Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hunting a Mule deer scrape?

Maybe some of you whitetail hunters can help me.... I've been hunting the same high elevation wilderness area for quite a few years. For the last few years we would get a light snow or rain in october that would make tracking easy, each year I have cut a fresh (hours old) monster track and followed it. Same exact trail, leads down a big finger ridge through a couple of saddles. Anyways this buck has a scrape in a patch of timber on top of the ridge that he freshens up and then moves down the canyon into some heavy bedding cover.... I've always lost the track or deemed it pointless beyond this point. I have some nice trailcam pics of a huge buck and I'm sure its him but have no idea how to get on him. I think he moves late at night.... hopefully early in the morning. Best I can think is to put a tree stand on the scrape and hope he comes by during shooting light?

The best Mulie hunter I know (14 30"+ heads) hunts alone. Goes into the back country, sets up a cold camp and will spend up to a week glassing a trophy buck once he has located it. Once he has patterned it, then he starts hunting.
It's a lot of effort, why he hunts alone. The key is being where the deer will be before he is. That may be a travel route, feeding area or bedding area. Our season in WY is before the rut (because rutting Mulies are not very bright).
The usual cautions about wind, noise and reflections apply 10X with a trophy Mulie.

Good luck !

I am guessing that your buck is bedded by first light. Things change during the rut, but a lot of the public land hunts in the west have been moved out of the rut.

I would find a few spots where you can glass the canyon where he beds up and spend a lot of time behind a good 10-15X binocular and/or a spotting scope. IME, mule deer will move from their morning beds to either get out of the afternoon sun or get in it, depending on temperature and weather. One can often sight them during this mid-day activity and zero in on their afternoon bedding sites. This gives you an opportunity to plan a stalk or try to set up an ambush.

Good luck--that buck didn't get big by strolling around in the open during broad daylight.

I here ya, thats usually how I hunt that type of terrain. I guess I should have mentioned that I'm hunting in the Ca sierras and our deer have some blacktail in them. They are super nocturnal, you have an hour or two at best in the am to catch them moving and then your only option is busting brush. After hunting this area for over 20 years I dont even hunt in the evening anymore....Its still too warm and they just wont move till it cools down. I've killed quite a few by still hunting this area.... The deer are all in heavy timber which makes glassing them almost impossible so I'm trying to go a different route since this particular buck has developed a pattern that makes him tough to intercept. Gonna try some whitetail tacticss on him.... I'm really just wondering what to do with an active scrape? Is it a faux paux to hunt over a scrape? Will I blow the deer out by hunting over it?

My guess is that the answer to your last two questions is "probably not". I am guessing that hunting scrapes is not commonly done in your area. As long as you can take a stand (tree or otherwise) downwind and remain undetected, you probably won't mess up any chances that you might otherwise have. Let us know how it works out...

Here is a pic of him from last year during the summer, judging by the size of the track I know its him....

PS.... Nevermind the date....camera was'nt set.

Put a trail cam on the scrape so you know when he is visiting it and when. You could also put a scrape dripper on it to peak interest but I would start with the cam. Bucks usually approach scrapes from downwind, sometimes on a parallel trail to the main trail to scent check the area first.
I would also put a cam on the trail leading to the bedding area. My best luck hunting scrapes is done in the early mornings. Be extra careful with scent going in and doing your camera work, don't use his trail if you can help it. Scent control is the most important factor.

Just a suggestion.....I wouldn't focus as much on the scrape as his travel route..I'd try setting up in the timber.....way before first light....where wind is favorable related to the trail you think he's using coming to bed in the timber.You may catch him coming to bed after first light.He may still be up on his feet after first light in the security of the timber.

I also wouldn't hesitate to wait until you get some snow/rain for quieter going,and try to still hunt him in there.....sometimes you just have to take the action to nocturnal bucks.If you blow him out without a shot, back off and leave him be(is the season long enough for this?).....sounds like that is his home,and he will come back.

Some big bucks just bed in places where they cannot be glassed up.

Yes with a general tag I have about 4 weeks to bowhunt him, a week off, and then 6 weeks of rifle ending about Nov 1st. Usually the last couple weeks they start in with some pre-rut behavior. Where I'm seeing this activity is in what I call open timber....Heavy timber but pretty clean floor. Where they bed is still pretty heavy timber but the floor is neck deep manzanita and oak brush....a little more rocky too. Just flat out could'nt sneak up on a freight train in there and with the timber its almost impossible to glass into. I think I'm gonna set up a camera and try to put some kind of pattern together...hopefully pack in a tree stand and wait him out. I have noticed on my cameras that when the temps really drop it does cause themm to feed longer and move later in the morning....just gotta figure out where to be?



PS....Is it deer season yet...lol.

Mornings....close to where he beds is where I'd focus.....hopefully ahead of him.It's all a gamble.

We all tend to stay in open areas when mule deer hunting....pick country apart with bins,which is a great tactic,no doubt.But there are times,and places, and bucks,where it may pay to gamble...get in the cover where they spend most of daylight hours.

He's a really nice buck.I doubt he got that big lolligagging in the open in daylight.

