The Best Licking Branch For A Mock Scrape Experiment
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ม.ค. 2021
- What is the best licking branch for a mock scrape? For the most part it's whatever the deer prefer to scrape under in your area. Here in Michigan there are a variety of species and they include white oaks, grape vines, beech trees, basswood, apple trees, white pine, jack pine.. A lot of the time bucks will scrape under any limb that is extending into their travel route or into a food source. So is there a way to find the BEST licking branch? Probably not. But we thought we would give it a try with a little experiment that we set up this past season.
We hung 3 different licking branches along with a natural limb extending from the "scrape tree".
We hung a white oak branch, a grape vine and even hung a hemp rope from the beech tree we used in this experiment. We hung a camera and let the location sit for the entire season. Any guesses on which licking branches got the most hits?
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Great work , Thank you for your time . !
Been waiting for another video drop. Thanks for the great information
Thanks Scrappy! Appreciate the comment!
Thank you for making the video. It was very interesting.
I’ve been waiting a long time for this one! Great video!
It was interesting to see the food plot grow throughout the experiment. Are those radishes?
This was one of the spots we walked through before the fantasy draft! And yeah those are tillage radish, I had some leftover seeds and threw them down in this plot just because. I never thought I’d get so much germination.. I think it actually hurt my actual scraping activity because the deer don’t really like to scrape on top of radishes. Next year I’m just going to leave this area clover and rye.
I really enjoyed the video as your passion and honesty shine through. From my point of view just about all of the deer exposed to your options only investigated the hanging items by sniffing them not rubbing their scent glands on them as I believe they would if used as a true licking branch . I have several mock scrape/licking branch camera set-ups on my small NJ 22 acre parcel and on those set-ups when a deer uses the licking branch in place it is a totally different experience to view.
100% agree. Unfortunately I didn’t get a ton of scraping underneath these licking branches and I think the main reason is because tossed some leftover tillage radish seed into this plot and it took off right underneath the tree.. from what I’ve seen, deer don’t really scrape as hard in brassica plots. They will but if there’s an easier spot nearby in the clover they’ll scrape there instead. That’s kinda what happened here. They still used this “scrape tree” everyday by leaving scent and checking it but they didn’t do much actual scraping. Next year no radishes in this spot! Ha.
I do see the same type of communication on the other mock scrapes we have. I’d say more than half the videos the deer simply walk up and smell the vine or oak branch then keep on walking. The older bucks during the rut don’t even smell it, they just walk on the downwind side of it and don’t stop. They must be able to get everything they need just from the quick scent check.
But you’re absolutely right, I didn’t get the same type of scraping activity in this area as I did in other areas on the same property. Thanks again for the comment and let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see in the future!
Thanks for doing this test. It was very interesting
Anytime! It was fun. Not perfect by any means but I think it shows that they will use a lot of different licking branches as long as they are in the right spot and around the correct height.
Clever experiment. I performed a simpler version testing an oak branch with hemp rope. I will say oak branches work best if you trim all the little twigs and leaves off and a larger branch at least the diameter of your finger at its end. In my experiment the oak branch outperformed (selected by bucks) the hemp rope. Again nice video. Thanks!
Love watching your videos. I'm in SE Michigan and I bought some posts from Tractor Supply and drilled a through-hole and attached a Oak branch. The deer use it to keep tabs on eachother like we use Facebook. I've used the same branch for 3 years and they still hit it, no leaves and it is starting to break apart, so I just replaced it with a new branch. I'm sure the deer love to hear those leaves rattle together when they dry up.
Thanks again Miguel! I am going to try your post scrape this year. I have a food plot that needs a scrape but only has small dogwoods in the center. I am going to bury the post within the dogwoods and shoot a licking branch out into the food plot. Hope they like it!
Do you like using a particular type of oak or just any oak?
@@whitetailevolution I believe it was from a Swamp White Oak... Look forward to following you into the fall. My 40 acres has everything, but it just needs all the pieces in the right place, like a giant puzzle. Habitat management sure is fun.
I am from UP of Mich. have tried this for yrs but never really put a video cam on it! I used branches taken from other trees in other miles away places an attached them to trees in my are that had scrapes on them. I put on opposite side of tree to see if new deer would make a scrape. Good stuff! I wish the new cell cams weren’t so exspensive to use having to pay to download videos.
This is a great video. This answered some questions I had about licking branches. Thanks for bringing it. I wonder if you had worked up the ground beneath the branches if that would have influenced the results? In my neck of the woods the freshly worked up earth seems like an additional attraction especially in October and November. Mature. Bucks seem to really like working the ground underneath more so than the immature bucks. Great comparison. I’m going to try the beech branches this fall!!
