The post inquiring about deer scrapes reminded me of something unusual I saw many years ago hunting western Virginia. This was before Va. saw fit to start gouging non-residents by renaming the license "primitive weapons" and charging bowhunters who had neither the desire nor intention of muzzleloading for the privilege of doing so. Basically, they doubled the price and I haven't been back, but I digress. I believe the county was Craig and I was hunting Allegheny Iron & Ore & Westvaco land. The next to last season that I hunted there, I came across not one but two what I'll call, for lack of a better term, "community scrapes". I'm fully aware of what a typical buck scrape consists of, but these were unique in that they were in the middle of nowhere, 12-15 feet in diameter, and completely devoid of leaves after they had all fallen. But the most notable feature was that there were deer tracks on top of deer tracks. It appeared to be some kind of major traffic hub. I sheepishly thought another hunter may have made it with a leaf rake and "doctored" the soil with something, but reasoned there's no way anybody with a deer hoof would have had the patience to make that many tracks! No goat farms nearby either! These two "scrapes" were not even close to each other and definitely not part of a line. At any rate, I hung a stand over one and promptly shot a spike the next morning at first light. I know
D-U-M-B, who knows what might have come by if I'd had a little patience. The saddest part was that I couldn't get back that year and the next they had clearcut the entire mountainside and ruined everything. Has anyone ever seen this or did I manage to somehow enter a deer "parallel universe"? I've not seen anything similar before nor since!
Topic: unusual scraping activity (Read 208 times)
