Blacktail scrapes?

[smithkl42]

I got permission recently to hunt on some private land up north of Sultan. As I've been poking around, I've seen what sure *look* like scrapes - even though the Boyd Iverson book on blacktail hunting says that blacktail don't make scrapes.



There's a ton of these all over the property. Is this a legitimate blacktail scrape, or is it something else?

[zwickeyman]

Doesn't look like a scrape to me but with all due respect to Boyd, I have seen scrapes under licking branches just like a Whitetail. They are not as big or pronounced as a Whitetail but a Blacktail will scrape

[Skyvalhunter]

Picture never came thru 4 me

[JakeLand]

Got no pic

[smithkl42]

Sorry, picture was in a private album. I've updated the link - let me know if you can't see it.

What it is is a bare patch of dirt, with deer tracks all over it, in an area where everything else is covered with foliage and vegetation.

[jkononen]

Looks like a deer or elk bed

[3dsheetmetal]

It's a scrape .I have seen several and have witnessed bucks pawing them and urinating in them.

[fishnfur]

Got no pic

 

[Turner89]

I've never seen a blacktail scrape. I believe I'd see at least one in the last 30+ years. Sometimes I'll find a spot where they kind of hang out a bit before, and after going into a pasture, or clearing. There's tracks and bare ground. Usually under a fir tree.  I can't see your pic.

[jkononen]

Just seeing if I post the pic it can be seen.

[7mmfan]

Based on size alone, I'd call that a bed. If you look closely, you can see the elongated impressions in it, that is from their legs being curled up under them when the ground was soft.

[JohnD]

I saw this a couple of years ago and assumed it was an old blacktail scrape. I've had cameras in this area for 3 years and haven't ever seen any elk. Lots of bear though.

[smithkl42]

Based on size alone, I'd call that a bed. If you look closely, you can see the elongated impressions in it, that is from their legs being curled up under them when the ground was soft.

So sorry for the newbie ignorance here - what's the difference, then, between a bed and a scrape? (A "rub" is where they rub their antlers on a tree to get rid of the velvet, no?)

[fish vacuum]

I saw this a couple of years ago and assumed it was an old blacktail scrape. I've had cameras in this area for 3 years and haven't ever seen any elk. Lots of bear though.

That's a rub. Blacktails definitely make rubs. Scrapes are where deer dig at the ground. Its up for debate whether or not blacktails make scrapes.

[JohnD]

That's a rub. Blacktails definitely make rubs. Scrapes are where deer dig at the ground. Its up for debate whether or not blacktails make scrapes.
[/quote]
Geez... I've been using the wrong term forever. Thanks for letting me know.

[Squidward]

I made a scrap last yr, I did have a deer step in it to check it out but never used it.

[DaveMonti]

That's a rub. Blacktails definitely make rubs. Scrapes are where deer dig at the ground. Its up for debate whether or not blacktails make scrapes.

Geez... I've been using the wrong term forever. Thanks for letting me know.
[/quote]

Well, it's a nice rub!  I'd be hunting right in that area come late October! 

[fishnfur]

The general consensus is that BTs don't make scrapes.  I've never seen one, but a every once in awhile, someone comes along and says they've seen them.   

RadSav wrote that he saw BTs making scrapes down in an central-western/coastal Oregon area when he was camping several years ago.  In my mind, that is about as credible a story as you can get that they do, at least sometimes, make scrapes.

[Turner89]

I can't speak for blacktail in Oregon,  california, or anywhere, but here in the sultan basin. If these guys made scrapes I'd have seen one.
 They do love to rub a lot. I like finding a little area that's destroyed by a blacktail.

[7mmfan]

I can't speak for blacktail in Oregon,  california, or anywhere, but here in the sultan basin. If these guys made scrapes I'd have seen one.
 They do love to rub a lot. I like finding a little area that's destroyed by a blacktail.

  If anyone would find them, it would be this guy. I concur with what he says, they rub the living heck out of everything when they get fired up. Find that and you'll know you're in the home turf of a dominant blacktail.

[fishnfur]

It would be interesting to make a mock scrape near an active BT rub, take a leak in it, or use some blacktail buck urine on it, then hang a trail cam and see what happens.

[smithkl42]

I can't speak for blacktail in Oregon,  california, or anywhere, but here in the sultan basin. If these guys made scrapes I'd have seen one.
 They do love to rub a lot. I like finding a little area that's destroyed by a blacktail.

So apparently the "scraped out area" that I saw wasn't a real scrape, just a ... bedding area? How would one tell the difference between the two?

[fishnfur]

It looks pretty torn up to be a typical bed.  I downloaded it and checked it carefully.  I think I know what it is!

[pd]

It looks pretty torn up to be a typical bed.  I downloaded it and checked it carefully.  I think I know what it is!

Quit worrying about Big Footie guy, and git to bed.  Don't you have to be up early tomorrow for the opener??

[h20hunter]

Taste the dirt. Funky? Salty? If so you are in the money.

[fishnfur]

It looks pretty torn up to be a typical bed.  I downloaded it and checked it carefully.  I think I know what it is!

Quit worrying about Big Footie guy, and git to bed.  Don't you have to be up early tomorrow for the opener??

You're a believer now, huh PD?
No need to go to bed early.  I know where them elkies are.  I'mma git me one! 

[Bowcrazy]

Blacktials rub and tear up the ground with scrapes in my moms apple orchard every year. Yes they are good size scrapes. Have seen them in Late October to mid December.