The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Reading the Woods: What Buck Sign Really Tells You
The silent language of the forest speaks volumes to those who understand it. Join Aaron and Dave as they decode the secret messages left behind by blacktail deer and reveal how these subtle signs can transform your hunting strategy.
The hosts dive deep into track identification, explaining how to distinguish between doe and buck prints based on subtle differences in shape and size. A mature buck's track isn't just larger—it splays outward in ways that tell experienced hunters they're on the right path. The direction of these tracks offers crucial intelligence about deer movement patterns, helping you determine whether you've found morning or evening travel routes.
Game trails hold perhaps the most valuable information for serious hunters. The podcast reveals exactly what to look for when scouting bedding areas and how to identify the high-traffic trails that dominant bucks use regularly. The hosts share their strategy for finding natural bottlenecks where multiple trails converge—creating the perfect ambush location just 20-30 yards from thick cover.
Buck rubs tell a more complex story than many hunters realize. The podcast distinguishes between traditional rub lines and "dominance rubs" found in clearcuts, explaining why the latter often indicate nighttime rather than daytime activity. Dave shares his expertise on how to determine a buck's antler configuration based on rub characteristics, noting how eye guards leave distinctive gouges that penetrate deeper into the tree.
This episode cuts through the confusion and overthinking that often plagues deer hunters. By understanding that deer prioritize survival first, breeding second, and feeding third, you can develop a more effective hunting strategy. Whether you're a beginner or experienced hunter, these insights will help you read the woods more effectively and increase your chances of tagging that elusive dominant buck.
Ready to become fluent in the language of deer sign? Listen now and transform your understanding of what the forest is telling you.
Hello and welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Dave. This week's topic what do the signs say when you're out scouting? We want to talk about what you're going to see as far as everything that we consider signs of bucks or deer activity. This is what we're looking for, but there are some differences in each of these that we'll talk about. How to read the signs and how to read them. Yeah, to know about, mostly about is the dominant buck there?
Speaker 2:Right. What is the sign telling you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're going to start off with let's actually start off with talking about tracks Now. Size difference in tracks, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the type of track A doe track will always the hooves will always come to a point Okay. Type of track a doe, a doe track will always the hooves will always come to a point.
Speaker 2:okay, okay, and and a buck track the front hooves will always splay okay, and then a really good buck will will have the dewclaws and but a real heavy doe will also have the dewclaws. But typically speaking, if it's a big, mature buck and you're seeing the track, that track, if it's a mature buck, say five years old and up, you're looking at about an eight inch track, oh, in length. Yeah, it's, it's not a small track. I mean you're somewhere between seven and eight inches. Typically is what I've come across in in in the bucks that I've harvested, you know, with their tracks and everything like that. So if you're seeing buck tracks and they're not from the tip of the hoof to the dewclaws, if it isn't over six, it's probably just a little three or a forked horn or something like that.
Speaker 2:But that you know, and that's kind of a general thought. That's not like across the board. That's the way it is every time, regardless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, because genetics have a play in all of it. Genetics have a play in it.
Speaker 2:Habitat has a play in it. How much feed is there? The amount of rain that happens in that year determines. You know a lot about the health of a deer, the body weight, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. Anything to garner from the direction that they're walking yes. Okay.
Speaker 2:So, using my system, I'm looking for a bedding area and when I locate that bedding area, I want to find the most heavily used game trail coming out of that bedding area.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so when I look at that and I'm seeing that if the majority of the tracks are going into that bedding area, then chances are that's the trail that that big, dominant buck is using to go into the bedding area in the morning. Okay. If most of the tracks are coming out, then that typically means that that's where he's coming out at night to go out and feed or or do his cycle to to find a doe or whatnot okay and that's how he's exiting that bedding area now.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they do both on the same trail uh-huh and sometimes, you know it, just the time of year would determine a lot of what. What's going on as far as the activity on that trail, like the summertime, obviously they're not. They're not in that thick stuff as much, especially when they get antlers out past their ears. Yeah. They just don't want to be in there. They'll be in the more open stuff. So you won't see near the amount of activity on that trail. Okay. Versus once they shed the velvet and they immediately go back in there. Then it's business as usual in there.
