Mature deer & less sign

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kurt
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby kurt » Fri Apr 01, 2016 2:40 pm

This is a interesting topic because Its definitely something I see with differences in sign. People get turned off great areas waiting for a spotlight. I've scouted areas I verified several mature deer and yet not much for rubs aND scrapes. I've seen the other side of the coin too. Huge waist high rubs where you can see a 10in separation from the tip marks.

Alittle off topic. I find a lot more of really tall waist high rubs on smaller trees and I've seen some awesome bucks like whip them around, shake them so loud, and later I find tree broke in half. On public land too. I don't pay attention to tree size at all. It's rub height and from the first time I heard Dan say that it's the height the visual difference is astounding its pretty clear to see smaller age classes in rubs till they get mature.

I think a lot boils down to personality and competition for beds. I have found them in a area were it's not overly populated and tons of shoot them all pressure so I don't feels it's always deer density thing but that plays a role.

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Hawthorne
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Hawthorne » Fri Apr 01, 2016 2:51 pm

Don hunts in Illinois on private land. So I would think sign might not be has important has big woods areas.

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Dewey » Fri Apr 01, 2016 2:53 pm

I should pay more attention to smaller rubs than I do.

Can't help but get excited when I find a rub like this because I KNOW it isn't the work of a 2 year old. Found it in early December. Hope he's still alive because I want to see the gnarly rack that made this one.

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby DaveT1963 » Fri Apr 01, 2016 3:00 pm

Dewey wrote:I should pay more attention to smaller rubs than I do.

Can't help but get excited when I find a rub like this because I KNOW it isn't the work of a 2 year old. Found it in early December. Hope he's still alive because I want to see the gnarly rack that made this one.

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That one would be hard to miss :)

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Fri Apr 01, 2016 3:11 pm

Dewey wrote:I should pay more attention to smaller rubs than I do.

Can't help but get excited when I find a rub like this because I KNOW it isn't the work of a 2 year old. Found it in early December. Hope he's still alive because I want to see the gnarly rack that made this one.

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Man I'm hunting in the wrong spots :lol:

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby magicman54494 » Fri Apr 01, 2016 4:39 pm

Lockdown wrote:
magicman54494 wrote:5. not really part of this list but a fact that I have witnessed many times while tracking. Mature bucks will rub small trees and brush. They will rub small just as much as big.


Glad you mentioned this Magic. I was thinking the other day about rubs mature bucks (rather, the biggest in my area whether they're TRUELY mature or not) leave behind and what they look like. I have noticed one thing that might make it SEEM like big bucks leave less sign than they are. Don't take that as me saying they leave a lot.

Are they rubbing smaller diameter trees lower to the ground than big trees? I don't ever find chest high rubs on 1" diameter trees. But I do come across trees the size of a broom handle or so that are snapped off at thigh/hip height. In my eyes a good sized buck did that.

So what if he doesn't break it? Now all you're left with is a rub on a 1" tree that's thigh high. Unless there's shredded bark hanging off it I'm going to think a two year old or yearling made that rub.

What are your thoughts Magic? It seems like they want the rigidity of a 2"+ diameter trunk before you see the chest high stuff.

The thought occurred to me that I'm passing by these smaller lower rubs assuming they're made by young deer, but that might not be the case??

Thoughts?

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I took a picture of a rub - actually some brush- all tore up by a very mature buck that I tracked down. the brush wasn't chest high. I followed him into one of his bedding areas where there was a tall rub - hit more than once- on a 2 1/2" dia tree. I believe they will bend down far enough on a small tree to get some resistance or just twist it up and break it off even. I don't have time to go digging for the pic tonight. maybe I can do it tomorrow night.
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby magicman54494 » Fri Apr 01, 2016 4:59 pm

magicman54494 wrote:
Lockdown wrote:
magicman54494 wrote:5. not really part of this list but a fact that I have witnessed many times while tracking. Mature bucks will rub small trees and brush. They will rub small just as much as big.


