Mike wrote:The more scrapes you have the more they use them, and the more they use them in daylight. If your area only has a couple I wouldn't bother hunting them unless its early season and you are close to bedding. If you do have dozens to hundreds of scrapes in a secure area that will be hot during the scraping period mid to late oct. Most people haven't experienced that type of situation because you probably need to make a pile of mock scrapes for that to happen, and the studies that say most scraping is at night do not apply because they weren't done in a habitat that is like that.
Field edges can be ok but they need to be a secluded field with a LOT of scrapes, and an active food source that does visit.
As for the rain thing, I am undecided whether scent get washed away, or buck love to scrape moist soil. In my hill country I see huge tore up scrapes along the valley bottem all the time, it makes me think they prefer moist soil, eventually they hit scrapes higher up on the hills but they hammer the scrapes down low for sure.
Totally Mike!!!
As mentioned too many are on field edges and vary in size and subsequently in importance/value. One that is the corner of an overlapping area of bucks/does is so valuable, in additon to the no brainer communty scrape within a funnel or feature.
Per Vale's book he said hunt them after a rain when the moon shows a major...ie- rain stops over night and there is a major in the am....mr.big will want to pee in the dirt before going to bed..or consequntly before he feeds if it was a day quit on the rain and a midday or pm major