Speaker 1:So tracks heading in.
Speaker 2:Typically mean that that's the morning.
Speaker 1:That's the morning.
Speaker 2:That's the morning route that he uses to go to bedding.
Speaker 1:And tracks. Heading out is the evening route Is the evening route. Yep, Okay, so that and that would that could determine where you set up, where you create a set.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, if you're trying to catch him in the evening. So if I got my camera out and this buck is coming at night, but as I watch him through putting out pheromones and scents and all that stuff, and I'm watching this buck and I've realized that, okay, he's about to daylight. Well, when is he about to daylight? Is he about to daylight? Is he cycling closer toward daylighting in the evening or is he cycling closer toward daylighting in the morning? Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if I find that he's cycling closer to daylighting in the morning, well then I'm going to set up on that trail in the morning. If it's the evening, it's the evening. Sometimes you don't have the option If you're on a state land or a timber company land and it's adjacent to private property and you've only got the trail that he exits on, not the trail that he enters in on. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you've only got access to one. Well, I typically don't worry about that too much, because once he starts cycling in the daytime this illusion that I'm creating he's eventually going to cycle through the day because he's trying to find the does that I'm giving him, so he'll figure out. Okay, they're not here at night, so he'll start cycling through the daytime and then he'll cycle at first time about every four or five hours apart. Then eventually he will cycle to about. I've had him cycle as less as every 45 minutes. They're coming through and I've had him cycle through every hour and a half, two hours.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm thinking about, while you're saying this, I'm thinking about last year, this set I was hunting on my Hilltop set that I had Nemo, that I would catch on camera two or three times by the time I moved my camera over before extended modern, so I caught him heading in in the the in the evening but during daylight Right, and I know that they they had another kind of core area down below where I was hunting and up above was the was the main area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. If you've caught him going into that area in the evening, then that that is not his primary bedding area.
Speaker 1:Okay, Interesting the thing is is I never caught him coming out on that side.
Speaker 2:Right, which means there's another trail that he was using.
Speaker 1:And that is over on the other side. So I was on the edge of a swamp at basically a pretty good-sized pond. It might have been a total of a couple acres long, but maybe 60 feet at the widest or 70 feet. But they came out and this year I had cameras over on the other side and tons of activity. I had lots of pictures over there. Okay, and that's kind of what I saw. But because I was doing more afternoon evening hunts, I was trying to catch him heading out for the night.
Speaker 1:So you went into talking about game trails. So let's talk about game trails. So let's talk about game trails. Which ones should I investigate?
Speaker 2:What I do, what I look for again, to go back to the bedding area is I'm looking for a bedding area. Yeah. Okay, when you stop and think about it, we want to make it more difficult than it really is. It isn't that difficult. You just got to find the thickest, ugliest, nastiest stuff out there, and that's the bedding area. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Guaranteed. If there is a dominant buck in the area, that's where he wants to be. It's almost unhuntable. You can't walk through it, you can't get close enough to him, you can't see far enough in there. That's why he's in there. So what I do from there? Once I find that thick, that thick, nasty, ugliest hole in the woods, then I walk around the edge of it and I'm just looking for the game trail that has the most activity.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm looking for. And when I find that game trail with the most activity, then I determine you know, okay, so here's the trail coming out. Where does it bottleneck? Where do I have four or five trails coming together on that trail? That's my kill spot. That's where I will kill that big buck.
Speaker 1:And they always have game trails paralleling edges Correct. So if you're walking down a skidder road and you're looking, you know that there's going to be a trail that's paralleling that skidder road.
Speaker 2:Right. And which I know is true from what I'm seeing, and the bedding area will have an edge. Yeah, okay, and so there will always be a game trail paralleling the edge of that bedding area.
Speaker 1:But the one we're looking for is the one that's got the high activity coming out of the bedding area.
Speaker 2:Out of the bedding area, yeah. And so if I'm paralleling the edge of that bedding area and I found the game trail that's coming out that has the most activity, well, right there I have two trails coming together. That's my first bottleneck. Yeah. Okay, well, that's where I want to be. Okay, essentially, that's four trails, because where they intersect you've got a trail going in each direction.