I think you’re right, that would have promoted more actual scraping activity in this particular spot and I will be doing that in the spring!
Good luck with your scrapes this year!
I like your methodology.
Thanks David! It was far from perfect but pretty fun to do.
Great 👍
Pretty cool stuff
Thanks Steve! It was fun to check that card and see which licking branch the deer would go to first.
Very cool video. 😎
Over the past few years I have tried a few different species and have settled on lager diameter grape vines.
You really can’t go wrong with a grape vine. They last for years and the deer love them!
I wonder if the beech and oak limbs would have switched or the oak limb would have done better if your experiment was on a natural oak tree. Really cool video!
Enjoyed U experiment & vid...I'd like to see how to set up a hemp rope scrape vid in the future!
Also what brand camera is that I luv the quality of the vids? Ive just subscibed so thanx
Ross
Thanks Ross! I'll make a video in the spring on how I put out the hemp rope mock scrape. It was essentially cut the hemp rope and use wire to stop the entire thing from fraying out. Then hang it the same way as you would the branch or a vine. But again I'll go into more detail in a video once the snow melts.
I have a few brands that I use for the trail camera videos. Browning Dark Ops, Browning Strike Force and the Exodus Lift II. They are all great cameras!
The variety of deer there is crazy
It was a pretty fun experiment to run. Not perfect by any means but interesting to see if they had a preference in licking branch.
The grape vine appears to be too small in diameter for a good liking setup. Try it with a vine between 1 - 1¼” diameter. I believe you will have more hits then.
I’ll have to switch it out to see if there is any difference. I do know that with stand alone grape vine scrapes they do like one that’s a little heavier so they can rub their glands onto the vine much easier. I’ve also had great success with vines of this size but I do agree with you that the thicker, heavier vines perform better and last longer.
Thanks for the tip!!
I wonder if you would have had more distance between the licking branches if that would have mattered, also wonder about scraping the dirt away under the branches, but good video sir
I think you're right Gabe, more distance between the licking branches, the position of the branch relative to the entrance to the plot, scraping underneath better, not planting a brassica mix in the plot.. A lot of factors that could have swung a particular branch one way or another. Looking back there are definitely things I could've done differently. Far from perfect that's for sure. Still cool to see them use different licking branches in the same location and be able to document which one gets used! Thanks for the comment!
Interesting test. Issue with beech, oak, maple branches, they go bad.. the harder they get hit, the shorter life span. In other words, I have had oak and beech branches lasting as short as 2 weeks.
Location is key!!!! You get the longevity of hemp and Grape vines. Use them, one and done.
I love the grape vine for that exact reason, longevity and durability. They last for years! After seeing the amount of use the hemp rope got, I might try a few more of those to see if I can get consistent use. Those would last forever as well.
@@whitetailevolution I have used a few, can't say either way one is better. I enjoyed the experiment. I suppose the lesson here is, if you have vines, use em, if not, hemp is a solid alternative.
You should make a video using the Smokeys "wicked wix" compound. I used some along with the hemp rope. At the edge of a food plot. No luck yet just curious if you have any.
I have never heard of Smokeys, is it an attractant for whitetails? Most of the time you can just hang the licking branch, scuff up the ground and walk away. The deer will do the rest!
@@whitetailevolution it's from a TH-cam channel called Chasing Giants. Fella seemed pretty knowledgeable. However I haven't seen ANY deer stop at my hemp rope since I put it in 2 weeks ago.
So I’ve used vines and oak branches as well as beech tree branches. I’ve found that the vines are hit or miss... some deer take right to em and deposit scent, others just check it out. The oak tree branches I’ve put PW buck urine on them and they were hit very hard by all for a couple weeks but activity faded as the leaves fell off. I then cut a fresh beech tree branch and attached it to the already hanging oak branch and placed buck urine on the new beech leaves and activity EXPLODED and every buck I’ve ever caught on camera before, came in and checked/deposited scent as well as many urined in the scrape as well as pawed the dirt. This lasted all through the rut and I ended up pulling the camera and moving it to another location so I don’t know when activity fell off but it lasted at least 3 weeks if not more and leaves were still attached. Just my observations.
Deer LOVE beech branches! I have great luck with hanging grape vines but most of the natural scrapes that on the properties I hunt are under beech limbs. If I have a deer trail running within 20 yards of a beech trail I try to redirect them right past it to create a perennial scrape. I'm glad you have great luck with them too!!
I appreciate the video. Not to criticize, but to think out loud, I wonder if there may have already been some deer scent on the beech tree before the experiment began drawing deer to it more until the others started catching up in scent?
