The Difference Maker

Animal sign is the basis for a hunter’s understanding of activity in any given area and helps him/her determine if the spot is worthy of an investment of time.

Scat, tracks, beds and forage are all important in finding a suitable habitat for your quarry. But the most exciting, and infuriating, sign of game are often rubs.

In the West, elk and mule deer rubs are exciting to see, but often don’t lead to enough information. Elk can travel over ten miles a day away from their rubs and mule deer range can change based on the season, so the rubs may offer no clues.

All throughout the Midwest and East, however, rubs and scrapes lines are a tried and true tactic for targeting mature bucks.

Hunting a scrape line isn’t as easy as finding rubbed trees and staking out the area all hunting season. Scrapes often need a detective’s eye and a monk’s patience and some basic understanding of deer behavior. Finding a solid scrape line could be the difference between tag soup and a big buck for you this year.

Scrape vs Scrape Line

When looking for a scrape line to hunt over, you need to pay special attention, whether you’re looking at general tree rubs, or if it is a scrape line. Whitetails will rub trees throughout September as they rid their antlers of velvet. Scrapelines, on the other hand, won’t begin to show up until around mid-October, as bucks begin their preparations for the rut.

The rut is all about scents for deer. Trees belonging to a scrape line will have loose dirt underneath where a buck has pawed at the ground and urinated on it. This mound of dirt will be matched with scrapes on above branches where the buck has rubbed its antlers to mark the spot and applied a generous amount of scent from its head.

Like early elk bugling, this act starts as a way for bucks to keep track of one another in a certain area. Look for scrape lines to start appearing in early, to mid, October as bucks begin their early preparations for the rut.

How To Hunt a Scrape Line

Cameras are an important tool before you even think of setting your stand over a line. When mature bucks begin making a scrape line in early Fall they are almost completely nocturnal. To even get an idea of the quality of deer working a line of trees and bushes, you must have cameras set up for night time movement.

As the season progresses toward the rut, bucks will start checking on their scrapes more and more during the daylight. Your cameras will come in handy again as you start to detect when certain bucks begin visiting the scrapes during shooting hours.

When bucks start visiting during shooting light, it’s time to get in your stand. Take in mind though, even if you’ve seen bucks cruising during the daylight, you can’t expect to pattern them to a specific hour. This is the exciting part of hunting a scrape line; knowing that at almost any time of day you could see a mature deer coming out to check on things.

Make sure to keep BaseMap by your side as well, to mark, map and catalog all the memories of this next, best, hunting season.