Mock Scrapes and Lure?

[lyle_destroys]

Hi guys, getting back into whitetail hunting after a little bit of a hiatus to pursue other things. Looking for ideas to pull bucks from broader travel corridors into my trail cams. What does your mock scrape setup look like and when do you start putting them out? Specific lures or techniques you like to use? The lure and rope from Hodag looks interesting.

 

[knale87]

I just snap and bend a branch down into a licking branch, kick some leaves out of the way, and piss on the dirt. I only make them in an area I know they’re using or right off a trail. I’ll freshen it up whenever I’m back in that area.

 

[EdP]

The rope and lure thing was completely ignored when I tried it. Cameras on travel paths, food plots, and mineral licks have been very effective at capturing pics of the deer in my area. It seems to me that attempts to get bucks to come to a particular location and make a scrape would have a low probability of success. Mock scrapes along existing travel paths like knale87 described is worth a try. Moving the camera to the deer is more likely to show you what you want than trying to move the deer to the camera.

 

[Skerhunter]

You can try to force it, but it is much more productive for me to use known locations.

Using it in a pinch point, community branch or scrape, buck bedding, or general travel corridor (field edge/tree row) can help pull them in to get better and more consistent pics (more time in front of camera).

I only use stuff like this if I can’t find or ID a deer during normal scouting or if it’s a new area. It costs money/time and I would rather limit my scent/time in the woods until bucks are killable.

 

[WCB]

I just hung a rope from a overhanging branch in a general corridor and scrapped up the ground a little...no scent added. had deer start using it that day. Longer it was there more deer used it and bucks would no doubt veer off nearby trails, hit the scrape, then go back to the original trail they were on. This was fairly easy to confirm as there are 4-5 paralleling trails through a stand of pines...deer would sometimes pop in and out to the edge where the camera was. Once the scrape was there. Everyday deer would pop out hit the scrape then tuck right back into the trees and show up in the food plot all the trails lead to.

Had a camera on the same spot for a couple years and the activity definitely increased with that set up. More noticeably the buck presence. I put it up late July last year.

I would put the scrapes out sparingly and only in places you can put a stand to kill them over.

 

[lyle_destroys]

Ok great info guys. I’ve always been mostly a rifle deer hunter so the early season stuff isn’t second nature to me you. I keep getting pics midday of deer. Like 11-3. Now mind you this is big mature timber in Pa. No ag around but lots of heavy laurel. If I’m getting pics midday would that mean that I’m in an area they use to bed? I didn’t think I would get much midday activity but that’s currently all I’m getting.

 

[BigNate]

Not aware of Pa laws, but a mineral lick will get found and used early. Once there's traffic you're much more likely to have success with mock scrapes. If there's no natural traffic, you're wasting a bit of effort.

 

[Zak406]

I never quite understood mock scrapes.

You’re putting a scrape where the animal wasn’t at in the first place. Imo you’re better off finding real scapes close to bedding or in travel coridors. That’s not to say I won’t freshen a scrape up. Just to say that I’m not sure a deer is going to hit a mock scrape every time. Might be able to get some inventory that way though

 

[Boarmaster]

I stopped using lures and focused more on mineral/salt lick and food sources. This has paid off for me. Especially the licks. They are creating traffic 24/7 365. In my area doe traffic means buck traffic especially during the rut.

 

[K9kodi]

I find it smarter to go to them, within reason, vs pulling them from a normal pattern. But what is a normal pattern during rut, it’s a game of odds.
Look here’s my opinion, and lord knows I’m not the most intellectual on the subject, many have more experience, then there are those with less who want to claim they have more.

Here goes it. If rifle or gun hunting, I try to coordinate shots to reach the travel corridors without having to cross them or get into them.
I believe that’s where they are most comfy, trying to pull them out of their normal areas may work, but they are survivalist, if they are outside their normal travel corridors they will probably be way more cautious and aware.

I find my best luck at creating scrapes by merely kicking up leaves under a licking branch and even sometimes breaking branches that are already there. I AM NOT A FAN of inserting new unfamiliar odor into a high traffic area. Yes some will say well deer come from miles away during rut. Yes, but studies prove it’s typically the same deer traveling the same distance to the same area, deer will remember this.

Hunt like a ghost, you were never there

 

[SirChooCH]

I like to use existing scrapes that were already there naturally and then I will juice it up a bit. For the bottom just kick it open and maybe pee in it works as good as anything I've bought. For the branch I have found the "branch catalyst" in these expensive lures is like a vanilla/syrup mixture. Something sweet that gets their attention to come and start smelling and licking it basically and this starts the licking branch use as natural scent takes over from them doing this.

Best places are where 3 edges meet. Whether those are terrain features and or types of vegetation change that come together at a point. Say a woods corner between corn and soybean fields. Or where pine tree thicket and oak tree ridge meet at a swamp. Diversity, edges, find main deer trail and there probably a scrape somewhere already.