover if the are is not so thick. In pressured areas, I would look at a map and look for thick or wet areas other hunters rarely go. Water is a big key in a lot of pressured areas. Big bucks and even smart old does love to bed and hide in areas surrounded with water and brush. Not only do people stay out, but water also keeps coyotes and wolves from pestering them.