Scrape hunting big woods for mature deer is like hunting a ghost. As many of you know I have my own property, which has been in the family for over 20 years. I started managing the property back in 2003 with small food plots and buck restrictions. The invention of the digital trail camera scouting became easier and less intrusive. Since 2005 I have taken out a few good bucks out with a few friends and relatives also taking deer. For the last two years I didn’t bow hunt this property until late season. I’ve been learning how to hunt deer over scrapes for the last 2 seasons with limited success. This year I’ve spent a little more time in the woods this year also had the trail camera’s out since the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] of July. I had 1 deer that might fall into the category of mature being 4+ years old. The buck I was after last year never showed his face until 11/05/11.Last year picture below. I still do not have a picture of him but I did get to see him. He gained some mass and a little spread. The only reason I saw him is because of the in season scouting that has to be done when hunting big woods. I keep a close eye on the scrapes that pop up, since the second weekend in October I have found over 50 scrapes in 130 acres of woods. Now which scrape do you hunt? That is the million dollar question, what I look for in a scrape is the size of the track, smell, location to cover and if it is around a bedding area. In the picture below is the route the buck took on 11/05/11. I first saw in on the North West line by the stand. Keep in mind that a lot of this land was logged 7 years ago and the land north of the stand was logged last winter. I saw him about 7:30 a.m. he came into the scrape that is on the west side of thick cover, the wind was out of the SSE, he got with in 5 yards East of the scrape slowed down a bit and kept moving on that red line. Not being able to pull off a shot I decided to track him. (I normally would change my stand around that scrape but with the SSE I couldn’t find a suitable tree). The red line shows where he went, to the best of my ability this is how I believe he went. He pretty much stayed right on my property the whole time but at every scrape location I could not set up for a SSE wind. This weekend was pretty much done. With work and other obligations I will not be able to hunt again until Saturday evening. With that being said the other component to successful scrape hunting is time and timing. From what the map tells me I think I know where he likes to bed. A special thanks to Mike for your input on Friday. Any other thoughts?
