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Scouting on Sunday as I usually do I came acrossed some very fresh good sized rubs. Not the early ones where he's trying to get the velvet off, but ones you would usually see closer to the rut. Quite a few as well. I usually associate that kind of rubbing with territory marking and we usually call the area his "bedroom". It was just kind of odd yet interesting to see that this early.
The property I am on is very large with a mix of thick mountainous ground, almost swampy bottoms with numerous creeks in, old growth bottoms, ag fields, and orchards. All intersected by a few roads. The deer are very hard if not impossible to patten, because off all the available food sources.
Any way, we usually stay up on the mountain, but this was down in the "moist" bottom with older trees and not much undergrowth like we are use to. In the summer months we have out numerous trail cams around the property to get an idea of what's around. It just so happens that two of the biggest bucks we have on camera were not more than 200 yards away from these rubs.
A theory that we came up with was that the dominant buck probably an older one is staking out his claim early. There are other sizeable bucks in the area and he knows it. I would estimate that there are at least 10 different bucks that we have pictures of in the 100-120" range and 2 pushing 130". I know for a fact that deer move through the out the property frequently crossing hard roads so especially later in the year they could be anywhere. Even though we don't usually hunt down there, we are considering trying it after seeing those rubs. Something that would make it hard though is there isn't any defined trails like we are used to seeing and hunting. Because the woods is more open it seems as if they just wander.
What's your opinion of seeing rubs like that this early in the year? Do you agree with our theory, or is it something else?
The property I am on is very large with a mix of thick mountainous ground, almost swampy bottoms with numerous creeks in, old growth bottoms, ag fields, and orchards. All intersected by a few roads. The deer are very hard if not impossible to patten, because off all the available food sources.
Any way, we usually stay up on the mountain, but this was down in the "moist" bottom with older trees and not much undergrowth like we are use to. In the summer months we have out numerous trail cams around the property to get an idea of what's around. It just so happens that two of the biggest bucks we have on camera were not more than 200 yards away from these rubs.
A theory that we came up with was that the dominant buck probably an older one is staking out his claim early. There are other sizeable bucks in the area and he knows it. I would estimate that there are at least 10 different bucks that we have pictures of in the 100-120" range and 2 pushing 130". I know for a fact that deer move through the out the property frequently crossing hard roads so especially later in the year they could be anywhere. Even though we don't usually hunt down there, we are considering trying it after seeing those rubs. Something that would make it hard though is there isn't any defined trails like we are used to seeing and hunting. Because the woods is more open it seems as if they just wander.
What's your opinion of seeing rubs like that this early in the year? Do you agree with our theory, or is it something else?
