Hey guys a little opinions needed here. Did lots of scouting and located an area in a WMA that offered the following: Small Bayhead located off of a No Vehicile Access Road by about 50 yds. Surrounding the Bayhead is planted pines in semi-mature growth. Understory is mostly brose scrub mixed with palmettos. No Oaks.
Found old firebreak trail going into to pines located at top of BH. Along BH found rubs and scrapes located on several firebreak trails. Set my ladder stand at a "t" on one of the trails with a scrape at 40 yrds straight in front of me. Another 20 yrds to my right. Another 40 yrds to my left. On the firebreak 20 yrds in back of me approx 40 yrds in both directions there are scrapes.
Sounds like a perfect set up right? I had to work opening weekend so do not know if the area was hunted or not. I did an all day sit on the 1st wednesday and an afternoon sit the following day. Did an morning sit this wednesday. Total deer seen so far is ZERO.
Did a walk around the area before I left. All the scrapes have gone dead. What do you guys think? Chasing does and not scraping? Dead? Left the area-- either due to hunting pressure or moved to oaks dropping acorns?
How long would you continue to hunt the spot OR would you look for another area ASAP?
As long as it takes............had a site that I hunted for two years, never saw a buck. Well I decided to hunt it opening week end of gun and I'm setting there thinking to myself that I have never seen a buck here and low and behold out steps an 8 point. He walked rite behind the camera and BOOM. He had been coming to the feeder and never aet any corn just comes thru looking for does. So to your question.......Its up to you. You just never know what is going to happen you just have to be there.
With that many scrapes, it sounds like a young buck trying to assert his dominance. Pretty common for this time of year. Not sure where you are hunting, but all of cent Fla is in pre rut mode right now.
One thing I learned...If a spot has all a deer needs, I will not give up on it. The bucks will be there when the time is right. The only thing that concerns me is you don't have any oaks. They are wide open feeding on acorns right now. This is the time of year you need to be hunting the does. Find the does and the bucks will come (no pun intended)
Not knowing what transpired the first weekend while you were away makes a difference too. If it looks like nobody else is setting up or walking around in that area AND if the deer sign is staying consistent I'd stick to it.
I don't generally hut scrapes by themselves, since most of them are serviced at night. Generally the scrapes are on trails that lead to food/water/bedding areas. I try to find the areas they lead to and find some other sign as well ie... food, water, thick cover.. find those areas and you will be in the right area. Just my 2 cents, I am sure others have other methods that work for them as well.
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