Around where I hunt, the licking branch will continue to be used, but I rarely find a scrape underneath it.
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That's about 95% my experience. The licking branch of
primary scrapes is a year round deal, but I seldom see the ground worked after around now...branch yes, ground not so much.
And those one-timer scrapes usually won't have active licking branches. If you find a branch that's getting hit into spring time, that would be a good spot to keep an eye on next fall.
I hear that there's licking branches that don't have ground activity and that those types of branches are also year-round deals. I can't say I've ever found a heavily used licking branch that didn't have ground activity, but supposedly, they aren't uncommon. I don't know.
The scrape in my pic in post #10 is kind of unusual for around here. Seeing tracks in scrapes all year isn't unusual because deer stand there while they check or work the branch, but actual ground pawing isn't very common (around here) after March or so. It's clear in my pic that the ground was worked very recently.
I assume the age structure of the buck herd (and fawn numbers) and the buck:doe ratio will have something to do with the timing of how scrapes are used. Fawns, in a healthy herd can come into heat in late winter. I'll bet as long as there's at least some age class of females coming into estrus, then bucks will exhibit the kinds of scrape activity (ground pawing, rub urination) that we see in October thru December.
