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Advice for trail cams & mock scrapes on public?

LoadedLimbs

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2020
Messages
977
Location
Connecticut
Ok - based on my whitetail hunting experience, scrapes are like the community bus stop for the local deer population. Everyone passing through the area tends to check it out. Finding a hot scrape in the pre-rut has given me some great action in past seasons. So I like the idea of setting up some mock scrapes ahead of the season and setting up a trail cam on each one to survey the deer population and narrow in on what deer to target this Fall.

I'm stepping up my intel game and will be setting up as many as a dozen trail cams this year. I want to set up a few mock scrapes in different locations and I'm looking for tips and general advice on setting up mock scrapes on public land to get up the learning curve faster than figuring it out through trial & error. And this might be a good thread for others starting the trail cam intel-collection journey like me.

Timing: When is the best time to set them up for collecting intel? Is it fruitful to do it at the start of the Summer, or a waste of time? (Archery season opens in mid-September in my home state.) I'm thinking I should get them out there by the end of June so I'm not disturbing the area in the Fall. I'll be using cell cams, so I don't disturb all the areas to collect SD card images. If you have different advice about timing of setting up mock scrapes, I'm all ears.

Location: I primarily hunt parcels of public land that are deciduous forest (mostly white oak stands with lots of thickets of mountain laurel throughout). In the lower areas, there are some modest-size swamps. Both the laurel and the swamps hold deer well and make up the security cover that they use. What's your strategy for locating where to set up a mock scrape? I've found good scrapes on level ground, but also on sloping ground ... not sure if the deer have a preference, but in my area it doesn't seem so. Any thoughts on that? Do you try to find an established scrape line and then add a mock scrape to the line, or do you target placement somewhere else? An area of heavy rubs? An edge of a bedding area? An edge of a water source? An edge of a feeding area?

Size: How large do you generally make your mock scrapes? The size of a 1/2 sheet of plywood (4' x 4')? Smaller? Larger?

Licking branches: Have you experimented to see if you get better results with natural growth licking branches vs. hanging a vine over it for that purpose? Do you put anything on the licking branches or vine? How high off the ground should the licking branch or vine be (ideally)? What's your preferred licking branch setup & why?

Attractants / Scents: Do you use a scent dripper, or just take a leak in the mock scrape to get it started? Have you experimented with commercial scents and attractants, and if so, what is your advice and why?
 
Any reason you prefer mock scrapes over real ones? I have two cameras on real community scrapes, in fact I swapped out batteries on one this morning.

As far as timing - I leave cameras up all year. I just enjoy getting pics. I move them around, but they are always up.

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Following. I am interested in this too. I hunt public and so far only have hunted natural scrapes. I'd love to try a mock this year though. My absolute best scrapes have been in small areas of clearing between two thick bedding areas. That's where I'd try to set a mock if I was to do it.
 
@GreginPA - I don't have a preference for mock scrapes over real ones. I'll put a camera over the few active scrapes on my radar. Just thinking I want to try making some mock scrapes since I'm significantly increasing the number of cameras I'm putting out this year.
 
I put my cameras on both community natural and mock scrapes. Was thinking about biting the bullet and getting some pre-orbital gland to slather on the liking branches. To facilitate more activity I tie up a vertical licking branch even with natural scrapes with natural licking branches because they break the natural ones off quite a bit and I feel adding to it enhances the scrape to some extent. We have grape vines around here so I typically use those. I go through and cut the grape vines (they pull trees down eventually) and cut a 3 or 4 foot section of that up and tie it up near the natural licking branch. On my mocks I try to position it out and so the bottom hangs about 3-3.5 feet high from the ground. What pre-orbital gland scent do you guys use? Any recommendations?
 
I've setup a few mock scrapes in the past, the most successful ones have always had a higher general population traveling the area; i.e. on a heavy trail or very near thick cover that bottlenecks an travel corridor. I've also put down some crushed mineral adjacent to the scrape to produce a short term population boom in front of the camera. Perhaps odd but I do always pee in the scrape. Deer know it's pee, they haven't yet been able to figure out the pee came from a human.

I've always been interested in trying a horizontal rub but haven't had the time yet to set one up. Rubs obviously will narrow your sample set to mostly bucks:
 
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