Mature bucks have developed the muscle mass and body size to tear up the ground and they will. They don't want to keep their scrapes secret. These scrapes will be well worked and they'll have a major limb hanging over them. There may even be two or more limbs that are being used. Sometimes the limb will be as large as a man's thumb and it will often be mangled.

OTHER IMPORTANT SIGN
Finding large rubs close to large scrapes is another sure sign that these scrapes were made by a mature buck. I have seen rubs made on the sapling or tree that the overhanging limb was attached to. I have also found small saplings in or near scrapes that were twisted and broken off at the ground by buster bucks. Don't be fooled by the size of the sapling rubbed. If you find saplings, even small ones, that are twisted and mangled, the damage was done by a mature buck.

Never assume that just because you find one or more scrapes near or in the edge of a field that a young buck made them. A field may be a prime location for the area does to feed and mingle in. This may be the most productive place for a mature buck's scrape, particularly if there is little to no hunting pressure at that spot. If you find large, overhanging limbs with considerable damage done to them, or if you find large rubs and tracks around the edge of the field, you can bet that a mature buck is working the field. However, if you hunt in an area in which there are no older age-class bucks, you may never see one of these scrapes because they're made by the masters of the woods, the "super" bucks that have reached the older age-classes. Seldom is one of these super bucks killed by a hunter!

Of course, you can call large scrapes made by mature bucks "breeding scrapes." Because the buck that made them had this in mind at the time. You could also call them "community scrapes" because once the does start using them, it causes a chain reaction. Any buck that happens upon one will put his scent in it, as long as there is not a more dominant buck close by. Furthermore, you could say that these scrapes suppress the breeding of younger immature bucks by intimidation.

THE DOMINANCE FACTOR
Let's look at an illustration. Say you have a young male dog a year or so old. Say you put him in a pen with a female that is close to coming in heat. He'll immediately start strutting around and urinating on everything in sight. But throw a healthy 4-year-old male in the pen and see what happens. The young dog will cower down. His strutting and "marking" will be over. He won't even challenge the older and more dominant male, especially if he was raised around this dog and dominance has been decided.

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