Exactly.

In my experience Whitetail behavior varies quite a bit from one area to the other. I am sure it depends on Buck to Doe ratios, Age structure, etc. While that may be true in the area he hunts. It may never hold any validity in lots of the Whitetail's range.

The 2 spots I hunt are 30+ miles apart and the rutting activity of Bucks vary widely from one area to the other. I have always thought it strange, but I have learned to adjust and I think adjusting and learning from the Bucks You hunt is the key to being successful on a regular basis.

Dan

Jeff,

To use your own often quoted tag line......"there are no cookie cutter answers".. It could be as simple as he didnt have to pee... Could be that he was just passing through and getting a whiff of what was in the area..

I typically don't pay much attention to scrapes, however the biggest buck Ive ever seen showed up at 10 minutes 'til dark and worked a scrape at 18yrds away, so who knows!

Great response Dan- What I find funny is how we often tend to listen to a successful hunter or respected biologist and hold everything they say as Gospel. One of my favorite quotes was from an article written about Karl Miller. Karl Miller went on to talk about his studies on whitetail but quickly reiterated something when he and the author went hunting and it goes something like this, "I am a deer biologist but I don't know everything about hunting". Here is a guy that lives and works with deer and the QDM program and he is quick to point out that one shouldn't expect him to go out and kill a Booner because of his knowledge.

We as humans can't even figure out the weather or each other yet some think they are experts and know everything a deer will do. You are right Dan, 30 miles can be a world apart and season to season things can drastically change. What we need to do is take what we read and use what applies to our hunt. Rattling is great but if you have a doe to buck ration that is outta whack then you might be wasting time, some areas respond to doe calls while others buck calls. You could take the best hunters in this forum and make them swap areas and you might find their success stories change in the new environment. I have a step brother that killed over 80 deer in Illinois with a bow and then moved to Arkansas, it took him three years to get his first deer once he got there, guess his Big Rock, Illinois method of hunting didn't apply

The biggest scrape I see year after year are on field edges. I'm talking ones that are 3+ feet in diameter. We put cameras on them and they get pounded by a handful of different bucks. The biggest bucks we normally get pictures of are on scrapes way back in the woods in secluded places, no matter what the scrape size.

I agree. My best big buck scrape pictures are always taken on a scrape line that is at least a quarter mile into the woods from all roads. I see lots of little bucks hitting the feild side scrapes all year long.

I will never say someone is full of it, It just happens to be his findings. Now Like said above you find that in Michigan he ison to something,but in Illinois where I huntlike rybo said there are scrapes up and down the field edges but we also video like 6-10 bucks in those fields togather, So you know most of te scraping activity is a night.But when you think you know it all I feel sorry for you because these critters called whitetails will humble you in a hurry. There is always more to learn in this sport called bowhunting and when someone speaks you had betterbelieve I will be listening to try and add one more thing to the arsenal!! Walt

Great post Walt! When a hunter thinks he knows everything and doesn't keep his ears open its time to call it quits!

"Great response Dan- What I find funny is how we often tend to listen to a successful hunter or respected biologist and hold everything they say as Gospel."

I am just seeking some guidance and observation from the people on here....the people that know me know that I do not hold anything anyone says as gospel....like I said, I am looking for real life examples that either support or go against some of the points I brought up in my first post. I hunt hard and long in places that do not have alot of big bucks so I am always looking to just tip the odds a little more in my favor.

Brett

Brett- I wasn't singling you out by any means. My point was that all too often we look for right or wrong while out in the field. We are playing a game with too many variables and nobody will ever have all the answers. What happens in Virginia could be quite different from here in Illinois. One thing that has brought me success is listening to what has driven others to succeed and applying it to my hunts. I have found many things that work and many that haven't, but in the end I learned just as much from my failures as my success.