I've always wanted to try this in the off season, but never have.

Have any of you had any success with summer mock scrapes or even mock scrapes in general?

My goal is to get a daylight photo of a particular big woods large buck that I have been following for a couple of years..... pinpoint him, and kill him in the early bow season before he makes up his mind to be a ghost. He's been a fairly large eight for two years. I would have shot him last year if the opportunity presented itself, only he's completely nocturnal now. I have plenty pics of him in the night, and frankly I'm over it.

I know he's gonna be nice this season, only these big woods bucks are hard to follow. They bed down in the day, and travel from bait pile to bait pile during the night(that's how I got the pictures).

I doubt anyone wil kill this buck over a bait pile.

Run hunting is almost impossible here. There are no bottlenecks, funnels, etc. Just overhunted deep, thick timber with dozens of baitpiles per square mile. All of the bait hunters push most of the mature buck movement to the weee hours of the night. In spite of all of the parasites(as I call them) ..there are some decent bucks here by South Jersey standards.

I've found an area I want to hunt where I think he might go during the day, and believe it or not...free of human activity. The problem is to get there requires crossing a 100 yard vein of knee and waist deep swamp. Not that I mind that, it's just I don't want to bump any bucks out of their bed.

In any case...opinions on mock scrapes would be appreciated.