Hunting Strategy | Deer Hunting & Management

Checking Buck Scrapes for Activity

Hunting Buck Scrapes

You’ve been lucky enough to find a buck scrape. Now, is it active? One method to identify an active scrape is to cover it with leaves and later re-check it a day or few later. This is the most basic approach in finding out whether a white-tailed buck is still in the area and visiting his scrapes.

If you find the scrape has been freshened upon returning you are probably going to want to set up to determine the quality of the buck working the scrape. However, it’s not uncommon for a smaller, or larger, bucks to stop by and leave their own scent-stamp directly over another buck’s scrape.

Hunting a Scrape

In this case, you already know a buck is working the scrape, but is he what you want to harvest? You now have two options. First, you could set up downwind of the scrape, as most bucks wont approach directly and prefer to use the wind to check their scrape, and see what stops by.

Or, you can use a game or trail camera set near the scrape to get photos of all the deer moving through the area. If you see a big, mature buck on your photos, then it’s time to move in as quickly as possible and make all of your work pay off!

Tips For Whitetail Deer Hunters

White-tailed deer hunters are a varied lot. Just as with deer, some are young and naive while others are older, wiser, and pay a lot more attention to detail. And hunting, like life, is all about the details. Trust me, a mature white-tailed buck pays a lot of attention to details and so should you. With that said, here are a few hunting tips to take with you next time you head into the woods. New hunters, file these tips away. Seasoned hunters, consider it a refresher. Now, here are some key tips when heading out whitetail hunting:

Look for Food Sources

This is rather simple. In wooded areas, look for mast producing trees like oaks and pecan. If trees have mast under them, deer will be there. If agricultural fields are nearby, deer will get there. Look for standing corn, wheat fields, alfalfa, and oats. Oh, and do not miss areas that have been either intentionally or unitentionally burned recently. Deer will frequent these areas to get succulent regrowth and cool-season forbs.

Learn the Lay of the Land

By knowing the area where you’re hunting, you’re more likely to be successful. So you know where the food is, but where are the deer coming from? What routes offer the best protection and are the easiest travel corridors for deer to use? Identify the terrain and natural funnels and take advantage of them. This could be anything from a wooded fenceline to a draw on a hill to a trail beside a river.

Know When to Call and Rattle

Just because you have a deer call doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing. The same goes for a set of rattling antlers. I once heard that timing is everything. This is very true when it comes to using audible noices to attract bucks. Whitetail bucks are much more active and likely to respond during certain periods. Discover when this time is in your neck of the woods. Learn what vocalizations are effective and when, then learn to immitate them. Learn when, where, and how to rattle effectively. Know the limitations of rattling.

Take Advantage of the Rut

During rutting season, hunt specific areas where you know there are lots of does. In addition, hunt those areas in the general area where you know a mature buck resides. This offers your best chance at having a smart deer make a stupid mistake. Because bucks are preoccupied during this time, choose to hunt areas that offer good visibility.

Hide Your Scent, Use Theirs

Scent is the number one way deer detect danger. Even though numerous products are on the market that disguise human scent, they all fail at some point. Pay very close attention to the direction of the wind. Have two or more locations to hunt depending upon the direction of the wind. Learn how deer communicate through leaving and detecting deer scent. Eliminate your scent and use theirs to give you the advantage.

Hunt the Cold Fronts

This is very important at southern latitudes where cold weather comes and goes rather quickly during the fall and early winter. Whitetail deer will be more active and more visible the first few days after a cold front passes through an area. If you can hunt cool weather during the rutting period, your odds are that much better.

Be Safe and Prepared

Hunting is all about getting outdoors and having fun. Make sure you keep your equipment in excellent working condition and it will save on the frustration and keep you in a good state of mind. Don’t take chances. Unload your gun before crawling over a fence. Use a safety lanyard when climbing and hunting from an elevated position. Be careful when cleaning game by yourself. A fall from a tree or even a serious cut can become life-threatening when others are not around to assist you. Do not under estimate caution and check out this article for more hunting safety tips.

