When you find a fresh scrape........aand I mean FRESH, as in a wet spot in it, or at least a strong odor representing the fact that he used it in the last 24 hours,....you hang a portable and hunt it RIGHT THEN! That is a big key.....everything is portable, it's the only way to consistently kill big bucks. You may get one occasionally from a permanent stand, but you will not consistently be hunting big bucks this way. You find it, lock on, and hunt it until the day you see no current sign of activity. I will not hunt one that has had not activity in two days You can tell this by the "wettness" and also by taking a limb and brushing out the tracks in the scrape,.......many deer tracks will be present.........but your looking for HIS.
Odor control is a MAJOR concern, but is with any stand site. That is why you isually will kill your buck withing a couple of days of moving to a new location, or you don't get him at all.......I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me.
Here is a perfect scenario........
I was scouting a remote part of the 2000 acres
that made up my property and the land I leased.......when I found a fresh scrape near a really thick bedding area. The big problem was, it took me over 30 minutes of walking to access it, and I mean trhough some nasty, NOISY stuff. So I noted it and knew I had to move on it soon, or it would not workout fot me. Well, the wind was wrong for the next few days, and I didn't want to "burn" the spot by constantly going in, so I decide to wait another 2 or 3 weeks until the "second rut"...knowing the buck was not killed and he should be running the same line. So I took a chance the day after christmas, knowing the second rut was paeking, and the area was "un-tainted".
In an effort to reduce noise, I waited for daylight so I could see well, them inched my way in so slowly, I arrived an hour after daylight. It was 7 o clock when I climbed up, the first day I had ever hunted the location, but I did notice the fresh scrapr in the exact spot it was a month prior,.......he continued using this location because it was in his safe zone. I knew from the track he was a real "cruiser weight" and I was right.
At 7:30, a friend I let hunt with me that day fired a shot across my property, over where a lot of the sign and activity was. He had taken a 6 point the day before from the same stand, and a spike the day before that. He was in an area where you could kill deer, but I preferred less sightings, but a higher chance at a magnum.
After a couple of hours, I was axious to go see what he got, but made myself stay up until 11am......it was now 10:45.......only 15 more minutes and I could get down and stretch
........aand then it appeared, a shadow moving in the distant brush, to most probably nothing, but I knew, I expected it, and sure enough, he was doing his midday "run". He was closing ground , then did a half circle around me from up wind, but luckily, the thermals had long since carried my scent away from where I walked in.
He began closing quickly, and at 70 yards I told myself to let him come as close as he would, but I instantly squezzed off at 50 yards without so much as a thought........caught up somewhere in between not wanting something to go wrong by waiting longer and just plain panic at the sight of such a big buck!
At the shot, he exploded from the opening and into the dense cover, and it sounded as though he ran a mile til he went out of hearing. After a few minutes I got down, beginning to wonder had I pulled off in excitement?........as I went over to the spot where he stood, there was blood everywhere, and pink bubbly blood,...I knew I had lung at that point, and a smile came over my face, which only moments before had a sense of panic. The short blood trail led me only 30 yards inside the thicket,...not the mile my mind had played tricks on me.
He was a big beautiful 9 point with a kicker that weighed in excess of 240 pounds.....the biggest deer ever killed in a dozen years of hunting that place. @00 to 220 were generally our bruiser bucks, but this guy had a little extra. He was battled scars and had cuts over both eyes that were scabbed over, and all he wanted was to find his lady.........oh well.
A side note to that story...........that was in 96'.......and for many different reasons, mainly some cutting in the area, I never hunted that spot again until this last season, at which time at 4 o'clock in the afternnon, I killed another bruiser in the exact spot, a big 10 pointer that now takes his place on my "wall of honor" right next to his buddy.
Engmann, on how to narrow the search...............it has to be a scarpe either near or in a VERY thick area, such as a bedding area or thick travel corridor. They will not visit scapes in the open as much in the daylight, nor will they kepp them active in the open as much in a "security zone" where they feel the most comfortable. Once you know what to look for, it is not hard to find.
I went last year to Wolfeman and Timbermans lease 100 miles from my home to hunt, not knowing anything about the place at all.........after a few hours of scouting, I picked a likely spot, and at 4 pm, killed a massive 10 pointer, the biggest taken out there ever by any of them.............lucky, yes, ............but I put myself in the right spot, while my buddy Timberman was hunting all the tracks out near the road, and he took a spike on the same hunt.
They say I am the lucliest hunter they know after a couple decades of hunting with me.........I just grin
Hope this helps
DS