Glad you mentioned this Magic. I was thinking the other day about rubs mature bucks (rather, the biggest in my area whether they're TRUELY mature or not) leave behind and what they look like. I have noticed one thing that might make it SEEM like big bucks leave less sign than they are. Don't take that as me saying they leave a lot.

Are they rubbing smaller diameter trees lower to the ground than big trees? I don't ever find chest high rubs on 1" diameter trees. But I do come across trees the size of a broom handle or so that are snapped off at thigh/hip height. In my eyes a good sized buck did that.

So what if he doesn't break it? Now all you're left with is a rub on a 1" tree that's thigh high. Unless there's shredded bark hanging off it I'm going to think a two year old or yearling made that rub.

What are your thoughts Magic? It seems like they want the rigidity of a 2"+ diameter trunk before you see the chest high stuff.

The thought occurred to me that I'm passing by these smaller lower rubs assuming they're made by young deer, but that might not be the case??

Thoughts?

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I took a picture of a rub - actually some brush- all tore up by a very mature buck that I tracked down. the brush wasn't chest high. I followed him into one of his bedding areas where there was a tall rub - hit more than once- on a 2 1/2" dia tree. I believe they will bend down far enough on a small tree to get some resistance or just twist it up and break it off even. I don't have time to go digging for the pic tonight. maybe I can do it tomorrow night.


http://www.thehuntingbeast.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15316&p=218426&hilit=2012+buck+contest#p218426 this is a link to the story above. you will have to scroll down to the hairy guy in blaze orange. lol
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Lockdown » Fri Apr 01, 2016 5:06 pm

Sounds good Magic thanks for the response


Dewey that is a crazy looking rub! He's definitely got some gnarly bases.




I got to thinking about it, and a great example are some rubs I found a couple weeks ago from a buck that I'm calling Jack the Ripper. My buddy has a shed off him. I'm pretty confident that he made all of these rubs. These are located in two different rub lines in two bedding areas a couple hundred yards apart heading to the same food source. I see rubs with bark hanging here and there, but never this many and with this much consistency in a small area.

Note the difference in height in respect to tree diameter:


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(I'm crouching in this picture to get the rub in the background in frame)
Notice all the bark hanging. The largest "trunk" is about an inch or hair better and these are all from knee high to hip high.




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I'm guessing this limb at a little under 2" diameter. This one is chest/chin high. (I do see a big increase in rub height on leaning and horizontal branches, so that factors in to this particular rub)




Image
Another rub in his rub line. This time on a 1 3/4" tree and its chest high. Notice where the old rub is... (could easily be from a different buck of course)... its a foot lower. Is it because the limb was a lot smaller around or was the buck a lot smaller? :think: Hard to say.


30 yards from that one there's these rubs



Image
Run on the smaller tree = thigh to waist height. Rub on the 2 1/2" tree, waist to chest. The top was mid to upper chest on me (I'm 5' 9")



Especially if there are no big trees available and all you find are rubs in that 1" range and smaller, I don't think they'll leave a classic rub at chest/chin height. Very few if any IMHO. At that height I don't see rubbing, I see thrashing like this
Image
This was in the same area as the previous rubs too
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Lockdown » Fri Apr 01, 2016 5:21 pm

Magic I'm pretty sure I'm reading every story in that thread tomorrow morning :lol: Great example tho. Nice buck and great story too. I skimmed parts of the thread real quick and noticed PLB's buck had similar rubs (page 3)
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Bowhunter4life » Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:35 pm

That was a very cool story Magic! Great read. Has been an interesting thread so far. One thing I will note is that roughly 5 years ago I was chasing a very nice older buck. Later found out he was 6 years old. I knew his core area but was unable to connect with him. As the season progressed and the rut arrived he moved location. He was bedding close to a doe group. I got a few trail camera photos and had plans of moving in on him the next chance I got. Well luck have it he was taken by another hunter the day after I got a trail camera photo mid day of him and some does. I knew this hunter and he had the deer aged. So the point of all this was near his core area in the early season I found no rubs. When he moved in closer to the does around late October some big rubs started showing up some near the bed and several near the does (he bedded around 200 yards from the doe group)... He had a gnarly rack and there was no doubt on it when he rubbed a tree. I guess time of year/ location could also be a factor on whether your finding sign near a mature bucks bedroom.

