rangerstud620

Yesterday I went to take my stand down for the year. On my way to the stand, I found a fresh scrape in the snow, it is maybe a week old and about the size of a double size mattress. There was also a large rub next to the scrape. As much as I've hunted the late season the past 3 years, I've never found a fresh scrape this late in the year. Would it be a good bet that this is from a mature buck? What do you guys think?

wrongway

I have read that deer make scrapes year round, but I haven't seen any in the spring or summer.
It snowed friday evening, and I went out yesterday morning. There was a fresh scrape by the spot that I had chose to sit.

GSPsnFORDs

I've been finding fresh scrapes here in Illinois for the past two weeks now and I think others in Illinois have been finding some too this year so you're no the only one!

askelley

Deer will scrape away the snow to bed down. This may be what you are seeing. Check closely and sometimes you can see the imprints from where their legs are tucked up under their body. I saw many of these here in Iowa this past weekend. We had a snow storm dropping 14-16" of snow last week. We were pushing several woods during late muzzel-loader season.

I can't comment on the mattress sized one. That is pretty big.

wrongway

What I saw was a scape with a licking branch. I saw several beds in the snow as well.
We did not get very much snow here in my area. It was gone by sunday afternoon.

GSPsnFORDs

No, these are definitely scrapes. We had about 1 ft of snow on the ground a few weeks ago and I know what you're saying about the leg prints in the snow in their beds. But I did find a fresh scrape or two in the snow and found a few others after the snow melted.

rangerstud620

This was definitely a scrape that I found also...there was a licking branch above it and a rub at the edge of it. Since the area was the size of a mattress, it seems rather large for them to be clearing away to bed down. We only have about an inch of snow on the ground too. I wonder if these late season scrapes are made by mature bucks, or could it be young ones as well? I wish I had a scouting camera to set up by that scrape [&:]

HaGar43

Any nut trees around there?

rangerstud620

Not in my neck of the woods. The first thing I thought of was that the deer were eating something off the ground but there are no trees in the area that would drop any food.