Timing of Rubs

[flipfloplife]

Lurking here for too long. Up in North Central Michigan north of Mt Pleasant my wife and I have been doing a ton of scouting, I have to tell you guys, I'm blind, stupid or both (I've got good eyes so that leaves the obvious...).

What we do find: Bedding. Lots of it. We have a lot of hardwoods, pine, thickets and "swamps" (small ones) -- there is some ag. There is bedding, especially in the swampy areas. Once in a while we find scat. We find a LOT of old rubs, even rub lines. We see a lot of does in the woods, had 2 walk right under me tonight.

What we don't find -- fresh rubs or scrapes. or bucks.

We feed a little out back of the house (for viewing pleasure) --- have a couple of 6's, an 8 and a 10 that visit on the regular (after lights out of course). So they do exist here. Saw at least a 10 point next to the road not too long ago just standing there (went back to check later to make sure it wasn't one of those lawn ornaments).

My notes tell me to not hunt a place that doesn't have fresh sign. So should we keep putting mileage in to find that? Are we too early in the season to expect fresh rubs? We try to stay out of the bedding when i do find it, so we haven't looked for hair in there. Should we?

For all the talk of how heavily hunted MI is, I have to tell you guys, we don't see many trucks once I clear the main roads on some pretty big public tracts -- and we look - last thing we want to do while scouting w/ stand (basically) is blow some other guys setup.

Didn't get much pre-season scouting in (deployment) -- but I figured we'd be able to scout/hunt myself into something decent before the guns start a-blazin here. Thoughts on this time of year up here? It has been pretty darn warm this year, we had snow next week last year and haven't even had a hard frost yet.

[<DK>]

Welcome! Glad to see you decided to join.

Im a little confused is the property your seeing bucks in the back yard the same property you're scouting and not finding any sign? Or did you just mean there are bucks around in the area?

[flipfloplife]

No -- we don't hunt the back yard -- a smart deer could bed down there the whole season and be perfectly safe.

I'm in a spot that has about 350 acres of semi-private and a ton of state land (that doesn't seem to see much traffic honestly). We've topo scouted, and then on foot most of the semi-private and working our way through the public land.

So it's not for lack of places to hunt.

But we've done probably 6 full days of scouting and aside from bedding (most of which i think is doe bedding based on what i've read here) we haven't been seeing any "hot sign".

So I'm thinking perhaps we're looking for the wrong stuff. There are rubs -- some great ones -- but they are all scabbed over from previous years. Not a ton of scat either. No identifiable scrapes.

Is it too early in the season here in north central michigan for rubs and/or scrapes? Follow on -- when you do find bedding do you get in there and "confirm" it by looking for hair/smell/scat? or do you back out immediately so you don't blow it?

[bowscrub]

Does taste just as good as big bucks... Deer should be making rubs because they need to get that velvet off. I usually see rubs as early as mid september. I am not an expert in finding bedding mature bucks, but I do know for sure that once the rut heats up bucks will be checking out those hot doe areas. I have seen some dandies cruising through hot doe spots well within shooting hours. One 3.5 y/o 8 pt on some state land less than 300 yards from the road. Came in at about 9 am following some does. Just keep looking/hunting and you will discover more stuff.

[<DK>]

Ok, well you have to go w your gut feelings but I wouldnt discount everything youve found. I do not hunt MI but when there is no hot sign to tell the story try to concentrate on size of the bed, buck bed ingredients and try to catch some tracks on edges or wet areas to confirm suspicions. Once you get some off season scouting (if possible) things will really start to add up.

[flipfloplife]

Good point on the does -- we'll likely grab some late season. But really trying to focus on mature bucks this year.

Yeah, will definitely get off-season (snow) scouting this year. No deployment on the books so that'll be good for the hunting.

Got it on go with the gut. We have two spots that are a bit "epic" for access -- gonna give those a shot -- one involves chest waders, a (leaky) canoe and a 1 mile, 4' wide "stream" through cattail marsh. The payoff is a 5 acre island on public that DNR map says holds oaks.

Just frustrated to not see anything even remotely like the rubs/scrapes I see in the videos. Seems like they are likely out there and with the amount of walking we've done ---- I feel like we could be looking for the wrong signs.

[brancher147]

If you have swamps or soft ground look for big buck tracks. That will tell you more than a rub or a scrape...

I have not seen more than a few small rubs and one scrape this year. And one property I have about 2 dozen or more bucks on camera, mostly daylight. I have some other good bucks on camera at other properties and I know they are in the area, but no rubs or scrapes. It seems like around me in the mountains, some years there are a lot of rubs and scrapes, and some years there are not, but the bucks are always there. It is still a little early also. I seem to see more rubs and scrapes in years with more food (mast) available in the mountains. This year the acorns are ridiculous so I would expect to see more sign, but have not seen it yet. I think that right now the bucks are laying low and not moving a lot because there are so many acorns. There may be more sign closer to bedding, but I have not checked any bedding areas yet, as I plan to hunt them at some point soon.

[Ack]

Other than a short cool spell back in September it's been warm and dry up here, and that can really slow the bucks from laying down sign. Trust your gut and hunt the thick areas....the bucks will be there.

[uncleron]

It's been a weird year for sure. Just got back from our place in NW MI and the lack of buck sign really has me scratching my head. We covered a lot of ground, public and private, and only saw 3 rubs from this year and 2 scrapes that haven't been hit in several days. I checked all the spots I know of that normally have buck sign and we found nothing. The lack of acorns was a little disappointing as well. Managed to take a nice doe yesterday morning before the drive home.

[Tennhunter3]

Being Michigan sign should be everywhere your rut should be started or very soon.


It could be that this heat has pushed your rut back a few weeks that's why sign is so little.

The rut usually begans during certain low temperature drops. Haven't you guys been in the 80s lately??


Old rub lines are great because they show you staging areas bucks used in the past. Bucks walk where bucks before them walked. So hunting near old rubs can be good if they are near bedding. Big Bucks don't do random every move is calculated.

[seazofcheeze]

Most of the spots I have seen or killed bucks in Michigan during the early season (say the first 15 days of the season) have been absent or near absent of buck sign. The only places I see large amounts of sign are in the really high deer per square mile areas. It makes it tough for scouting, and it makes bouncing around even more important, because a lot of the areas that are good early season can usually only be found by direct observation or previous hunting experiences.

[Divergent]

I will preface this by saying my rut in Alabama is typically later in the season compared to most states. I will see two different times for rubs to appear. The first happens in late September, but mostly the first of October. This is when they shed their velvet. I find these in small, concentrated pockets. The second set of rubs will usually happen in December. This is when they'll pop up along with scrapes during the rut. I can cover miles of terrain and only find one small pocket of rubs. I can find old rubs all day long though. The bucks spread out and cover a lot more ground during the rut. This might be why you're finding older rubs. I'd keep looking for your fresh sign if I were you. Start looking along transitions and along the military crest. If you find a cluster of rubs down low then focus on your surrounding ridges for buck bedding. It's even better If you're finding rub lines coming off of a specific ridge. Good luck