How to take advantage of buck scrapes when hunting, or simply getting photos of deer

By Oak Duke / The Evening Tribune

Along with buck rubs on trees and saplings, the time of the ubiquitous and mysterious scrape, a bare patch of ground on the forest floor, is here.

Some of us have spent countless hours perched in trees and in ground blinds, watching scrapes as a hunting tactic.

And along the way, once in a blue moon, scrape-watching has paid off in the form of the buck of our dreams.

If I had spent that same amount of time, say, over a timely food source, funnel, inside corner, or staging area, perhaps my success rate in filling a buck tag would have been more successful.

But those kinds of hypotheticals are impossible to answer. My suspicion is that I would have killed at least as many bucks, but I would not have learned as much about scrapes and of course the factor of the all-important Overhanging Branch. READ ON