Speaker 1:Each direction.
Speaker 2:So that's my kill spot. I don't go into the bedding area more than 20, 30 yards, At the most 30. I don't like going in. He's got to feel safe. Yeah. Okay, and I'm not talking small bucks, I'm talking big bucks. They're big because they're smart. So if he doesn't feel safe, he's not going to stay there, right, and I want to get multiple hunts on this buck. Yeah. So, in order to do that, I have to keep him in the area until he makes a mistake, and I'm there to capitalize on it.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things it was kind of interesting because of a conversation I had with someone today. He was talking about how we have a half an hour after sundown and then it's legal to hunt half an hour after sundown, and then it's legal to hunt half an hour after sundown right, you still have shooting light but we don't have shooting light in our sets half an hour after sundown we lose it a half hour before we're losing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah like sundown during my season, the first part of my season. I was leaving, I was feeling lucky, I could push it to 6.30, but it was almost seven o'clock by legal. I could be in there, but 6.30, it was so dark that I couldn't get out of there without a headlamp. And once I got out to the skidder road, oh, it was plenty. I'd turn the headlamp off and walk out, no problem, but yeah, you just, there's a certain point, walk out, no problem, but yeah you.
Speaker 2:Just there's a certain point. So that's what I like, that's what I look for, and the reason is is because when your habitat is able to choke out the sunlight like that, it's got to be tight. Yeah. Okay, so that tight feeling is what those big dominant bucks like, because tight equals cover, cover equals safety Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's what he likes. So that's where I want to be and typically and you've heard me say this, aaron, and and and you know I've had several guys come up and talk to me about it and stuff but they agree with me and I know a lot of the listeners who are going to hear this are going to seek the same thing. Those bucks are daylighting in there all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're. They're no more nocturnal than a doe. We see doe in the daytime, we see doe at night, so it's the same. We're just looking in a different area, so he'll daylight in there a lot easier than he will out on the edge of a clear cut. Yeah. You know what I mean. So when they stage in there and whatnot, two hours before dark, you still have time to shoot. You know plenty of light to shoot and everything like that. And then there's always well, he came in just after dark, and well, just after dark.
Speaker 2:And where we're hunting, that happens quite a bit and it's all right, don't sweat it, because the easiest buck to kill is the one that doesn't know he's being hunted. So if he comes in and you don't have, just let him walk. And it's hard, but let him walk, because so long as you don't give away that you're there, he'll come right back. Another day You'll get another opportunity. And potentially earlier, especially if you're creating the illusion and he's looking, if you're paying attention to the five factors that we talked about, you're going to get an opportunity at that buck.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you said no more 20 yards typically 20, 30 yards, 30 at the most, 30 at the most. It's better, if you're going to go push that far in Now, you can. During season we cut in trails so that we're not making a bunch of racket as we're walking in Cutting trails to our sets.
Speaker 2:To our sets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're not creating whole new trails or anything like that. We're not cutting into the bedding area or anything like that, but during we go out and we scout around February, march because all the leaves are down and that's when there's as much light as possible is getting into where we're going in.
Speaker 2:Stuff really stands out, yep yeah.
Speaker 1:Stuff stands out. Stuff stands out. Yep, yeah, stuff stands out. Is it okay to push a little further in then, or do we always want to make it 30 yards max?
Speaker 2:So I would say that if you're going to go all the way into the bedding area, do it in February. Yeah, okay Do it in February.
Speaker 2:You know, guys, I want to shed hunt, or I just want to see where that trail goes, or I want to get in there and figure out where they're hanging out. Do that in february, march, okay, that buck will get out of there. I've seen him stay out as long as three months. Eventually they do come back okay. But again, going back to what I said earlier, he got big by being smart. He ain't dumb yeah you know.
Speaker 2:And so if you do that just before hunting season, if you do that during hunting season, chances are it's a one and done hunt. You're not going to get another opportunity at that big buck. They're just too smart.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So even in thinking about this, there are times where the buck comes in or deer have come in. Right, there's no more shooting light, but you know that there's a deer down there and you get stuck in stand for quite some time.
