Early Season Mock Scrapes

Location is key when making mock scrapes in September. Keep in mind you will be dealing with bachelor groups of bucks. The last thing you want to do is alert them to your presence, so make and freshen mock scrapes during the middle of the day when bucks are bedded. In agricultural country, use binoculars and spotting scopes to locate bachelor groups in soybeans fields. Also, use game cameras to key in on bachelor groups of bucks in and around food plots.

The areas where these bachelor bucks are hanging out or feeding is a good place for an early-season stand. They also make great places for your mock scrape. First, find or create an overhanging limb about 4 to 5 feet above the ground to use as your licking branch. Next, find a limb towards the end of the branch and break it off. Then, dab Code Blue Rack Rub gel on the end of the branch. 

Use a rake to clear out the leaves or grass and lightly rip up the soil. Next, you’ll want to freshen up the scrape with buck scent. Code Blue engineered Grave Digger Scrape Mate for this purpose. Scrape Mate consists of dirt impregnated with Code Blue buck urine. Simply pour 3/4s of the bottle of Grave Digger into a dug-out area in the middle of the scrape. Next, cover the Grave Digger with surrounding soil and apply the remaining contents on top of covered area. Lastly, add a few drops of Code Blue Buck Urine. Remember, you are playing off of the buck’s curiosity when creating a mock scrape. You’re imitating that another buck has moved into the area.

When creating mock scrapes for hunting purposes, think about the scrape’s location in relation to a suitable tree for a stand. Carefully map out and consider the prevailing wind for the early season. Many areas of the country might still have plenty of southerly winds in September. Be sure to hang your stand downwind of the mock scrape. Pay special attention to how you will enter and exit the area you are hunting. You don’t want to walk through an area where deer will be passing by.

When making mock scrapes always wear rubber boots and rubber gloves. Make sure your clothes have been treated and washed with D/CODE Laundry Detergent and you spray yourselves and clothes down with D/CODE Scent Elimination; the idea is to enter and exit like a ghost.

If you take the time to carefully freshen these mock scrapes every few weeks with Grave Digger Scrape Mate or Buck Urine, more than likely the local buck population will take over the scrape and keep it freshened for you. If the deer are still frequenting a mock scrape well into October and November, then start adding breeding-season scents such as Doe Estrous in early to mid-November.

No tactic is foolproof but having a few extra tricks and using them with a solid strategy may be the key to successfully and consistently taking mature deer. These mock scrape tactics work equally well for setting up camera locations to spy on local bucks.

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