I guess I would consider things a little differently considering the actions of a 30+ incher I took years ago near Chama with a TC Hawken in Oct. I first saw him with a few other bucks early am and feeding up the ridge a mile above the valley with a creek. It was raining and my gun hang fired. I checked for blood and found a thin sliver of curved skin with gray and white hair and no blood. That was on a sat. am. On Wednesday I saw them again feeding up the same ridge after daylight and should have shot but he seemed smaller and farther away in the new peep sight. The horns were then bloody with hanging velvet. I hunted him only the entire week and finally saw him again fri. pm late coming down the ridge alone just before dark with mahogany antlers. I thanked God to have finally seen him in the pm and higher up the ridge. The next pm and last day of he hunt I sat high in one of the few big ponderosa pines that were on the oah brush ridge. Just as I gave up I saw him headed down toward me from above and through the scattered oak brush. Finally I saw him step into the open glade- knob above me. I fired and only by the grace of God was able to find him the next day. He had travelled to the next ridge to the north toward a cattle tank and had gone 200 yds after the last blood. The 50 cal maxi ball had hit him in the liver and the blood stopped after he bled down to below the hole.
I figure you may have a chance moving up the ridge and intercepting him below his bed before dark, depending on the WiND. I had been blessed with an evening front with wind from the nw and the buck could not smell me below him as usual.
The problem with a morning hunt on even a wide, shallow ridge is that the deer are moving up to bed and it's almost impossible to get above them without them smelling and circling around you, often only 80 yds away through the timber, still working to the top and over to bed in the steep and thick.
The same problem is reversed in the pm as if you move in to where they are feeding, the up currents bring you scent up the ridge to them. Many times I have sat on a nearby ridge observing bucks on the next and they don't start feeding down the ridge until the LATE pm thermal heads down. This is in my archery and ML fall hunts.
in that type situation I have (and for elk, too) gotten off to the side and below the game by a few hundred yards and waited until the shadows take over and the air cools enough to quite kicking back up hill. You must have real patience or you will move in, as you will want to get setup and quite in plenty of time. it's almost sa if there is a false thermal shift and you will get in position and then have a good while of breeze kicking back uphill. Even watching a watering for elk this will signal game over. When the late evening breeze heads down then haul ass sidehill to your ambush point. Needless to say, with short range hunting you need good luck.
Good fortune, as that is a nice buck you have on the cam pic.

Ps. I saw, on the big one I got that the slug had taken a shallow divot out of the back of his front leg just below the body, where the white under hair met with the grey of the outer leg.

I'm thinking your buck is reaching your camera position after dark, and feeding slowly down to it from above, letting the downhill thermals cover his backside.

Once I found a muley I thought was an elk on first glance. Only time in my life and I had always silently ridiculed those who had told me that. I had looked up to see him coming towards me with about a 38 in. spread with about 15 points on a high rack. He was feeding his way up a ridge to cross and bed in heavy timber at about 10,600 ft., so I knew where he was coming down in the pm. The smaller buck was high and about 29 in wide and I figured almost a booner. After bumping them that am I found a place to watch the tiny meadow with a few aspens from. That Sept. was the warmest I had ever seen in 6 years of hunting there. I would wait every pm till the breeze turned down and rush over to wait. Twice I saw them working down toward the opening from less than 125 yards and even though very late the wind would continue to kick back from the south. They would calmly move around to one side or the other continuing down toward the water a mile away. It would have been impossible to get even a bullet to them as they were so far through the timber only a speck of one of them moving could be seen every once in a while. That deer could have made me famous.

eyeball to hunt him in the AM,you're right...it would take a long climb in the dark to get where you need to be....hard to cover all options in a post, but I have seen some big bucks go to bed as soon as that shadow line in the morning had the sun hit them.

Point is, they were on their feet in legal light, but close to bedding areas.So there could be an opportunity.

You could set up below him,and wait for him to come down, but the OP seemed to think they just won't move before full dark.

Hard to cover all strategies here and things change when you get into the field.Personally after trying more sedate methods, I would not hesitate in going in after him on foot,and trying to kill him still hunting.

This is not impossibel and maybe the reason that buck is still alive is because many hunters admit defeat with this method,are convinced it cannot work, so never try it.

Sometimes you have to gamble.

I agree with your assessment totally. However, I was trying to get him thinking about the other side of the coin. Also, the deer may just be bedded a couple hundred yards away, over on the north side of the same ridge. I don't know the terrain well enough to do more than offer things to consider. I know that I knew where the monster in Colorado was working it's way to the top of the ridge and over and I feel there was no way to get even close to it's travel corridor early, without it detecting me easily and skirting my position.

The big one I got with the ML in NM did let me get close enough for a shot twice, though I only took the one shot on a morning hunt with the deer moving up the ridge and into the wind.

I sure wish Drummond would lend his considerable experience in this intruiging situation and Mud Hen also.

My bad. Its been a few days and I had forgotten MH had replied.

I think you have the right idea for archery season packing in a tree stand if you can get in there and set it up and wait for the right conditions to walk in very early to hunt it. I am very scent aware when setting up tree stands and wear knee high rubber boots and rubber gloves when setting up stands.


Be interesting to see some more input hunting this deer in October with a rifle.

Do you know this deer 's escape routes? if so take someone else with you to push him out and you sit on his escape route. This strategy usually yields only one time opportunity.

good luck. It's always interesting to target the wise old bucks.

Darn, I thought you were archery hunting and had to be close. Sorry about that. I guess I assumed so when you mentioned the tree stand.

You need to do the scouting now so that you can pin down where he beds. Every other tactic depends on that.

Other than that, I would think you could hunt him just like a big whitey--you've got to get close to the bedding area, with no scent or sound, and he has to have some reason to be up and about in the daylight. Hunt from the outside fringes going in closer to where he beds. All deer make mistakes at some point--you just have to be there when they do.