Tap, I don't know. I hope that your reasoning is correct because I have a mock scrape/scent post on the edge of my yard that I pee in, check trail cam at, and in general visit all the time without any worry about scent control. I will never hunt it and those deer will never experience a threatening encounter there due to me. I WILL hunt within a quarter mile of it though. My father in law runs the ranch. I've watched deer simply step off the road as he drove through and continue about their business after he passed. A different truck coming up the road gets a white flag and running for the hills. His truck is none threatening in every aspect to them but a strange or different truck is to be avoided.
It's cool that you can watch your oldest buck in the daylight without alarm!
I didn't say that buck was old, I said he was my oldest. I've watched him at least 30 times since summer and I'm torn on his age. I'm thinking he's 4.5 and I live in a place where 4 years old is not common.
Your scrape sounds a lot like mine. It's fairly close to my barn so I check it often and never worry about my odors. Usually smell like sweat, tractor fuel, or lawnmower fumes.
I started conditioning my animals unintentionally several years ago when I used to feed corn heavily. It all started one winter with a bearded hen turkey. She wasn't all that spooked by me and would hang close when I went out to the feeders with 5 gallon buckets of corn. The other turkeys would run away, but not her. After a while, she started coming to within a few yards of me to get corn. The rest of the flock started noticing and they became brave. It got to the point that I had over 80 turkeys all around me, some less than 1 yard away. At that point, the deer were not yet coming close, but they were often watching from a distance.
Then came "The Boss". She's an old doe with a short mane that I easily recognize because I see her pretty much daily. The Boss must have started trusting me because of the turkeys surrounding me. She started coming extremely close. It got to the point that her twin fawns would eat out of the bucket while I was holding it. On one hand it was kinda cool, but on the other hand, I didn't like that I felt I was making deer less "wild". I swear, that fall The Boss got downwind of me and actually came over looking for corn! I stopped all of the artificial feeding. My animals now move off when I'm in the yard, but they definately believe I'm not a threat to them...while I'm in the yard. They certainly don't like when I creep through the woods, though.
Hope I'm not jacking your thread Mo. The rubbing posts in your yard, and the rubs and scrapes in my yard has me thinking that there is some utility in allowing deer to encounter, and get used to our odor in "safe zones".
This was the beginning of the conditioning...
Here's the buck I believe is the oldest I have this year. He ain't old and he doesn't have a large rack, but he's not too bad for this part of Pa.
The plot he's in has a Canada Thistle problem and I've been spending a lot of time walking around spot spraying. This buck has undoubtably smelled me quite a few times, yet he still comes around during the daylight.
I have dozens of pics of him in my mock. My odor doesn't seem to bother him there. Wonder what will happen if he winds me while hunting.
