Mock Scrapes are Great! But Rubbing Posts are Better!

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MoBuckChaser

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Last 3 years I noticed my 14" cedar tree getting rubbed in my back yard of the hunting shack. I had no idea when I put a camera on a tree in my yard, that this was going on outside my window. Most all different bucks in the past 3 days on these vidoes. Click and enjoy!

 
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wow that's crazy with the house windows all lit up!
 
I was thinking about this thread today and I wondered about another possible benefit of making mock scrapes.
A lot of us on here believe that deer can be conditioned to get somewhat used to our individual human odor.
My main mock scrape is never hunted over so any deer using it has never had a negative interaction with me...but they do smell me because I'm not all that careful with my odor when I pull camera cards or freshen it this mock.
My deer absolutely hammer this scrape. I can't exaggerate how often it gets used.
So, can we actually use mocks to condition our local deer to our odor, and if so, can the conditioning help reduce negative encounters when we are in our stands? Just wondering what you guys think?
And I guess I was responding to the other thread about "mock scrapes working"...oops.

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Tap said:
I was thinking about this thread today and I wondered about another possible benefit of making mock scrapes.
A lot of us on here believe that deer can be conditioned to get slightly used to our individual human odor.
My main mock scrape is never hunted over so any deer using it has never had a negative interaction with me...but they do smell me because I'm not all that careful with my odor when I pull camera cards or freshen it this mock.
My deer absolutely hammer this scrape. I can't exaggerate how often it gets used.
So, can we actually use mocks to condition our local deer to our odor, and if so, can the conditioning help reduce negative encounters when we are in our stands? Just wondering what you guys think?

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My parents are out on their place none stop. Dad puts out a gallon or two of corn about every day. They drive the truck right up to stands, goof around, the kids make mazes in the food plots, etc... no scent control at all. When someone hunts out there nobody pays attention to wind direction or scent control. The only "must do" is you have to ride to the stand in their truck. If you walk in or get dropped off in a different vehicle you probably won't see deer! I believe they can be conditioned.
 
Catscratch said:
My parents are out on their place none stop. Dad puts out a gallon or two of corn about every day. They drive the truck right up to stands, goof around, the kids make mazes in the food plots, etc... no scent control at all. When someone hunts out there nobody pays attention to wind direction or scent control. The only "must do" is you have to ride to the stand in their truck. If you walk in or get dropped off in a different vehicle you probably won't see deer! I believe they can be conditioned.
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No doubt in my mind that deer can be conditioned to some extent. I'm wondering if we can use mocks THAT WE DON'T HUNT, to somewhat condition deer to accept our odor and lessen the impact of our odor, for the adjacent areas that we DO HUNT. I know deer identify each other by their unique odor, so there's no reason to believe that they don't identify each human in the same way. The more neutral, non-threatening encounters a deer has with my odor, the less likely he will be to panic when he encounters MY odor while I'm hunting...sound logical?
I think it's important that the mock I'm talking about is never hunted so deer never have a negative encounter when they detect our odor at the scrape.
I started thinking about this today when I watched my oldest buck, (an hour before dark by the way) at my mock and totally unalarmed...that happened 4 hours after I peed in it with no odor control.
No doubt that he accepted my odor at the time.

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Here is the deal with this Thread, almost none of these bucks are on any of the game cameras we have on this 80 and the other 600 acres we lease next door. They are magicians at avoiding cameras on trails and mock scrapes. But they HAVE to come to a rubbing post, no matter where that is. Even if it is next to a house. It surprised the piss out of me, and it was right under my nose!
 
MoBuckChaser said:
Here is the deal with this Thread, almost none of these bucks are on any of the game cameras we have on this 80 and the other 600 acres we lease next door. They are magicians at avoiding cameras on trails and mock scrapes. But they HAVE to come to a rubbing post, no matter where that is. Even if it is next to a house. It surprised the piss out of me, and it was right under my nose!
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I've been amazed quite a few times of how deer can be so close to my camera and not have their photo taken. Times that I watched a buck approach the camera, and I couldn't wait to check the card to see his picture, only to find out the photo wasn't taken. Makes me wonder how often deer avoid camera detection, either by accident or design.

The usage of my best mock is similar to your rubbing post. Deer have a hard time walking past the overhanging vine without stopping to check it out. Bucks, does and fawns... They all sniff it. They can't seem to help themselves. They often check it without paying any attention to the ground (scrape). They want to check the other deer scent on the overhanging vine/branch. Just like your signpost rub.

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I had a buck one year that I could watch from the second story barn window. He regularly walked around a camera to get into the beans.

The next summer he could care less and walked in front of all kinds of cameras.

???? Maybe he got used to them, maybe he got old enough not to care? Who knows, But I also believe they will avoid cameras
 
I generally have a camera relatively close to my stands, in our open country I can see a considerable distance from most of my stands. It dawned on me this year while hunting just how often a deer takes a different route and isnt caught on camera. Some maybe avoiding the camera, but others are just wandering. I have a camera that has been on a historically used scrape that wasnt showing much deer activity until just the last week. When I have hunted there this year the deer seemed to prefer walking on the back side of the camera. Now the deer working the scrape pose for multiple pictures and often a few minutes later they are back!
 
