Mock Scrape Tricks and Tactics for the RUT

For decades whitetail hunters have been trying to lure and trick bucks by fooling them with scents and lures. If you are to visit your local sporting goods store over 85 percent of the hunting products have something to do with tricking a deer’s sense of smell, including scent elimination products,  cover scents, and scent applicators. A whitetails sense of smell is the most important factor when it comes to hunting. Like most great products, trial and error and many years of experimenting has led to top-of-the-line items now available to hunters.  Modern hunters now use scent tactics that work the entire season, and we at The Hunting Page, use these tactics in our Rut Tracker Program.

                                                Using What Works

We have a system that we use in Whitetail hunting and during The Hunting Pages Rut Tracker that seems to work well for us. When we make a mock scrape in the area we wish to hunt and we will place a couple http://www.wildlife.com/ Key wicks or Magnum Drippers in the scrape after we have cleared out all leaves and other debris with a stick or rake. Be sure that a overhanging limb is present or can be installed at the site. Grapevines and conifers seem to be choice licking branch species where we have set-up mock scrapes. The key wicks are saturated with Golden estrous  and Golden buck to simulate multiple deer using this location and to attract every buck in the area to come visit. The combination of the doe pee in the drippers and the select buck pee above the scrape and Hot-scrape application has been the most effective regimen for us during the rut. This combination keeps bucks visiting these scrapes and take inventory of bucks using the area. This is a highly effective way to attract the dominate buck in your area,which attracts the dominant bucks close by. The dominant buck will think a satellite buck is trying to breed a hot doe in his territory, so he will tend to check the area more frequently.

 Effective Steps to Making a Mock Scrape

Three Key Steps to Making  a Mock Scrape

1. You’ll need a desired licking branch species. We like to use Grapevines,Cedar or Apple tree limbs So you’ll either need to do this near a tree with a low hanging branch or install your own on a high traffic area. We like to chose to use a vine or limb that was already suspended high above and normally worked every season. If you need to install one on your own, use a rope and tie it between two trees over a deer trail or corridor. then you can tie the licking branch you brought in to set-up.
2.  Now take a stick or bring a clean rake, one that’s pretty sturdy and has a decent pointed end to it to irritate the soil below the scrape site. Find a spot that you know deer are religiously using and that is also within shooting range of your tree stand set-up. Use the stick or rake to scrape a circle of loose dirt underneath the licking branch site. Make sure that you really rough up the dirt so that you would leave a footprint in it if you stepped in it. Also push a few catching holes with the end of the stick or rake to hole any urine overflow to last longer in the scrape.
3. This last step is to hide a camera on the site and only check that camera on proper wind directions that will not interfere with deer using the location or use a wireless camera set up. We would see deer check out the scrape within 24 hours on wireless cameras, within about a week we had multiple bucks visiting these sites during shooting hours.

You can use http://www.wildlife.com/ all season long depending on what type of scent you are using. A scent like Golden Estrous, which is a blend of whitetail doe estrus collected at peak cycles blended with other key ingredients, can be used from Mid October through  December. You can also use Trails end 307 the entire season to keep deer visiting these locations. We begin using mock scrape set-ups as effective hunting and inventory locations the last two weeks of October. These sites are effective the entire month of November, during those pre-rut and rut stages, during the heat of the rut and even post rut events. To check out what would work for you and your area, see Wildlife Research’s entire line http://www.wildlife.com/Hunting-Scent-Product-Complete-Listing.php