NEW61375

I have seen and heard of many trying mock scrapes and I myself have tried them I was curious if anyone continues trying to lure bucks or develop areas they will frequent after hunting season(not necessarily full blown mock scrapes).I guess inan attemptto entice them into using an area that they will hopefully continue frequenting come hunting season. They are animals and while they may not be making scrapes they certainly have to be marking their area/territory. Any thoughts?

I read some info on it recently and have had success in the past with trail cams in certain spots that got mostly buck pics just curious if anyone else has taken this approach.

mobow

I've used mock scrapes in the past, but not w/ the intent of attracting a buck. This was a tactic I employed quite frequently in '06, and had success with it.

I would set up in a travel corridor and set out a mock scrape. Again, I'm in an area I think a buck is going to travel through anyway, so the idea was to use the scrape as a distraction. I had quite a few younger bucks bury their noses in them, and had they been intended targets I could have killed them quite easily.

NEW61375

I have had similiar results with mock scrapes during the season I am interested in trying to "help" a buck form habits now and through thesummer so he might be more comfortable using that same area more and most importantly during the season.

GMMAT

Curious, Don....then why did you do it?

NEW61375

I'm not sure if I am right mobow so correct me if I'm wrong but I thought you were trying to use it as a means to distract or pull a buck off of his travel path without setting up right on top of him or his travel route. Still luring him a bit but I think I knew what you meant in that he was already in that area so you weren't necessariily "luring" him there.

killadoe

never have, howeveI have thought about it quite a bit..

Zim

I don't mess with any of the scent tricks or anything. All my time is spent making sure I am hunting where the best quality bucks live. Has worked for me. 5 P&Y class bucks in the last 5 years, all on public land. Also 2 P&Y bull elk during that same time frame, public land.

I've always felt scents were for people who were insistant on not wanting to travel from their comfort zone, home turf. They want some magic potion that will make a nocturnal buck change his ways, or fool that one big buck hanging on the property. It's extremely difficult to impossible. It's MUCH easier to go where more big boys live. Simple. It took me 10 years of frustration to conclude this.

NEW61375

With all the talk/fact of deer being creatures of habit I have been trying to think of ways to inflence those habits outside of just during the rut and the most obvious which seems to be food source manipulation(in many forms).

Watch a male dog in his territory, he marks anything he can and if you go out and add a new bird bath he marks it. I have a few areas that hold lots of buck sign andI have taken a buck or two therebut if I could manage to manipulate them into an area 50-100 yards in another direction it would help me out tremendously with stand placement and wind. I have some ideas I will try and I hope to use my trail cams a little to see ifI am getting any reaction or results over the next couple of months. The article I read had some interesting stats about scent marking branches. I'll try and find it.

mobow

To hold the buck's attention so I could draw and kill him, without alerting him. Just a means of distracting him, and stopping him naturally exactly where I want to shoot him. I know the range, he's distracted, he's stopped on his own w/out my having to "MAAAHH" to him......nice and relaxed.....

It was effective, just not on anything I wanted to shoot.

NEW61375

I understand what you are saying and really I am just brainstorming a bit. I am not talking about using scents at all here, I am talking about possibly being able to influence/manipulate a bucks actions through habit forming or appealing to his natural instinct(not just during deer season).This isn't about nocturnal bucks or P & Y bucks orhunting where the big boys live. I am hunting the land I have to hunt and trying to come up with some solutions to problemsI have encountered with stands and wind, I havekilled several mature bucks off of this land and while I don't know whatthey score I do know there were daysI simply couldn't hunt where I wanted because of logistics. No offense, like I said I understand your point I just wanted to clarify my interest in this topic.