Leave a game plan with a friend, spouse, or family member to let them know where you are going, when you are going to check in, and when you are returning home. If you have a cell phone, carry it. Keep a first-aid kit in camp, in your truck, and in your hunting pack. I hope you never need it. But if you do, you’ll be glad you have it.

Rattling Up Big Whitetail Bucks

You have seen it on TV. You read about it in the hunting magazines. And you have even tried it once or twice. But the question still remains, “will it work for me?” Can I really expect to bang these antlers together and blow on this deer grunt call and have a buck come running? Yes!

I too was very sceptical about rattling at first. But pay attention, because I am not going to give you a story about the herds of white-tailed bucks that are now running my way. Why? Because I have not had that problem. Bucks don’t always come to rattling antlers, but sometimes they will.

Rattling has both advantages and limitations. Hopefully, after reading this article you will be able to see the tool of rattling for what it truely is, a tool.

Rattling in bucks works on the principle that upon hearing two fighting bucks, any buck hearing the fight will assume the deer are fighting over a doe that is ready to breed. What buck wouldn’t come running to that situation?

Different bucks may come to rattling for different reasons, but antler rattling has something to offer bucks of all ages. Mature bucks are most likely to approach with the mindset to whip the bucks that are in his territory trying to breed “his” does. An inmature buck may come to try and sneak away with the doe while the two fighting bucks are too distracted to notice.

During the rut, as seasoned hunters have learned, white-tailed bucks loose a good bit of caution. In fact, they just do stupid things that they would not normally do. Whatever the reason, and there are more than a couple, there are good reasons to believe that rattling in a deer should be a good method to use to harvest your next buck.

Now, keep two things in mind: 1) rattling has something to offer all age classes of bucks, and 2)the rut is one of the urges that bucks have a hard time controlling. These two factors are what make rattling so effective. It is also very exciting when it works!

So we have talked about why rattling will work, but anyone that has rattled knows that failure is much more common that success. Why? There is a flip-side to antler rattling that you rarely hear more than a comment or two about on the outdoor shows. Just like there are reasons that it will work, there are numerous reasons as to why rattling will not. In fact there are man more reasons that it won’t work.

Let’s start with the obvious. It’s not the rut. Rattling for bucks should only be done during and around the rut. It will not be very productive to rattle if the bucks aren’t interested in the does. Pay attention in the field and learn when the rut usually occurs in your area. Because if its not the right time of year, deer will likely move away from the sound instead of towards it. They know something is wrong.

Next, a buck that is already with a doe will not leave her to come to your mock fight. What incentive would a buck have to go fight over a doe when he’s already won one. When a bull elk hears another bull elk bugle, he will often take his herd and move them in the other direction, further from rival bulls. I am not sure on whether or not deer do this, but I can imagine a whitetail buck moving himself and his doe away from the fighting bucks.

Also, when the buck to doe ratio is near even, say 1:1, rattling is much more effective.This has the effect of raising the competition for the does to a much higher level. If there are 10 does for every buck, there just will not be many fights between bucks. However, fewer does per buck means a lower chance that any particular buck will get to breed any particular doe. This will make bucks more desperate to find a doe to breed. Apon hearing a fight (that’s you and your antlers) they will be many times more likely to come running.

Now, let’s discuss education. Not yours, but the buck’s that you are hunting. I believe bucks get rattled in more times than we even think, but live through the experience. Most people I know have tried rattling at some time, yet few have ever had it work. Since I know that the method does work, I believe that most of these hunters are either set up wrong (get busted without even knowing it) or quit hunting early, never giving the buck a chance to work within range. Either way, the buck learns that not all rattling is necessarily other bucks fighting.

Remember, bucks are not likely to come straight to the sound of rattling on a dead run. They will most likely sneak in to the location. Often, bucks will circle down wind. If they catch the hunter’s scent before the hunter sees the buck, or if they see the hunter get up and leave, then the buck will be even more cautious in the future.

Another very important reason that a buck may avoid your antler rattling is the fear of getting whipped by bigger bucks. Although the buck in the distance listening to your rattling may be a good-sized deer, he may have recently got his butt kicked and is not be looking for more.

