The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Reading Deer Sign
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The woods are full of clues, but most hunters only see noise. We sit down and translate the signs that actually matter when you’re scouting for a mature blacktail buck: tracks, game trails, bedding edges, scat, and rubs, plus what each one can and can’t prove about daylight movement.
We start on the ground with tracks, including the small shape differences between buck and doe prints, how size can hint at age, and why genetics and habitat can make “rules” bend. From there we get practical about direction of travel and how it helps you decide whether a trail is a morning route into bedding or an evening exit to feed. If you’ve ever watched a buck creep closer to daylight on camera, you’ll like how we connect those patterns to where you hang a stand.
Next we move to terrain and strategy: finding the nastiest thick cover that bucks use for security, walking the edge, and picking the high-traffic trail that leads to a real bottleneck. We also talk about tight canopy and shooting light, why pushing too far into bedding can turn a spot into a one-hunt mistake, and why smart exits after dark keep deer from learning to look up.
We wrap with scat and predator pressure, then rubs and rub lines, including why rubs in open clear cuts can be nighttime dominance displays. If you want more consistent big buck decisions, not just more opinions, this one will sharpen your eye. Subscribe, share this with a hunting buddy, and leave a quick review with the sign you rely on most.
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Welcome And Why Sign Matters
SPEAKER_00Hello, 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 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 sign. And how to read them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To know about mostly about is the dominant buck there.
SPEAKER_02Right. What is the sign telling you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So what we're going to start off with. Let's
Tracks That Hint At Mature Bucks
SPEAKER_00actually start off with talking about tracks. Now, size difference in in tracks, right?
SPEAKER_02Well yeah, and uh and the type of track. A dough, a doe track will always the hooves will always come to a point.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And and a buck track, the front hooves will always splay. And then a really good buck will will have the dew claws, and a but a real heavy doe will also have the dew claws. 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, uh-huh. You're you're looking at about an eight-inch track in length. Yeah, it's it's not a small track. I mean, you you're somewhere between seven and eight inches, typically is what I've come across in in the bucks that I've harvested, you know, with with their tracks and everything like that. So if you're seeing buck tracks and and they're not from the tip of the the tip of the hoof to the to the dew claws, if it if it isn't over six, uh-huh, it it's probably just a little three or a fork and horn or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02But that, you know, and that's that's that's kind of a general thought. That's not like across the board that's the way it is every time, regardless.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_02Because genetics have a play in genetics have a play in it, 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_00Okay. Anything to garner from the direction that they're walking.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
Using Track Direction To Time Sets
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So 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_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02And so when I look at that and see in 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.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02If 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 dough or whatnot.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And that's how he's exiting that bit bedding area. Now, sometimes they do both on the same trail. 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, you know, especially when they get antlers out past their ears.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, they just don't want to be in there. They'll they'll be in the more open stuff. So you won't see near the amount of activity on that trail.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Versus once they shed the velvet and they immediately go back in there, then it it's business as usual in there.
SPEAKER_00So tracks heading in.
SPEAKER_02Typically mean that that's the morning. That's the morning route that he uses to go to bedding.
SPEAKER_00And tracks heading out is the evening route.
SPEAKER_02Is the evening route. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So that and that would that could determine where you set up, where you create a set.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. 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 I as I watch him through putting out pheromones and 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?
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So if I find that he's day cycling closer to daylighting in the morning, well, then I'm gonna set up on that trail in the morning. If it's the evening, it's the evening. Sometimes you don't have the option, you know, if you're on state land or 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So 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, yeah, he's eventually going to cycle through the day because he's trying to find the dose that I'm giving him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So he'll figure out, okay, they're not here at night. So he'll start cycling through the daytime.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And then he'll cycle, you know, at the first time about every four or five hours apart. Then eventually he will cycle to about I've had him cycle as 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_00Okay. 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 in the evening, but during daylight. Right. And I know that they they had it another kind of core area down below where I was hunting, and up above was the was the main area.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what I was just gonna say. If you've caught him going into that area in the evening, then that that is not his primary bedding area.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Interesting. The thing is, is I never caught him coming out on that side. Right.
SPEAKER_02So it means there's another trail that he was using.
SPEAKER_00And that that is over on the other side. So I was on the edge of a swamp and basically a pretty pretty good sized pond. Uh-huh. 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. Right. 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. So you went into talking about game trails.
Bedding Edges And High Traffic Trails
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about game trails. Which ones should I investigate?
SPEAKER_02What I do, what I look for, again, to go back to the bedding area, is I'm looking for a bedding area.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. When you stop and think about it, we want to make it more difficult than it really is. It it isn't that difficult. You just got to find the thickest, ugliest, nastiest stuff out there, and that's the bedding area.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Guaranteed. 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, 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. 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_00And they always have game trails paralleling edges.
SPEAKER_02Correct.
SPEAKER_00So if you're walking down a skitter road and you're looking, you know that there's going to be a trail that's paralleling that skitter road. Right. And which I know is true.
SPEAKER_02Betting area, there'll always be the bedding area will have an edge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And so there will always be a game trail paralleling the edge of that bedding area. But the one we're looking for is the one that's got the high activity coming out of the bedding area.
SPEAKER_00Out of the bedding area.
SPEAKER_02And then 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 got a trail going in each direction.
SPEAKER_00Each direction.