Speaker 2:if possible, I've sat until about 11.45 in stand on a couple occasions my wife worries and everything. But fortunately with cell phones you can text your spouse and let them know the situation and stuff and that happens. I've got a few tricks to get out of stand now. Through the years I've kind of developed that. Guys that I've taken out and helped and whatnot see me walking along logging roads and picking up pebbles and whatnot for evening hunts. And.
Speaker 2:I'll go up with a pocket full of pebbles and you know, of course, the question is what's that for? Well, that's what I use to get the deer off the set after dark so that I can get down and get out of there. It's just simply. You know tossing pebbles and you know, especially with the smaller bucks, you got to hit them. You almost just got to club them over the head.
Speaker 2:It's just they're idiots they're. That's why a majority of them get killed is because they're just not. Yeah, they're not. How can I say survival savvy? Yeah you know what I mean. They know how to eat, sleep and drink. That's it. Yeah, you know they haven't developed that sense, that that, okay, the scent of man is danger, and so it takes time. But the big ones, the dominant bucks, yeah, there's no doubt about it. It's all about survival with them.
Speaker 1:Well, I know, even with refreshing scents and heading out there, we'll have the small bucks. They'll just stand there, they'll walk off 10 yards and watch us, yeah, and then they'll come back I went out two days ago well, maybe it's a little bit long.
Speaker 2:It was the last time we had a little bit of a sprinkle and I was out refreshing sense on my sets and I walked into this one and I kind of went through this little bend in the terrain, come around corner and here's this buck standing at. Probably he couldn't have been more than 10 yards, I'd be surprised if he was 10. But you know there's a little spike and whatnot. And he just sat there and stared at me and I mean, I'm in street clothes, you know, I just got off work, I've got my Carhartts on and I'm just running out there to freshen up sense and change the batteries out on a camera. And here he is, at 10 yards, plenty of daylight. He saw me, knew exactly what. I was, staring at me the whole time I stood there for probably three, four minutes before I finally just decided to walk off. And as I was walking off, he didn't move. He just sat there and watched me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, when he finally decided to leave, he just turned and walked the other way. Yeah. That's what we kind of anticipate, with the small bucks Doing the scents like we do every year. It's the same thing. You get in an area. You think, oh, this is a great area. Turns out there's a lot of deer in there, because you're looking for the right habitat. You find it and the dumbest buck out. There will be that small spike or forked horn and they will just not leave.
Speaker 1:Ever, yeah, yeah, because, well, it's a bedding area that you've recreated with your Conquest. Ever Calm you know, so hey, I'll take a nap here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't tell me that stuff doesn't work, because they're not spooked at all.
Speaker 1:No, and even when they hear something coming because I pushed one off my set yesterday and when I go out tomorrow I'm sure I'm going to see on camera that he came back within an hour, but probably less, knowing how they work and stuff but the idea of being up up and we've talked about this in other episodes you don't when, when you're up in the tree stand, it's to get out of their line of sight, right and so if they spot you up there, it's over, because they'll know something's up there and that every time and you've said this before I don't think on that on an episode, but if they know you're up there because you climbed out while they were down there, they know to look up whenever they come in.
Speaker 2:Especially the does, especially the does. Okay, the does will be the first ones to start blowing. Blow air over that gland and they do that little snort. The does are big for that. The small bucks, they're not smart enough. No.
Speaker 2:They're not smart enough? No, but the does. If they see you up in that stand or they watch you climb down out of that stand or tree saddle, whatever. You're using ground blind, if you haven't spooked them off somehow, but they have the opportunity to watch you climb down or crawl out of your blind or whatnot, every time they come in. Every time they come in, the first thing they're going to do is get up and they're going to stare at that stand, they're going to lock eyes on it and they're going to stare and they're looking for the slightest bit of movement. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's why it's important to spook the deer off, obviously not letting them know that you're there, but find a way to spook them off, to get them out of there, so you can climb down.
Speaker 1:Now I know and I actually mentioned this to someone else today that the large bucks and bears will do this too. They'll snap a twig when they're coming in, or they'll snap a branch. All deer will do that.
