Woa.... is this a whitetail buck rub?

[Ognennyy]

Today I finally made it up to a section of the Adirondack mountains that for years I've wanted to check out after cyber scouting it several seasons ago. There was some logging done there within the past 5-10 years. The trick is that on a W or NW wind - the two predominant winds during mid and late season - it's a 3 mile hike from parking to get to the downwind side of the area in question. I had always figured the combination of logging and how remote the area is would make it worth the trek. I had vacation to burn so today I grabbed my bow, laced up the mountain boots and set out.

While scouting around the transition from logging to old growth forest I came across the biggest pile of deer droppings I've ever seen. It even topped the ones I posted pics of in viewtopic.php?f=3&t=46331 which was also in a fairly remote area with old logging up in the Adirondacks. I'm guessing these droppings were left within the past 2-3 days. I need to start carrying a quarter with me in my pocket for scale. My hand and GPS were the best I could do. It's a Garmin GPS Map 64S (about 5" top to bottom). My boot is size 11 and my hands are average size for an adult male. I would've needed a third hand to scoop up the entire pile all at once.






About 40 yards away I found a rub on a young Goosefoot Maple (Norwegian Maple, soft maple, I think they're all names for the same thing) that was definitely made in the last day or two. You can tell by the green tint still visible in the cambrium layer beneath the bark. Goosefoot quickly loses the green tint only a few days after being rubbed. Thing is, this rub was impossibly high and I'm wondering if it wasn't a moose. There are moose in the 'Dacks, and I did find moose droppings in the area, but not recent at all. But this rub... it started at my chest level (I'm 6'0") and went up to past 7 feet up on the tree. Do whitetail bucks even get big enough to make rubs like this?


My bow is a Bear Attitude with an axle-to-axle length of 31".



This is me at 6' tall reaching UP toward the top of the rub.


This is where the rub starts. The picture is deceiving because I held the camera up near my eye and angled it down, but I'm reaching straight out from my left shoulder in this picture.


I thought to investigate further and try to figure out what could've made such a rub. There is another young tree close to the rubbed maple that showed no signs of rubbing. Strange. There were a bunch of Goosefoot saplings around the larger one that had been rubbed. At first glance I thought those saplings had been snapped off by the tines, but there was no damage to the rubbed Goosefoot at the same height. Then it dawned on me that whatever made the rubs must have been browsing on the new growth chutes of the saplings in the area.






In case this plot needed any thickening; while screwing around with my phone trying to take all these pictures a deer crashed off in the hardwoods about 60 yards to the South of where I was standing. He didn't wind me. He just heard me snap a stick while I was carelessly caught up in taking pictures of sign of a big deer instead of focusing on hunting one. All I could see was a white tail up, but I'm guessing it was a buck by how narrow the hips were. I never saw antlers. I was not able to find any sign in the hardwoods of a bed where the deer jumped. Whatever the deer was it must have just been passing through. I also was unable to locate any tracks. Finding tracks in the 'Dacks while leaves are falling is beyond my woodsmanship skills.

Could this actually be a whitetail buck that made this rub? Or is it just a coincidence that the huge pile of crap was so close and I jumped a deer. I mean it could be a coincidence, and a moose could've made that rub. For a deer to make that rub he'd have to stand eye-to-eye with me and have a rack about 20" top to bottom.

[Drewo]

My first though was elk or moose. Never seen a whitetail make a rub that high before. Also the scat looks like moose scat from google image search.

[tbunao]

Moose

[Rich M]

Porcupine gone wild - they kill a lot of trees. Imagine a woodchuck up a sapling, eating the bark off it, and you pretty much have the mental picture.

If you look at the photos, you can see where it looks like two teeth were used instead of something rough (antler bases) to strip (and eat) the bark.

The droppings - hoping it is a big buck and you get on him.

[Crazy4bucks]

Looks like moose dropping and rub to me.

[bowfreak8]

I'd have to say it was probably a moose. I've never seen a Whitetail rub 6 feet high. Very cool though.

[Arrowbender]

A whitetail can bend a tree a good ways over.
I once did watched a 2 yo 8 totally push one down while rubbing that he actually walked over it when done.
Not trying to take wind from sail. It still takes a good deer to "walk" over a tree.

[SamPotter]

Moose poop and not a rub, but a tree stripped of its bark by a feeding moose. The two lines at the bottom of the “rub” are from the moose’s bottom teeth as it dug into the bark and them peeled a long strip.

[Thesouthpaw]

It doesn't look like anything that I have ever seen a whitetail do.

[alleyyooper]

My first thought with the rub was a hunter blazeing a sapling to mark a spot.

Never seen a white tail rub that high either.
White tail rubs tend to have a start and stop point with well defined edge and there will be scuffed off bark at or near the base of a tree.

Have never seen a moose or elk rub so can't comment on them.


Al

[peteinvermont]

Moose poop and not a rub, but a tree stripped of its bark by a feeding moose. The two lines at the bottom of the “rub” are from the moose’s bottom teeth as it dug into the bark and them peeled a long strip.

Mr. Potter has hunted in areas with moose before. He's 100% right.

In areas with higher moose densities, you'll walk into an area half an acre in size, and EVERY maple in there looks like that. I don't think I've ever seen them rub a maple, they just strip it. All the rubs I've seen them make are on spruce trees, or on more shrub-like bushes. In my experience, they only make rubs in the traditional whitetail style about 50% of the time.

[brancher147]

Moose poop and not a rub, but a tree stripped of its bark by a feeding moose. The two lines at the bottom of the “rub” are from the moose’s bottom teeth as it dug into the bark and them peeled a long strip.

Yep. I have seen it in the ADK's. Moose love striped maple...also known as moose maple.

[HudsonBay]

Moose. I see it a lot in my neck of the woods.

[Ognennyy]

I never thought of moose eating bark. And while I can't say it's impossible that there would be an elk in the Adirondacks, I highly doubt it. It's a long way (~400 miles) from the nearest population down in PA.

After digging around the net for a while yeah I guess those could be from a moose. I guess rutting bull moose have lumped up poop like that too like a rutting whitetail buck. All of the other moose droppings I've seen in the past are football shaped, and much more consistent in the shape and size of the pellets.

Damn. Damn!!!!! I can't kill a bull moose. I was really hoping that was like a 300 pound pig.

[FishHog]

looks like all the moose sign I see around my cottage in Northern Ontario. Unless there are no moose in your area, I'd bet 100% its moose.
If there are no moose in your area, I'd still bet 99% its a moose that traveled.