Ok, so we discussed why rattling will and will not work. No, antler rattling is not a cure-all for getting your buck this season. And it’s not something that only works in Texas. The reality of rattling is found somewhere in the middle. Now that you know this information, if you find yourself in the right place at the right time, and you’ve got a handle on the deer herd, it’s time to put rattling to work for you.

Finding Whitetail Buck Scrapes

Scouting and finding the scrape or scrape line of a white-tailed buck is a definite plus when gearing up for the hunting season. And truth be known, it’s better to find a scrape or two than a rub-line. Many times it seems that a rub-line is the result of pent up aggression due to growing testosterone in the buck while the scrapes are a definite sign that a buck likes what he has seen in the area.

Scrapes are normally found on higher ground that is dry enough to hold scent and wont be washed out, even if it rains heavily. Areas that repeatedly encounter boggy or swamp-like conditions tend to hold less scrapes than the edges of that same area where the ground is slightly elevated.

Any edge of a field, especially those that contain row crops or food plots are high-percentage areas to find scrapes. Main trails entering swamps, low-lands, creeks, rivers, and draws are also likely places for a scrape or scrape-line. But is finding a scrape reason enough to set up a deer stand and start hunting? Not exactly.

The percentage of scrapes that actually get re-worked is low in most places, but there are a few tactics for increasing the odds and finding out just what scrapes are still active. Trail cameras are great for monitoring scrapes, but be careful not to leave any scent in the area. In addition, you can freshen scrapes with doe or buck urine and see if that causes deer, hopefully the dominant buck in the area, to return. If you detect signs of activity, it may well be time to spend a little time in the stand.

Hunting Whitetails Using Game Cameras

You know the big boy is out there. You have seen the signs that a mature white-tailed buck leaves behind: large tracks, rubs on trees the size of your leg, scrapes the size of a bath tub. Yet the buck has repeatedly managed to give you the slip despite hours on stand. Frustration and doubt are creeping in and you need an advantage.

In the past, you might have resorted to placing string across a trail as a way of monitoring that area. Or maybe you raked the dirt in an attempt to monitor animals walking through the area. But we’ve come a long way and improved, affordable technology is at your disposal. The tools of deer scouting have changed the game.

Enter the trail camera, game camera, or whatever you want to call them. I call them very helpful. Trail cameras are equipped with infrared motion sensors that trigger the camera to take pictures any time an animal crosses the sensor’s beam.

The use of trail cams by deer hunters has grown exponentially during the last few years. Game cameras are no longer reserved for very wealthy or whitetail addicts. Today, the use of game cameras has become almost the norm rather than the exception. I visit a lot of hunting forums and hunters share trail camera photos as easy as they trade opinions. As technology becomes more user-friendly and even less expensive, expect trail camera usage and sales to increase. That’s good news for the manufacturers. Deer hunters love them, too, so it works out.

Through the use of trail cameras, hunters often received a boost in confidence and a surge of determination after discovering that there are more bucks roaming the woods than they had even realized.

Any one that has used a game camera will tell you that they invariably see more bucks in their area thanks to the camera. They will also tell you that bucks, especially big mature bucks, do most of their feeding and moving around at night. Despite the nocturnal nature of whitetail deer, hunters know those deer are out go into hyperdrive in an attempt to lure those bucks out.

Now, if you are considering taking the plunge and purchasing a trail camera, I will let you know that the choices available are numerous so you need to narrow down your options. Your first decision is to choose between film and digital cameras. However, I will save you the choice. Go digital. You will save money on film processing and get your images much faster. If you have a laptop computer, you can download the images instantly in the field and place the blank data storage card right back in the camera. Also, for those pictures that need “tweaking” to see deer in the background, digital images and computers allow you to enhance photos easily.

Hunters will be lured into buying traditional film cameras because the cost of such cameras is less expensive than the digital equivalents, but don’t do it! The short-term gain will soon be lost through the cost of processing film (time+gas+film developing). If you know a game camera is what you need to take your deer hunting to the next level, get all the options concerning digital game cameras before you buy.