Speaker 2:All deer will do that they don't want to startle each other, so they do that. To let the other one know hey, I each other. So they do that. Okay, to let the other one know hey, I'm over here, I'm coming in, kind of thing. And bear will do the same thing. In case there is another bear and that's usually kind of a dead giveaway that there's multiple bears coming in on a bait, it's because they'll snap a branch, whether it be a twig or a hefty branch. They'll snap it to let whatever is on a bait know that they're coming in yeah so, but deer do the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's just a way of communicating and a bait from like when you could legally bait, we're not talking about yeah, we don't bait.
Speaker 2:It's all my baits that I run throughout the summer so yeah, we're not.
Speaker 1:We're not baiting bear, but back in in back in the day. Yeah, so that's one of the things. Is I, when I come in, I will snap a branch and I'll try to do a larger one so that hopefully I'm hoping that it kind of wakes them up, maybe kicks them off, so that it's not just me barreling in right right, yeah yeah, so you know, I, I'm, I'm a whistler, so I'll whistle on my way in uh-huh uh, and typically they hear that long before I get there.
Speaker 2:And by the time I get there and I do the sense and I get back to my rig, I can look on my phone and say, oh, there was a deer on that, on that set. You know, before I got there I bumped them off and then usually they're right back on it by the time I get back to my rig.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and another thing I wanted to actually bring up, because you mentioned texting. You know, if you get stuck out there, a new thing that I just discovered with it's an update on the iPhone, and I don't know if Android does any of this, but if you have an iPhone, they have an update with iOS 18 where you can satellite text now. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're in a non-cell area, what it'll prompt you to do is hold up your phone and turn around so it'll pick up a satellite and you can text from there Not pictures or anything like that, but you can send out a message and you can receive messages. So if you have an iPhone, get that upgrade if you're going out someplace, just for safety's sake too, that you have a way of contacting, communicating with people. So back to the topic. So, Scott, if you're seeing buck versus doe, what would the difference look like?
Speaker 2:Or even small buck and large buck. Okay, so doe looks like jelly, so dough looks. It looks like jelly beans, obviously not colored like jelly beans, but the shape of jelly beans and and pellets. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Like rabbits yeah, yeah and and buck looks like a bunch of junior mints melted together okay and so now the small buck the same as a large buck, or is it just a smaller version of that? Exactly, okay, exactly.
Speaker 2:As far as yearlings go and stuff, I've heard guys say that a buck, small yearling or a toehead will have pellets, but they'll be dented, they'll be dimpled, oh, okay. On one side and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if that is true or not, but I know what a mature buck. I'm not out to tag a yearling myself, but you know some guys are. You know my first deer. I just took what was available and that's fine, you got something for the freezer there you go. But I mean, if I'm trying to locate a big buck, then yeah, I'm looking for those junior mints knotted together.
Speaker 1:So if we're seeing predator scat in the area, will that as a sign for deer? Will that tell us to leave the area, because there's just like if we were seeing bear scat everywhere.
Speaker 2:So typically deer don't want to be around bears. Bear scat is kind of tricky because it dries out and, for lack of a better term, it disappears quickly. Okay. It's just, it's not a scat. That has a lot of moisture in it, so it dries out and, for lack of a better term, it disappears quickly. Okay, it's just, it's not a scat. That has a lot of moisture in it, so it dries out and gets real crisp, flaky, whatever, and then disappears quickly. I'm more concerned about cougar and coyote myself.
Speaker 2:Bear scat, typically in the spring when they're dropping fawns and whatnot that's when the bears really start, because they're coming out of hibernation and right out of hibernation they're hitting a lot of grasses and and green shoots off of plants and whatnot. They're not on solids yeah for about three, four weeks and then they kind of make their way on the solids. But then in june, you know, the deer start dropping fawns and whatnot, and and fawns are born with no scent. So that's one of the ways God has used to protect them. But the afterbirth, all that leaves a scent trail. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, he's just waiting to find them. And bears kill a lot of fawns. Cougars kill a lot of fawns. Cougars kill a lot of big bucks because big bucks are typically solitary and it's easier for a cat to get in on a solitary animal than it is for a cat to get on three or four animals.
Speaker 1:Bobcats go after deer a lot too, which is amazing to believe because you think the size difference and everything.
