stash59 wrote:Singing Bridge wrote:stash59 wrote:Are these sign post rubs less common in areas where young bucks are doing most of the breeding?
I'm going to try not to give a confusing answer here. I've found lots of trees that multiple young bucks have rubbed, but it isn't what I call a sign post. Others may.
When I say a sign post rub, I'm talking a big and tall rub that is very obvious wasn't made by a young buck... the kind of rub you hope to find and know it when you see it.
So to summarize, you are exactly right... sign post rubs are much less common in areas where young bucks are doing most of the breeding.
So if I'm analyzing this correctly. All age classes of bucks will use/rework/walk nearby other bucks rubs. I know in the bigwoods, magic talks about sign post type rubs showing up where mature bucks territories over lap. And if I'm remembering correctly, so did the Benoits and Hal Blood mention something similar. It's usually some combination of terrain features. That forces deer travel to intersect in certain places. Thus the sign post rub.
So does this same thing cause the younger bucks to rub there also, or are their's more random? As far as when the older bucks are almost non existent. Course like you said higher rubs are the key for the mature bucks.
Magic and the others are right on the money. Going more in-depth, however, there are other situations that cause these sign post rubs. The territories overlapping will have sign post rubs and just as you described, terrain features will often have deer intersecting in certain places which leads to a sign post rub.
So what is another scenario, where terrain features have bucks intersecting on paths but it isn't due to territories overlapping? I'm going to give you a rut / doe example. Quite often I will locate several doe bedding areas inside a huge swamp that aren't really all that far apart... perhaps on open and mature timbered islands and points inside the swamps. When the bucks begin cruising to check on the doe families, they will often intersect the primary runs going in and out of doe bedding areas to check ground and airborne scent. Sometimes i find a rub at the buck / doe trail intersection, sometimes I only find a scrape... other times I find nothing there at all. Nothing major so far... but when terrain features line in more than one big buck and their trails intersect... I find sign post rubs here. Instead of territories simply overlapping, The bucks are "lining in" on trails that intersect other buck trails in order to be near the doe families.
Hopefully that makes sense-