Find Early-Season Success in Staging Areas

Stagings areas are great places to find bucks, especially in the early season.

Like thousands of other hunters in Michigan (and around the country), I was able to hit the woods for the first time this past weekend. I picked an area that I had lightly hunted over the past few years and decided to jump right into an area I believed would be great during the early season. I hiked back in a mile and slowly crept into my spot - a location I believed to be situated right outside of a bedding area on public land. As I began to get set up, I heard crashing through the swamp… and coughing… and metal clanking. Someone had blown up my area and walked right through the bedding area.

It was still early in the afternoon and I figured it best to climb down and find another spot that might hold some deer. I pulled up my Huntwise app and found a spot that I believed would be a great staging area. After sitting for 15 minutes, a small buck rolled through. 10 minutes later, a beautiful Michigan 8-pointer appeared, 15 yards away. I sent an arrow sailing over his back with my recurve and watched him bound back into the swamp but I learned a lot that evening. Staging areas are real, and they’re spectacular.

What is a staging area?

This term gets tossed around all the time but its often not defined particularly well. Essentially, a staging area sits between a deer’s bed and its food. It’s an area in which deer feel comfortable moving around in during daylight.

Often, these are the places that we see bucks (as well as does and fawns) hold up in until night falls. These areas are usually well covered and usually have some sort of food or water in them. In my particular hunt, it was a few smaller oaks surrounded by thick pricker bushes (technical term) and tall grass. Had I not been in a tree virtually on top of them, I would have never see those bucks.

Why do deer use them?

Deer (especially wary bucks who’ve been around the block a time or two) know that they’re exposed in the typical man-made food sources and open oak flats that most people seem to hunt. Rather than strolling out into the open, they’ll hang back in cover until dark. As the leaves start to fall, they’ll hang up in these areas longer and will actually move their staging areas closer to their beds as the season goes on.

We’ve had success finding staging areas by simply backtracking from food towards bedding. We’ll try to get as close to bedding as we can and set up in thick cover near things like licking branches. During my sit this past weekend, I was hunting over a hot licking branch. Over the course of several hours, I watched half a dozen deer come through, licking and rubbing their face on the branch. Often we’ll also see rubs and scrapes in these areas as well.

How do you hunt these areas?

Like most hunting tactics, hunting staging areas is easier said than done. As previously stated, it all starts by identifying food and bedding and working your way as close to bedding as possible. For us in Michigan, this usually means looking for swamps and marshes with chunks of solid ground in then. When we head out for an evening hunt, we try to sneak as close to bedding as possible without spooking deer. This means, prior to the season, you’re going to want to make sure your tree stand/saddle/blind and the rest of your gear is as silent as possible (we’ll write more on this later). Creep in very carefully and slow way down as you get closer. Use gusts of wind, the sound of airplanes overhead, etc. to mask your sound.

In order to stack the odds even more in our favor, we’ll try to find things that attract or funnel deer in these staging areas. Pinch points, licking branches, etc. are all great options.

Conclusion

Staging areas are great spots for finding early-season success. As you head into the woods, look for these hot spots between bedding and food. Sneak in quietly, get close and you’re going to see some great action. Just make sure you’re more ready than I was this year. Happy hunting!