The last two weeks of October are two of my favorite weeks of the year. The leaves are starting to take on lots of color, while the deer are beginning the yearly ritual. It’s an exciting time of year, especially for deer hunters! A lot of bucks will be loaded up in the back of trucks over the next few weeks; don’t you want to be one of those happy hunters? Use scrapes to find where bucks are active and move in for the kill!

Before and after of the mock scrape created to monitor bucks in the area.

There are many reasons why I love this time of year, fall leaf color, cool temperatures, MLB postseason baseball, but one of my favorites is the whitetail pre-rut. It is a great time of year to have those trail cameras out! Bucks are spending a lot of time working scrapes right now and that can make for great trail camera locations! We put several of our Reconyx cameras overlooking scrapes this time of year. Not only do we find scrapes, we also make them. If we’re in an area with very limited scrape limbs, we will make a scrape tree. Making a mock scrape is a very simple process. Start by bringing in a small tree with horizontal limbs about 4.5 to 5 feet off the ground. Drive a t-post into the ground at your desired location and then tie the tree to the post securely; making sure the tree is stable and secure. Once the tree is secure, scrape the ground under the limbs exposing bare dirt, just like a buck would do. This is a great way to locate bucks in areas where scrapes are very limited.

Bucks of all age classes will be checking scrapes over the next few weeks. If your cameras are watching the scrapes you’ve got a great chance at catching a hit list buck! Once you locate a buck, you should move in quick! It could be a brief window of time before he’s off cruising for receptive does.

It’s an amazing time of year, find time this week to get outside and enjoy this wonderful world God created for us!

Daydreaming of whitetails,

Adam