Scrapes and Rub lines

[rickt300]

I found a series of small trees that were extremely damaged by a big buck rubbing his antlers on. Do rub lines coincide with scrapes usually, should I watch this rub line during season?

[Terry1]

In my experience, right now is the time to watch a rub line.  If anything, it will show you the bucks travel route. Later in the season it won't be nearly as effective. A buck will be more concerned with how the doe are traveling.

If you have an idea of which direction the bedding and feeding areas are, you might be able to tell if its morning or evening that the deer is making the rubs. If all the rubs are on the same side of each tree, then the deer is making them headed in the same direction each time. If it appears headed toward a bedding area, then he may be making them in the morning. If it appears headed toward the feeding area, then he may be making them in the evening.

Of course, all of this follows the rule that deer don't have rules and anything can happen, or it might give you some insight, who knows. He could be making them at night too. Hope this helps, or even makes sense.

[buck460XVR]

Do rub lines coincide with scrapes usually

not always.....sometimes a rub is made to mark territory and sometimes it's just a way for a buck to let off steam or scratch an itch. In my experience territorial rublines are made several weeks before the rut and like territorial scrapes are just a buck marking their territory. I've found  areas/trails that display fresh rublines/scapes every year are good places to hunt prior to this years  territorial marking. Once these lines are established it seems the bucks tend to disappear/turn nocturnal till the full blown rut comes around. What fresh rubs/scapes tells you is that there are bucks in an area and that they are active......thus a good spot. But sittin' within eyesight of a fresh rub will not guarantee seein' the buck that made it. Terry made some good points about direction of travel and proximity of bedding areas. A point to add to this is if you find active rubs on both sides of several trees in one area, you are probably in the deer's bedroom. Like turkeys, knowin' where deer sleep is a good thing.

should I watch this rub line during season? 

depends.....if the deer are unpressured, as in early archery season, or on large tracts of private land with little pressure during the gun season, it may be a productive tactic. But once the bucks feel much human intervention they will quickly forget about protecting/patrolling their territorial boundaries. Again, fresh rubs will tell you that the deer were there.....once.

[rickt300]

In this area there are 8 hunters handling 4000 acres so thats pretty unpressured. These rubs are all around small cedar trees that have been beaten down hard 360degrees. There are several scrapes and plenty of does plus water. several hundred yards away there is a working feeder. The area is semi open but it is a kind of cut that you can only see into it if you are in it.  I thinlk I'll put some time into it his year.

[Graybeard]

Personally I pay little attention to scrapes and do not in any way, shape, form or fashion plan my hunting strategies around them. Rubs on the other hand I pay attention to and do in fact use to formulate my hunting strategies.

The vast majority of scrapes are never revisited at all by bucks and those that are seem seldom to be visited during hunting hours but more so at night and mostly from a distance they check them via scent and only approach if they catch scent of a hot doe. Yeah that can vary but that's my experience and seems to be the general wisdom of most white tail experts these days as opposed to the older views on them.

Rubs however do have a meaning. They are proof positive a buck was there and marking his territory and a line of them does show the travel path or one or more bucks. I have full confidence when I find rub lines that bucks are regularly using that area or path in their travels so I'll plan my strategy around that travel pattern. The rubbed area is the direction from which the buck came.

So what's in that direction? Is it a bedding area or a feeding area? That sorta tells you if the trail is a morning or evening trail thus the time it's most likely to be used by the buck or bucks. I don't sit over a rub anymore than I do a scrape expecting a buck to show up but I do hunt the areas in which many rubs or a rub line occurs and do expect to see bucks using the area.

I hunt pretty much only deep woods areas with few if any fields so fields really play no part in my hunting. I hunt travel corridors and feeding areas mostly. If I find an oak or stand of oaks being heavily used at the moment I hunt there until the acorns are gone. I'll hunt travel paths between bedding and feeding areas and especially any choke points along the path that might concentrate movement into a more narrow path.

[rickt300]

I would have to call this a corridor between a bedding area and a feeding/doe concentrated area.  The does really use the feeders as a big social event and the scrub oaks put a lot of acorns on the ground in that area. Larger bucks are rarely seen at feeders in the day time but they are attracted to the does during the rut. On the other side of the road there is no deer hunting at all. Three weeks till deer season.