Speaker 1:But I saw them in your yard one night pulling in and I see a couple of deer standing there. It's dark out. I was like, oh, there's a couple of deer and then a bobcat goes tearing across the driveway towards them. Wasn't expecting that and I actually one of my sets that I was hunting. I went in and I thought it was coyote dropping and then I saw somebody had posted pictures of bobcat dropping and I think that's what it was, because the coyote typically will have a lot more hair in it.
Speaker 2:Yep, coyotes kill a lot more rabbits and smaller game like that, and so, yeah, it will always have a lot of hair, not to mention that they're constantly grooming themselves. Bobcat will have hair in it and whatnot, but they like a lot of rabbits. But again, they like the deer as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know I had a bobcat on that set. At first I thought it was a coyote and then I looked at it a little more closely and realized as it stood up, it had a nub tail. It was just sitting on my set with its back to the camera. So last thing I wanted to get into with this is rubs. So everybody's looking for rubs and a lot of guys they start getting worried. I didn't see any rubs and it's not necessarily a given either way, if you see them, if there's a buck there or not.
Speaker 2:Right. So rubs, I don't want to say, don't put a lot of weight in in rubs. You always want to hunt the rubs, but rubs are not the end, all for it, so to speak.
Speaker 2:The buck I killed last year lucky there was no rubs anywhere around that set- yeah okay, the rubs that I was finding in that area were way off, in a area where it was all nighttime activity. There wasn't a single rub. But the evening that I shot Lucky, he was chasing does and that was the first day of late season late archery last year, so it was around Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving weekend tree last year, so it was around thanksgiving thanksgiving weekend and I could hear him in the slack.
Speaker 2:We were on the edge of a swamp and a green belt and I could hear him in the sowlow running through the bushes chasing the does and stuff long I mean hours before he came in. But I mean we, I never saw a single rub, and I'm not necessarily saying that that you need rubs because you don't. What you need is does. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know you need the bedding area located and you need the does so rubs tell you a lot about an area, as far as whether it's a daytime use or a nighttime use. You know, and guys were like well, I see all these rubs out in the clear cuts and I'm like well, I see all these rubs out in the clear cuts.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, yeah, I wanted to actually bring that up because one of my sets you saw a lot of rubs. We were both spotting them out in a clear cut, real small jackfur. Uh-huh. You know four to eight foot jackfur, right, it was real open, but there were rubs everywhere and you said those were dominance rubs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what it is is. You have what we call a rub line. So a rub line is typically there's multiple bucks creating a rub line. Everybody here in the Northwest has walked down a skidder road that has a bunch of viney maples on it and you've seen just rub after rub after rub in there. That's a rub line. And you've seen just rub after rub after rub in there. That's a rub line. Yeah, when you're seeing rubs out in a clear cut, those are usually a display of dominance. Okay, Kind of rub, it's a dominance rub. And what I mean by that is this is that when they're out there at night because the does are out in the clear cuts at night feeding, so the bucks go out to the clear cuts at night, to what To find the does. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So if there's multiple does, then there's probably multiple bucks, and the bucks during that time of year are not friends. So if this buck is trailing this doe and all of a sudden he looks over and there's another buck 40, 50 yards away, he starts doing this display of dominance to let that buck hey, I'm over here, you stay your distance. So he'll start a rub and he'll just thrash a little tree, right? Well then that other buck will reciprocate that display of dominance with another one of his own. So now we have two rubs in an area where, like man, there's all these rubs here. I need to be on this cut all the time because there's obviously a bunch of bucks running in here and the reality is it's like no, it's out in the open. Chances are it's done at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a good sign, because it tells you that there's bucks in the area. But it's not telling you to hunt right there, right, it's telling you go find the bedding area somewhere around there, the 50 acres that is the typical range of a blacktail. Go find that bedding area and start working those edges.
Speaker 1:Right right and figure it out, okay. So then just real quick. So you see these bucks, and this is just curiosity for my point when you see a buck rub, how do you know that it's got eye guards? What's the difference between? Because I know people have said, oh yeah, that buck has really nice eye guards.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because of the way that the rub looks.
