Whitetail Scrapes

[oldleclercrd]

Gonna head out this weekend to refresh my scrapes. Its looking to be a snowy one. 

[Jonathan_S]

I use buck fever synthetics also. I started my scrapes in April. I had deer visiting within a week.

I started my scrapes in the summer and had a few here and there check em out, but I don't usually get a ton of action til November.

I noticed that it either increased activity in a buck or decreased it dramatically.  The more aggressive bucks, diurnal ones seemed to visit more after the scrapes were down in July.  The nocturnal and younger bucks stopped coming close for a few weeks after a BFS scent was laid down.

This was observed on only about 25 bucks on three different drainages so I'm not making any wild claims.  Just my two bits.

In my opinion, it was a good thing because I don't want to bother with the more finicky, nocturnal bucks.  Too frustrating.

[oldleclercrd]

What did you put in the scrape? The pre/post rut, or the rut? The pre/post shouldn't scare the deer. A scrape is made as a sign of dominance to other bucks in the area during the rut, but during the early/late year, its just a social stop for most deer. It wouldn't scare em if you do it right. Although, if there is ANY human scent in the scrape the gig is up.

[Jonathan_S]

It was the BF gland scent that spooked some of the bucks off, not the pre-post rut.  I guess I wasn't clear on that.  I put that on a broken limb above 50% of my scrapes to compare behavior.  I noticed the described behavior on those scrapes with a gland scented twig nearby.

I was as careful with scent as I could be.  I wear rubber boots to and from all areas, don't touch anything without rubber gloves and I don't even spit or scratch my head when I'm in a camera / scrape area.