Welcome to trail cameras weekly featured on muddy tv, as you can probably guess this will be a quick video blog every week on trail cameras and how they relate to whitetails and hunters, we will be covering where to put trail cameras, how to set them up, what settings to put them on, quick trail camera tips, and a lot more, all relating to whats going on in the whitetails world during that week. The videos will be put up every Monday to cover what you should be doing with your trail cameras that week. This will also be semi-live just like the other shows whitetail 101 and trophy pursuit on muddy tv, so you will be seeing intel, pictures, video content from what we are seeing, how we are hunting, and of course how we are going to run trail cameras for the given week. This is the very first installment of this series, so this video blog will cover the week of October 1st through the 9th, the next will cover the 10th – 16th. And so on throughout deer season. Now for this weeks topic, I lined up one of my favorites for this time of year… how to make a mock scrape.
Typically during late September through the first weeks of October like this week, I switch my trail cameras to mock scrapes. This helps me or any hunter out because here in Indiana, and in many states where baiting is illegal during the season, we have to clear out the bait site which also happens to be where we have snapped pictures of bucks all summer long at. So during late September and this first week of October, a lot of hunters can be left clueless as to where to put out trail cameras. Also during this time you have to remember that crops are being cut, days are shortening, hormones are changing, and this all means a buck’s home range is changing. Mock scrapes can act as an attractant like a bait site, to lure bucks in to gather intel and find out which bucks are on your property.
For how to make a mock scrape, I simply find a good location where deer and more importantly bucks frequent, find a good sturdy licking branch 4-5 ft high, snap it off, clear out the ground with a stick about 2 ft wide, and put scent in the form of mock scrape starter on the ground.
For the trail camera placement I typically set the camera on a tree where the deer will not be facing to avoiding spooking it, and run it on video mode, I want to see the buck working the scrape, where he comes in and where he exits. I’ll also put it on a 1-minute delay or less, the bucks won’t spend a lot of time here and if ou put it in the right area bucks and does will be passing by pretty frequently. So for this week, try your hand at how to make a mock scrape, and running a trail camera over it, you’ll be surprised at the amount of intel you will gather this time of year.
