At the Ranch - Whitetail: Mock Scrapes are the Secret to More Trail Camera Photos

I want to talk about why mock scrapes are the secret to getting more trail camera photos in October while out on the hunt. October is an interesting month because it’s a month of transition. Bucks are transitioning from the early fall and summer range into more of rut mode. The days are getting shorter, photo periods are getting smaller, it’s getting darker earlier, and all of these things are triggering these bucks to get ready for the rut.

Now the rut is not going to kick in throughout most of the Midwest until late October into November. But, in the middle part of October, even early October, there’s a change going on with bucks and they’re starting to build their testosterone, they’re starting to communicate more with mock scrapes, and they’re starting to pot the ground. Mock scrapes are going to open up depending where you’re at kind of all throughout the month of October. If you can get ahead of the game and make mock scrapes, it could trigger some bucks.

Right now, I’m trying to stream one trail camera over to a mock scrape. It’s how deer are going to start communicating and it’s gonna be your best spot for bucks plus it’s going to be your best way to get trail camera photos of bucks, specifically in the month of October. A lot of your pictures might be at night as bucks are hitting these scrapes, but that’s okay. I’m mainly just using these trail camera images as an indication of what bucks are in the area. The bucks hit the mock scrape, it helps me to know where he’s at, and then I can make a game plan on how to hunt them from there. I highly recommend that you get all your trail cameras, or at least most of them, on mock scrapes or real scrapes. If you walk in the woods and there’s already scrapes active, it is a good indication for a hotspot and where to place a camera in October. But if there aren’t scrapes active, then you know you should make your own and that’s a great way to trail camera photos.