Speaker 2:Right. So first thing I would say is you have to be able to distinguish between a buck rub and an elk rub a bull rub. So a bull rub is really easy to figure out because typically the height of it will be quite a bit higher than a buck rub. Number one. Number two bulls tend to take off most, if not all, of the bark on the area that they're rubbing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, bucks will leave strands of bark hanging on the tree from when they where they rub, just because they, they don't have uh, the strength to just uh you know, shred it all off yeah, yeah, a bull will de-limb a you know a little tree in no time and a buck will. He may get one or two branches off, but then he's gonna have a bunch of bark hanging on it still and it just looks like, you know, the bark looks like a bunch of like a big brillo pad or something hanging uh you know, just all these bark flakes on it and stuff.
Speaker 2:But when they have eye guards, what they do is because the eye guard is is the part that is on the tree the most it will wear through that outer layer, not just the bark but the layer underneath the bark, and it will dig into the core of the tree. It'll get into that core area of the tree. So it'll look and it's really obvious when you see one you know it'll look like he reached a second layer inside of that tree.
Speaker 1:Kind of gouging it Correct as opposed to just yeah and it'll look like hair.
Speaker 2:Okay, all the little wood shavings will look like hair hanging there. Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So the way it ends up shredding it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, last thing Can you identify the size of a buck by the rub to an extent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, is there a way to?
Speaker 1:do bigger bucks rub differently Bigger trees, bigger trees, okay, typically yes.
Speaker 2:Typically, yes, yeah. Bigger trees, okay. Typically, yes, typically, yes, yeah, but I've been on rub lines and I've watched bucks on rub lines. Sometimes the dominant buck will let all the little bucks do the work, because the doe comes through that rub line trying to. You know, you know it's it's survival of the species, right? So she wants to get bred. I can't remember the article I read about this, but they said that 70% of the does get bred in that first estrous cycle and that they want to be bred by the top two bucks the dominant one and the one underneath them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's just for the preservation of the species. The strong survive kind of thing, you know, the strong survive kind of thing, and and but I so does, we'll go through rub lines and they'll leave their scent there, because the bucks will go through the rub lines every day checking for the scent of the dough, and so I've seen the bigger bucks not do hardly any rubs on a rub line. Let all the little bucks do it. And then when the dough comes through and leaves her scent, he just kind of walks in there, smells her and then tracks her down. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if that's just him saying I'm done. You know, you guys do all this.
Speaker 1:It's like she's going to be mine. I don't need to do any more work. You just go ahead and take care of that. Maybe in a few years you'll get like, but right now, no. Yeah. Yeah, go practice. Okay, any other thoughts on signs that we might be wanting to look for?
Speaker 2:Well, I would just say this that don't make anything. It doesn't have to be difficult, so don't overthink it. Yeah. Okay, these animals are intelligent, they are smart, but at the same time, if you start thinking like they do, as far as survival is number one and then breeding is number two and then eating is number three, if you think of it in that order, you can figure out these animals relatively easy.
Speaker 1:It's not that smart. We tend to make it harder than it needs to be. Yeah, I think a lot from conversations I've had are guys making the perfect enemy of the good Right. So you know there's a lot of really good signs but you give up because you didn't see that rub line or you didn't see this or you didn't see that. Right. So you walk away from an area that you shouldn't have walked away from, because making the perfect enemy of the good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we overthink it, but at the same time, I get it because there's a lot. You're hearing multiple things from a lot of people. Yeah. So if you want to be successful, I will say this If you want to be a big buck killer, then learn from somebody who kills big bucks.
Speaker 1:Consistently.
Speaker 2:Don't sit there and listen to the guy who kills spikes and forker horns every year, unless that's what you're happy with. And if it is what you're happy with, that is absolutely, totally fine. Yeah. I mean, it's your tag, you put it on the buck. You want to put it on. But, if you are in the process of your hunting career where you're saying I want to step it up, I want to get bigger bucks, I want to get more, then go to the guy or the gal that is doing that every year consistently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's who you want to listen to.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, with that, we're going to wrap up this episode. Thanks for listening to us this week and if you haven't already, check out our Patreon. We started that and we will talk to you again next week.