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby JoeRE » Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:02 am

Yea if I only hunted buck bedding with big tall rubs in it I wouldn't find much to hunt. I can't think of any that I have found this spring. Usually there will be a rub or twe near beds but often its small diameter. I agree height is the main thing I look for in rubs. I am confident that tells me a buck is at least 3 if its tall. By the way I have watched a 110 inch 2 year old rub an 8 inch tree so yea size doesn't matter much. OLD rubs are also important in conjunction with bedding. If I see a couple really old rubs, a couple 1 year old rubs, and one or two from last fall and most of them nice and tall that is the best case scenario...prime bedding that gets used every year. But still some of the best buck bedding spots I have found have little to no rubbing and scraping activity. At a distance there may be some rubs on travel routes facing toward or away from the bedding but that is hard to stitch together a lot of times until the bedding is pinpointed.

This topic is related to something I have been thinking about. Lots of people seem to get a bit bummed after walking miles and not pinpointing a bunch of heavily used big buck bedding. Its hard to find for a reason. I think most of the best buck bedding I have found took me a couple years of scouting and paying attention to every observation I have of an older buck in the area just to really pinpoint it. That is one limitation of spring scouting that isn't talked about much. Its awesome for finding rut sign - and winter sign - but early season sign is harder to ID in the spring. When big bucks don't leave much sign near their beds, physical observations become just as important as spring scouting. When you get a big buck on camera or see him from a distance you should always ask yourself where he came from and where is he going. You won't always know but its a start. Sometimes bedding is used year round and sometimes it is not. I would say in the hills most of the time bedding is pretty season-specific....so you might not find fresh sign like tracks in the spring either, droppings might be there from the winter but last fall's probably have broken down by the spring 4-6 months later. If you have the chance to scout in the fall, maybe you tag out early, jump on that opportunity you can see so much more.

Still the #1 thing I look for is security. Where would I hole up as a buck if a bunch of hunters were chasing me and trying to kill me. That is one of the questions I ask when I find a possible bedding spot - is this the best in the area for a certain wind or other conditions? If I have my doubts keep looking.
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Mibowfreak » Sat Apr 02, 2016 1:38 am

JoeRE wrote:Yea if I only hunted buck bedding with big tall rubs in it I wouldn't find much to hunt. I can't think of any that I have found this spring. Usually there will be a rub or twe near beds but often its small diameter. I agree height is the main thing I look for in rubs. I am confident that tells me a buck is at least 3 if its tall. By the way I have watched a 110 inch 2 year old rub an 8 inch tree so yea size doesn't matter much. OLD rubs are also important in conjunction with bedding. If I see a couple really old rubs, a couple 1 year old rubs, and one or two from last fall and most of them nice and tall that is the best case scenario...prime bedding that gets used every year. But still some of the best buck bedding spots I have found have little to no rubbing and scraping activity. At a distance there may be some rubs on travel routes facing toward or away from the bedding but that is hard to stitch together a lot of times until the bedding is pinpointed.

