Last season was my first real serious attempt at making mock scrapes. I've got access to a 165 acre farm to hunt all myself. It's about 1/2&1/2 hardwood mountain ridges that taper down to four different points into mostly flat slow rolling hayfields. Main point in the center is an main intersection of a ridge, road, and the deepest hollow there. Anyway I didn't get started hunting there last fall until late Oct. The deer had never made a scrape there before, cause me and the landowner know the farm well and had never seen one there. But from my experience with preferred scrape sites from the past this spot seemed a Perfect 10. I made one there under a good lowlimb tree, perfect height. I just started by peeing in my self and then doctoring it up often with Code Red Doe Estrus, the cheaper version from Code Blue. I'd like to know what you'll recommend to put on the licking branch. I just used a stick rubbed in the wet mud and then rubbed on the tree. They just didn't fool with it much at first but I kept working it. I quit huntin there around thanksgiving. In Dec and Jan they was burning this scape up. I'm confident they'll work it again, so i'm gonna open it --------when ? Mid sept? And what to put on the branch's? I'm no drip bottle kind, my time from work is limited to go there during the week. I've already loaded with the Code Red, but what else? Any other good advice?
You can try preorbital gland lure which comes from the forehead of a buck. Bucks typically rub their forehead and base of their antlers on the licking branch as well as chew on the end. It comes in a glass jar and has a little swab brush attached to the lid. It shouldn't need freshened very often and I had multiple bucks visit my mock scrape using it last year.
I can tell you with certainty that you started the scrape by opening up the soil under a branch they could use. I know that the scents are not needed and can be a waste of hard earned money. I have sound biological background to back this up. Deer love fresh dirt, I will often open up some ground near where I'm hunting and deer will smell it and check it out.
I will have to check, I honestly don't know. I just saw it on the shelf last year and tried it and got more bucks on camera at my mock scrape compared to previous years. Not to say that was the contributing factor but they sure had their nose in the air checking out the licking branch.
