Deer cam on active natural scrape

[TN_boy]

Public land
4 weeks ago I moved all my cameras around. The way in is an old road and gets tons of foot traffic as it is the easiet entry route to the area.
That road ends up at a nice, small, lush green field. On my way walking back to the truck I had 1 camera left so I walked just inside woods around field edge and found a freshly worked scrape. It was only about the size of a pie plate and not completely cleaned to the soil. What the heck. I put the cam on it about 10 yards away.

The amount of deer traffic at this spot has left me speechless. Being so close to human traffic, I thought there was no way it could be this busy.
I have seen bucks and does on their hind legs rubbing the tree as hight as they could stand to rub their head on limbs. Bucks have posed to pee on their tarsal gland and in the scrape.
Does have peed and pooped in it.

Watching the social interaction has been a pure joy.

[TN_boy]

...

[Pstraw]

You need to be figuring out where to locate a stand in there before someone else does. That appears to be a honey hole to me.

[Killer]

Wow

[DaveC]

Impressive activity for one spot!

[tps7742]

No doubt allot of activity with the evidence you produced. The rut and scrapes activity have always been interesting to me and of all the different opinions from people also on this topic. When I lived in the suburbs of Houston, during the hunting extravaganzas that I attended if there were a seminar on rutting I tried my best to attend it. GarGuy’s thread on hunting pressured deer is a fine synopsis, yet detailed of hunting east tx, at least is where I primarily have hunted all my life. Congratulations on your new find of deer activity. I would figure out a way to hunt it with as minimal intrusion as possible as you know.

[gtsticker]

Did you see how often the same buck came to the scrape. Was there a pattern of every 3 days or so? Old timers used to say the dominant buck would be there within a 3 day period.

[TN_boy]

. I would figure out a way to hunt it with as minimal intrusion as possible as you know.

I tagged out in November. At this point all my cams are just for research and data collection. The trick to this spot will be figuring out how to setup without drawing attention from other hunters walking a well established road 20yds away.

All the trees are dwarf and not conducive to stand or my saddle. Tripod wood be too visible. I believe my only route is to make a natural ground blind after season. I may move other cams here to find travel routes to get further away from human activity.

[TN_boy]

Did you see how often the same buck came to the scrape. Was there a pattern of every 3 days or so? Old timers used to say the dominant buck would be there within a 3 day period.

The largest body/racked buck shows about every 4 days, but also before and after any major weather event. He was there Friday evening before the rain/wind and Saturday afternoon an hour after clearing.

Yesterday afternoon I had bucks on all my cameras.

[Beargrasstx]

Very cool, looks like lake somerville area

[JBJTX81]

That deer in pics 5/6 looks pretty dang solid.

[lovemylegacy]

Good spot to get an inventory of bucks still alive.
Im amazed at the amount of daytime movement there

[Drycreek3189]

That camera must not scare them like mine did. I had an old road on a place I used to own that always had several scrapes on it. Every time I put a camera on one it would take one pic of a mature buck then go cold. I finally was able to get multiple pics by backing my golf cart up to the tree and hanging the camera as high as I could reach while standing on the cart.

You got some really eye opening pictures !

[justletmein]

Man that's awesome. Everybody always "going deep" and walking by all the animals.

[TN_boy]

Looks like the 2nd rut has come to a close. Big boys no longer visiting and the small guys are becoming less frequent.

However, I did catch this coyote peeing in the scrape, very interesting!