This topic is related to something I have been thinking about. Lots of people seem to get a bit bummed after walking miles and not pinpointing a bunch of heavily used big buck bedding. Its hard to find for a reason. I think most of the best buck bedding I have found took me a couple years of scouting and paying attention to every observation I have of an older buck in the area just to really pinpoint it. That is one limitation of spring scouting that isn't talked about much. Its awesome for finding rut sign - and winter sign - but early season sign is harder to ID in the spring. When big bucks don't leave much sign near their beds, physical observations become just as important as spring scouting. When you get a big buck on camera or see him from a distance you should always ask yourself where he came from and where is he going. You won't always know but its a start. Sometimes bedding is used year round and sometimes it is not. I would say in the hills most of the time bedding is pretty season-specific....so you might not find fresh sign like tracks in the spring either, droppings might be there from the winter but last fall's probably have broken down by the spring 4-6 months later. If you have the chance to scout in the fall, maybe you tag out early, jump on that opportunity you can see so much more.

Still the #1 thing I look for is security. Where would I hole up as a buck if a bunch of hunters were chasing me and trying to kill me. That is one of the questions I ask when I find a possible bedding spot - is this the best in the area for a certain wind or other conditions? If I have my doubts keep looking.





This is a great way of thinking. I have had that thought run through my head a lot this post season. It makes me look at some areas totally different.
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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Bowhunter4life » Sat Apr 02, 2016 3:41 am

JoeRE wrote:Yea if I only hunted buck bedding with big tall rubs in it I wouldn't find much to hunt. I can't think of any that I have found this spring. Usually there will be a rub or twe near beds but often its small diameter. I agree height is the main thing I look for in rubs. I am confident that tells me a buck is at least 3 if its tall. By the way I have watched a 110 inch 2 year old rub an 8 inch tree so yea size doesn't matter much. OLD rubs are also important in conjunction with bedding. If I see a couple really old rubs, a couple 1 year old rubs, and one or two from last fall and most of them nice and tall that is the best case scenario...prime bedding that gets used every year. But still some of the best buck bedding spots I have found have little to no rubbing and scraping activity. At a distance there may be some rubs on travel routes facing toward or away from the bedding but that is hard to stitch together a lot of times until the bedding is pinpointed.

This topic is related to something I have been thinking about. Lots of people seem to get a bit bummed after walking miles and not pinpointing a bunch of heavily used big buck bedding. Its hard to find for a reason. I think most of the best buck bedding I have found took me a couple years of scouting and paying attention to every observation I have of an older buck in the area just to really pinpoint it. That is one limitation of spring scouting that isn't talked about much. Its awesome for finding rut sign - and winter sign - but early season sign is harder to ID in the spring. When big bucks don't leave much sign near their beds, physical observations become just as important as spring scouting. When you get a big buck on camera or see him from a distance you should always ask yourself where he came from and where is he going. You won't always know but its a start. Sometimes bedding is used year round and sometimes it is not. I would say in the hills most of the time bedding is pretty season-specific....so you might not find fresh sign like tracks in the spring either, droppings might be there from the winter but last fall's probably have broken down by the spring 4-6 months later. If you have the chance to scout in the fall, maybe you tag out early, jump on that opportunity you can see so much more.

Still the #1 thing I look for is security. Where would I hole up as a buck if a bunch of hunters were chasing me and trying to kill me. That is one of the questions I ask when I find a possible bedding spot - is this the best in the area for a certain wind or other conditions? If I have my doubts keep looking.


Joe makes some very good points in this. I believe security is top too. I have found some beds that shocked me where they were, not the typical buck bedding areas. Finding fall bedding in the spring is very tough. I rely more on as he said observations or what the cameras have shown me in years past. Have to use every piece of information you can gather when chasing a mature animal. They got to that age for a reason.

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby keb » Sat Apr 02, 2016 5:42 am

The best deer I have ever encountered on public, I literally had to force my self the 1st few times to set up there or in spots like that, that did not contain the so called sign ur supposed to find and hunt by.

Them big tracks don't lie, could care less about rubs and scrapes and all the rest of the Jazz.

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Re: Mature deer & less sign

Unread postby Rubline » Sat Apr 02, 2016 6:05 am

Don't overlook grass areas of CRP and tracks of switch grass.
Pheasant hunters always kick up big bucks in grass areas.

Good Point Keb: Big tracks don't lie...


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