Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

What to Scout for Around Bedding Areas

One thing that I can tell you for sure is that elk and deer will bed down just about anywhere. But in more cases than not, they will bed down where they can watch their feeding and watering areas for potential signs of danger.

The best way to find a bedding area is to find water and food close together in areas that are located near big hills or mountains as far away from the road as possible.

An easy way to find beds is follow scrapes and rubs backwards into the woods. The bare side of the screen points to the direction of the beds, which will most likely be up high on a heavily wooded bench. This is more true for deer than elk, but it works for both.

Fresh beds will have pee spots and fresh green droppings near the beds or inside the beds where they have been bedded all day. Female pee on the edge of the beds. Bulls and bucks pee in the middle.

Some animals will bed down right in the open so that nothing blocks their view of the road, trail or area below them. Others like tree with low hanging branches that they can hide their horns and bodies inside.

Alligator pines and thick stands of oak trees and pine trees with 2-4" trunks located very close together provide ideal cover.

Many times bedding areas will be on edge of fields where the edges are hills that go down hill.

They also like to bed down in drainages with the trees, bushes and grass are greener from recent rainfall that seem to collect and retain have more moisture than other areas. Moisture also makes the air cooler during the hot summer days.

In the summer animals will always bed down on the north side of the hill and in the winter they prefer the southern or eastern exposure where the sun will give them warmth. During the day, deer and elk beds are usually located on the top 1/3 of the hill on the downwind side of the hill. If you can find a bench using a topo map, start your scouting there. The animals bed at the top of hill in order to use the morning thermals sniff out any scent of danger that might be coming uphill to get them.

At night elk and deer will bed down in open fields. At night the thermals are blowing downhill so being at the bottom of valleys and canyons allow them to sniff out danger.