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Buck Scrape research

peytoncreekhunter said:
BSK, did you record the frequency of visits by individual bucks in any time frame? Say like how many times individual bucks visited the scrape in 48 hrs. or whatever time frame.

It would interesting to see if certain bucks visited scrapes more than others. Maybe because of age group or just one buck likes the ladies a little more than others.....
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I have not done that but can since each buck has a unique identifier number. But I'll tell you right now, some bucks rarely visit scrapes while other individuals live on them. No idea why. I'll get an individual buck in food plots at night over and over, but rarely get him on scrapes. Other bucks live on scrapes but are rarely photographed in food plots.
 
TheLBLman said:
This is good data, but I'm wondering how we record bucks scent-checking scrapes from a distance often too far to trigger a camera trap?

Since I'm not on stand at night, this is only my theory, but I believe older bucks (during daylight) are more likely to just scent-check from a distance, and not "interact" with the scrape or the overhanging limbs, yet they did "check" the scrape.
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VERY possible. Because I'm only focused on scrape interactions, it killed me to pass up the data from all the bucks just "walking by in the background." That would change the data for sure.
 
For the good acorn year (2021)

Percent of buck visits where the buck worked the overhanging limb
Yearlings - 84%
Middle-Aged - 91%
Mature - 98%

Percent of buck visits to scrapes where the buck reopened the scrape (scraped the ground)
Yearlings - 18%
Middle-Aged - 34%
Mature - 51%


Some interesting asides: Mature bucks stopped scraping the ground for all scrape visits Nov 6 through 17. During that period was when yearling bucks maxed out their scrape reopening for the season. Once mature bucks vanished from scrape visiting (after December 1), middle-aged buck scrape-opening surged to around 70% of visits.
 
Fascinating analysis! Interesting buck scrapes checking started earlier with doe chase period longer and more distributed in 2021 than 2020.
 
trout said:
Fascinating analysis! Interesting buck scrapes checking started earlier with doe chase period longer and more distributed in 2021 than 2020.
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That actually surprised me. More breeding action over a longer time period. I definitely didn't expect that.

I just wonder about the much more intense early scraping activity - that first big peak starting a lot earlier than in 2020.
 
Possible confounding variable... total number of unique bucks on the property in 2020 vs 2021 that needs to be mentioned
 
I plan on collecting this type of data from all the years that are either bumper acorn crops or acorn failures. Problem is, pre-2020, all my data is still images. Almost impossible to get "behavior" data from that.

Plus, I can't go farther back than 2010. That's when I switched to all black-flash cameras. Prior to that it was hacked digital white-flash cams, which really shut down activity at scrapes after each buck had been flashed a time or two.
 
BSK said:
I have not done that but can since each buck has a unique identifier number. But I'll tell you right now, some bucks rarely visit scrapes while other individuals live on them. No idea why. I'll get an individual buck in food plots at night over and over, but rarely get him on scrapes. Other bucks live on scrapes but are rarely photographed in food plots.
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Very interesting stuff. A question I have, that I don't think has been asked yet, have you looked at it in a way such that you can tell whether or not a buck tends to visit a particular scrape and only that scrape? Or do some bucks seem to travel around and hit many scrapes during a short period of time? I guess I'm wondering how well you could pattern or predict seeing a specific buck on a certain scrape or scrapes?

Thanks for sharing your work here!!
 
Another variable to consider is lunar. Note the October full moon was 10/31 in 2020 while it was 11 days earlier on 10/20 in 2021. Consider if the earlier full moon may have inspired buck activity sooner while the primary doe breeding period remained the same.
 
BSK said:
No, what's Splunk?
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What??!!! You're such an analytical guy I figured you leveraged Splunk for certain. It's a data analytics/search tool. For the amount of data you are looking at, you can get a free license. It's designed for enterprise level data (think terabytes daily). Includes machine learning, etc. pretty slick if you're to that sort of thing. It can spit out advanced search results in an instant and provide chart, graph, etc representations lf the data. Worth a quick Google
 
TheLBLman said:
This is good data, but I'm wondering how we record bucks scent-checking scrapes from a distance often too far to trigger a camera trap?

Since I'm not on stand at night, this is only my theory, but I believe older bucks (during daylight) are more likely to just scent-check from a distance, and not "interact" with the scrape or the overhanging limbs, yet they did "check" the scrape.
Click to expand...
We know at times and especially mature bucks do this but no way to collect this data unless you put out more trail cams one for every wind direction which would scent up the whole area . Totally not worth the trouble , just have to accept this as a given .
 
This is awesome! Thank you for posting your research, several things to consider when scouting and observing behavior. And for timing the right days to take off from work ha!
 
BSK said:
For the good acorn year (2021)

Percent of buck visits where the buck worked the overhanging limb
Yearlings - 84%
Middle-Aged - 91%
Mature - 98%

Percent of buck visits to scrapes where the buck reopened the scrape (scraped the ground)
Yearlings - 18%
Middle-Aged - 34%
Mature - 51%


Some interesting asides: Mature bucks stopped scraping the ground for all scrape visits Nov 6 through 17. During that period was when yearling bucks maxed out their scrape reopening for the season. Once mature bucks vanished from scrape visiting (after December 1), middle-aged buck scrape-opening surged to around 70% of visits.
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So what do we ascertain for data granules. Is it safe to surmise that mature bucks make a disproportionately high amount of early scrapes? That primetime to catch mature buck on a scrape line is around halloween? And that yearlings only muster up the courage to work scrapes during prime breeding when mature bucks are awat tending does?
 

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