Hey everyone, I have been keeping an eye on a certain piece of land here in central MN for the past 3 years now. The very first year I walked in there I found massive scrapes all over the place in the first week of September. Last year the deer never even opened one up in there. Now I've been running a camera in there all summer and just a few days ago they already opened a scrape right in front of the camera again. I've never seen this anywhere else or heard of deer scraping at this time of the year. Why are they scraping so early, 90% of them have yet to shed their velvet?? Has anyone else experienced this? I'm planning on bowhunting there regardless but I just have no idea what to expect! Wish me luck
I had one buck a few years back that was scrape happy. He was a machine. Once he moved in mid-late Sept, you could hardly walk 50 yards in any direction without finding a scrape. I shot him in '09 and scrape activity dropped down dramatically, like 85%! I guess what I'm saying is that it could just be one or two deer, and not "the general herd" that has increased.
Some deer will actually work a scrape year round. I put my mock scrapes out in August and they're already taken over and being used come September.
deer do use scrapes year round, but obiously mostly during the rut. it could be a good sign since the oldest mature bucks will start scraping earlier than younger deer, but it could be one like fitz had were its 1 buck that likes to keep his hooves free of debris.
I have normally seen new scrapes in September. I saw an active scrape line this April. It's not all that unusual.
That gets me excited to check my cams... A week ago every buck was still in velvet here in central MN.
Yep it's about that time of year. When my tinks comes in the mail I'm going to doctor up an existing scrape and move a cam over there.
Changing batteries in a cam tonight so I'll see if there is any velvet yet. Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
Putting up some scrape drippers next weekend. It will be my first time really using mock scrapes, hopefully they work good! Will post updates
That could be the case here because the overall numbers of deer aren't that impressive. Did you shoot that buck over one of his scrapes?
No, he was chasing a doe with another buck through our resort I did have him come in close a couple times nears scrapes, but they were everywhere, so it was hard to know which ones he go to.
My area sees quite a bit of hunting pressure and our deer heard tends to be pretty gunned down so that could be why the deer around here aren't quite as active this time of year. Any of you that see this more commonly in your area, does it pay to hunt hard over early season scrapes or is it just as good of a chance hunting other areas?