That could be one of the factors as well! I'll have to try it again next year to see if the results are any different. The experiment was far from perfect. The vine was placed with a big advantage as it was the first "licking branch" they would see when entering the plot and the hanging branch had a disadvantage for the same reason. But you're probably on to something with the beech branch having some leftover scent and they were already semi conditioned to use it.
i see you got some pine trees right over there too, wish a pine limb would have been included in the test too.
We have a lot of mature white pines just off of this food plot. And you're right, that would've been a good one to add, they love using those when available. If I had an extra limb off this beach I would have!
I use grape vines and they work good here
You cannot go wrong with grape vines!
I think any kind of dark natural colored rope is going to simulate a vine. I believe though anglers could tangle easier.. I say vine is the way to go.
You're probably right, almost anything suspended at the right height would likely be used as a licking branch. I sometimes tie branches down with paracord to keep them at the appropriate height for a scrape and the deer are sometimes more interested in the paracord than they are the branch itself!
This was great,really cool to watch the deer checking those out,so curious,imma keep a hemp rope in my back pac from now on,lol,I do have a question what's the battery life of the trail camera on video,I've always worried it would run mine dead?
Same here! I bought it on Amazon and have a bunch left over. One tip on the hemp rope is that I would make sure it’s hanging a little higher because once it gets wet it will get heavy and sag more than the other varieties.
The camera I used for this video was the Exodus Lift II and I used lithium batteries. Those are by far the best for trail cameras. They perform great in cold weather and last the longest. They’re expensive but worth it. You don’t want to set the camera in august and have it die in October. This camera was set on Labor Day and is still running now, same set of batteries.
@@whitetailevolution thanks for the advise,👍gunna start running some video now👊
I have that camera set on a hybrid mode where it takes a picture and a 30 second video. Maybe a 1 second delay and then it will take another
@@whitetailevolution not sure my cameras will do that,might just have to try out the brand your using,thanks👊
In my opinion they are one of the best trail camera brands out there. They are not cheap but you are paying for quality and a 5 year no questions asked warranty. I had a camera quit on me, sent it in and they sent me a new one within a week. They are the real deal.
Good video what tree cams do you use?
I use a lot of different brands, my favorite video cameras are from Exodus and Browning, my favorite cell camera are the Tactacams.
Just out of curiosity. I wonder if it has anything to do with the rigidity of the chosen source? If they were all able to be placed where movement was limited, like the attached branch to the tree. Would the results be different.
Great video also. I really learned a lot
You might be right, the experiment was definitely not perfect and there were probably several factors that gave one licking branch an advantage over another. Where they were placed in relation to where the deer entered, the height of the branch, like you said how rigid they were, the thickness of the vine.. I'll have it try this again sometime to see if the results are similar.
Is it also possible that scrapes are under trees with foliage because they provide more cover?
That could be a factor too. For whatever reason they really like to scrape under certain tree species and from what I see they are the ones that hold their leaves longer.
Year round security cover is a huge attraction.
I wonder if I should take down my hemp rope and put up a vine?
You could try it and see if you get more activity! I have found that they love the grape vine, love the rope, love a hanging branch.. they use just about anything as long as it's in the right location and at the right height. Scraping up the ground underneath is key as well. One of the last things I do before walking off my property for a month is open up all the scrapes, the deer start checking the inactive ones right away!
2nd any comments on bigger thickness of vine including use of natural tree branches of greater thickness.
That's a great question and I honestly don't know if that makes a difference. I have beech branch scrapes that are very thin, oak branches that are big, vines that are about a quarter inch and vines that are about an inch thick.. if they are in the right spot they all get used as a licking branch. I do think that a heavier vine, so about an inch thick, can give those older bucks something more to work with when really working the scrape. And the thicker vines wont break as easily, but sometimes the bucks just check it quick, pee in the scrape and move on. All that being said, I do prefer a thicker vine as opposed to a thin one, however with this tree I couldn't use a thick heavy vine because it would have pulled the branch down too far so I had to settle with a thinner vine. Great questions and I hope that makes sense!
@@whitetailevolution I'm no expert by any degree... In the right spot ( convergence of trails ) all the deer will use a mock scrape (licking branch). Become a huge draw for all deer to use. Grape vine seems to have a great amount of flexibility and possibly hold the deers sent who've been using it longer . Great video and thanks for response.
Put a Buckstik out there.
whats the food plot
That plot was a perennial clover plot, 3 varieties of clover, and I threw in some leftover radishes I believe. I also put down cereal rye over labor day weekend.
All on private land. Do it on public.
I'd rather do it on private lol.