Tap said:
No doubt in my mind that deer can be conditioned to some extent. I'm wondering if we can use mocks THAT WE DON'T HUNT, to somewhat condition deer to accept our odor and lessen the impact of our odor, for the adjacent areas that we DO HUNT. I know deer identify each other by their unique odor, so there's no reason to believe that they don't identify each human in the same way. The more neutral, non-threatening encounters a deer has with my odor, the less likely he will be to panic when he encounters MY odor while I'm hunting...sound logical?
I think it's important that the mock I'm talking about is never hunted so deer never have a negative encounter when they detect our odor at the scrape.
I started thinking about this today when I watched my oldest buck, (an hour before dark by the way) at my mock and totally unalarmed...that happened 4 hours after I peed in it with no odor control.
No doubt that he accepted my odor at the time.

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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!
 
Awesome video and some really nice bucks!

On Mortenson's note about deer being close to the house, will say that does not surprise me. Two years ago I bought a Bushnell Equinox monocular for the purpose of traveling to and from stands without the use of a bright while light flashlight. Turns out the monocular has gotten near daily use by me opening my front door right before I call it a night to see what creatures are running around. Nightly during the fall I see deer are feeding in my fields and under live oaks just 30 yards from my house. Strongly confirmed that though deer were using the more wooded and remote 90 acres behind my home during the evenings and mornings, in the middle of the night they quite consistently grouped up in the open 10 acres immediately in front of my home and that included some smart old boys that rarely showed up on any of my other cameras. Even the biggest bucks that were extremely cautious by day would nightly be under the live oaks just feet from the house crunching on live oak acorns without an apparent worry in the world. Also have witnessed lots of late night bedding as well as chasing and rutting, again just yards from my front door.



Equinox does use infrared light / if you look straight at it you can see red glow but on the conditioning note, the local wildlife don't seem alarmed if they're seeing it as the light is FAR less than put out by the house lights and TV screen that can be seen from outside. For price of a couple of Benjamins, one of my favorite man-toy purchases to date. :-)
 
Few more comments on the Equinox... again with the caveat that it has visible red glow, it does really reach out... one of the reasons I use it each night is to confirm a gate I have 200 yards from the house is closed. I can easily make out the gate. Have a dock 600 yards away from the house and if I use the highest light-power setting I can make it out. Love that it allows photo or videos to be recorded to a microSD. Has a zoom feature and allows for multiple intensity settings with click of button, even a zero red-light setting for when moon is full enough for it to take advantage of the available light. Hope I haven't hijacked the thread too much MoBuckChaser but subject of night pics / observations made me think about the Equinox. No vested interest in my part... no connection to Bushnell in any shape manner or form -- just like it as a pretty fun observation tool.
 
Catscratch said:
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!
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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...100_1428.JPG


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.Screen Shot 2016-09-30 at 10.13.42 AM.jpg


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.
SUNP0039.jpg
 
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Tap - Your buck has a beer gut !! He must be feeding well around your place.

I've noticed the attraction of rubbing trees / scent posting. I think they are checked more than scrapes from all I've seen over the years. I've seen deer walk within feet of scrapes, but rubbed trees and certain limbs that have no scrapes under them, get scent - checked and licked and/or rubbed.
 
Bowsnbucks said:
Tap - Your buck has a beer gut !! He must be feeding well around your place.

I've noticed the attraction of rubbing trees / scent posting. I think they are checked more than scrapes from all I've seen over the years. I've seen deer walk within feet of scrapes, but rubbed trees and certain limbs that have no scrapes under them, get scent - checked and licked and/or rubbed.
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I'm having trouble guessing this guy's age. I see him several times per week. He has the belly of a 5 year old, the neck and shoulders of a 4 year old, and the rack of a 3 year old. I make those judgements based on seeing mim with other bucks for comparison.

No doubt that licking branches are checked more than scrapes and they're checked year round. Sometimes they are at the same location so we notice them because we notice the scrape. But there are a lot of scent-marked branches thru out the woods with no scrape under them and we never know they exist without the ground being torn-up.
 
They are still hitting the tree in the yard on Nov 30th!

 
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Mo - Buck must be one tough S.O.B. to take on a full-sized tree !! Bucks usually strengthen their neck muscles on " bendy " trees. Good show from the window.
 
I checked just a couple of cameras yesterday at lunch. I could tell that our second rut is just beginning to start. A new buck that I have never seen showed up on camera. He looked at least 4 years old but not a great rack and some of it broken off.

Anyway - when he passed by a Reconyx HC 600 he either heard of saw something when his picture was taken. He then looked right at the camera and when it got him again, he took off like a scaled dog. I've never seen a deer react to a black flash camera like this. I have to believe that this deer had never seen a camera before this time. It will be interesting to see if he stays around and gets used to them.

At another location an identical camera got his picture too, but for some reason, he didn't detect that camera.

The home deer pay no attention at all to the cameras, except that some of them seem to want to pose for a picture, like they know what is going on.
 
Native Hunter said:
The home deer pay no attention at all to the cameras, except that some of them seem to want to pose for a picture, like they know what is going on.
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They are taunting you!:D
 
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