The whitetail rut was just about to begin, and I was going to throw everything at them that I had in my bag of tricks at them. I had read articles before about hunter’s creating fake scrapes to attract mature bucks to within bow range. I had never tried it before, but if it worked for others, it would work for me was how I thought. I went out and created a mock scrape the best I knew how to.

I hunted that mock scrape for days without any activity. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I thought I did everything right, but looking back I see my mistakes. I did not consider human scent I left behind, I did not use whitetail scents correctly, I did not create a licking branch, and I definitely overhunted the stand. This was more than 20 years ago. Since then, I have learnt a lot more about creating and using mock scrapes to my advantage, and have been able to harvest bucks I otherwise would not have been able to without the benefit of a mock scrape.

Check out this video from Realtree Outdoors to learn how to make a mock scrape.