Originally Posted by
alleyyooper
Don't you people keep note books when scouting?
If you did you could flip the pages and see (my area of Michigan) buck rubs start showing up average Oct 8th every year. Scrapes start showing up around the 28th of Oct. Chase phase of the rut heavies around Nov 5th.
Easy way to find scrapes is to walk rub lines.
Al
I will also add that it depends on the kind of buck you're targeting. If you're looking for a chance at "any" buck, then you could start making scrapes now and you will have success with younger bucks and possibly a mature one.
If it's mature bucks you're after, then I would agree with Alleyyooper that later October in the midwest is a better bet.
In Wisconsin we can't do any baiting prior to the start of the season. Previously I would create a mock scrape in August as a way to inventory some of my deer and I had success with this. Bucks wouldn't always scrape, but they would check it out.