Old rub lines...I learned a lesson!

[Tmitch14]

I was out last week in the fresh snow to scout a new area. Its a public forest preserve with 1000's of acres to wonder so I scaled it down to the areas I wanted to scout this winter. Sure enough I cut fresh doe tracks and decided to follow them backward to see where they came from. As I was walking I kept noticing old rubs and the rubs were either on the trail or just adjacent to it. I also observed the rubs were made headed in both directions, in this case east and west. There were enough old rubs that when I paused if I looked around enough I could find the next old rub to continue walking the "trail". I followed the trail back to where the does came from, bedded down over a bank in the laurel. Oak trees there also and we had a ton of acorns this year, they had the whole area scratched to the bare ground. You could see a lot of ground up acorns, poop, pee, beds, etc...I'm assuming they set up camp there to wait out the snow storm.

If it wasn't for the snow in such a vast forest where deer trails don't stick out and are very faint, I may have missed that trail. So know I'm thinking, how many other "trails" have I missed by not paying attention to old or new rubs and finding/following that line/trail. URGHHHHH!!!!!

[218er]

Sometimes fresh snow is like training wheels to find beds. I found a bunch of beds last spring and then again last weekend on little ridges with blowdowns in big woods setting. It’s really a great aid to scouting. I wouldn’t have thought deer would bed in such an open setting but they can see and smell for a ways and you couldn’t get close without making a racket. It’s a good feeling when a light bulb turns on.

[mheichelbech]

I have seen that deer often walk in a scattered out pattern when walking hardwoods. This result in not seeing any defined trail. It can make things difficult. I even had a camera over an area and was getting just a pic here and there and one day I was do an observation hunt and saw 10-15 deer move through the area one afternoon. I changed the camera to plot watch mode and it showed deer traveling the area all day long but they travelled in such a scattered pattern that the camera didn’t pick them up.

Love scouting in snow!