SPEAKER_02So that's my kill spot. You know, I I don't go into the betting area more than 20, 30 yards. At the most, 30. I don't like going in. He's got to feel safe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. 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.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And I want to get multiple hunts on this buck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So 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_00And so one of the things it was kind of interesting because of a conversation I had with someone today.
Bottlenecks, Cover, And Shooting Light
SPEAKER_00He was talking about how we have a half an hour after sundown, and then it's legal to hunt half an hour after sundown. Right.
SPEAKER_02You still have shooting light.
SPEAKER_00But we don't have shooting light in our sets half an hour after sundown.
SPEAKER_02We lose it a half hour before. We're losing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. 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 A, it 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.
SPEAKER_02So that's what I like. That's what I look for. And the reason is is because uh when your habitat is able to choke out the sunlight like that, it's gotta be tight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So that tight feeling is what those big dominant bucks like. They it because tight equals cover. Cover equals safety.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So that's what he likes. So that's where I want to be. And typically, uh and you've heard me say this, Aaron, and and and you know, I've had several guys come up and and talk to me about it and stuff, but they agree with me, and and I know a lot of the listeners who are gonna hear this is are gonna think the same thing. Those bucks are daylighting in there all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They're no more nocturnal than a doe. We see doe in the daytime, we see dough 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? So when they stage in there and 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, and where we're hunting, that happens quite a bit. 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.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you'll get another opportunity, and potentially earlier, especially if you're creating the illusion and he's if you're paying attention to the five factors that we talked about, you're gonna get an opportunity at that buck. Okay. So you said no more 20 20 yards typically.
SPEAKER_0220, 30 yards, 30 at the most.
SPEAKER_0030 at the most. It's better if you're gonna 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. To our sets. Yeah. We're not creating whole new trails or anything like that.
When To Scout Deep Bedding
SPEAKER_02We're not cutting into the bedding area or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00But 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 stuff really stands out. Yep. Yeah, stuff stands out. Is it okay to push a little further in then, or do we always want to like make it 30 yards max?
SPEAKER_02So I would say that if you're gonna go all the way into the bedding area, do it in February.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Do it in February. You know, guys, I want to shed hunt and uh or I just want to see where that trail goes, or I would want to get in there and figure out where they're hanging out, do that in February or 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, 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_00Yeah. So even in thinking about this, there are times where the buck comes in or deer have come in right. There's no more
Getting Down After Dark
SPEAKER_00shooting light, but you know that there's a a deer down there. Right. And you get stuck in stand.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For quite some time at possible.
SPEAKER_02I've spent until about 11 45 in stand on a couple occasions. You know, my wife worries and everything. But fortunately, with cell phones, you can you can text your your spouse and let them know what the situation and stuff. And 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 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 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. Yeah. It's just simply, you know, tossing pebbles and and you know, especially with the smaller bucks, you gotta hit them. You you almost just gotta club them over the head. It's just they're an idiot. 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?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? They they know how to eat, sleep, and drink. That's it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, they haven't developed that sense that that okay, the scent of man is danger. And and so it takes time, but the big ones, the dominant bucks, yeah, there's there's no doubt about it. It's all about survival with them.
SPEAKER_00Well, I know even with refreshing scents and and heading out there, we'll have the the small bucks, they'll just stand there, they'll they'll walk off 10 yards and watch us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then they'll come back.
SPEAKER_02I went out two days ago. Well, maybe it was a little bit long. It was the last time we had a little bit of a sprinkle, and I was out doing refreshing scents on my sets, and I walked into this one, and I kind of went through this little bend in the terrain, come around the corner, and here's this buck standing at probably he couldn't have been more than 10 yards. I I'd been a surpr I'd be surprised if he was 10. But you know, it was a little spike and whatnot, and he just sat there and stared at me. And I and I mean, I'm in street clothes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, I just got off work, I've got my car hearts on, and I'm just running out there to freshen up scents 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then when he finally decided to leave, he just turned and walked the other way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what we kind of anticipate with the small bucks, doing the sense like we do. Every year it's the same thing. You get a you get in an area, you think, Oh, this is a great area. Turns out there's a lot of deer in there, and because you're looking for the right habitat, you find it, and the dumbest buck out there will be that small spike or fork and horn, and they will just not leave. Ever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because, well, it's a betting area that you've recreated with your conquest, Evercom, you know. And so, hey, well, I'll take a nap here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, don't tell me that stuff doesn't work because they're not spooked at all.
SPEAKER_00No. And even when they hear something coming, because I 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 right away within within an hour, but probably less.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Knowing, knowing how they work and stuff. But the idea of being up, and we've talked about this in other episodes, you don't when you're up in the tree stand, it's to get out of their line of sight.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And 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 the 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_02Especially the does.
SPEAKER_00Especially the does. Okay.
SPEAKER_02The does will be the first ones to start, you know, blowing, blow air over that gland, and they they do that little snort. The does are big for that. The small bucks, they're not smart enough.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02But the does, if if they see you up in that stand or they watch you climb down out of that stand or or tree saddle, whatever you're using, ground blind, if you haven't spooked them off somehow, but they they have the opportunity to watch you climb down or crawl out of your blind, whatnot, every time they come in, every time they come in, the first thing they're gonna do is get up, they're gonna stare at that stand. They're gonna lock eyes on it and they're gonna stare, and they're looking for the slightest bit of movement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So 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_00Now 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. All deer will do that.
SPEAKER_02They don't want to startle each other, so they do that to let the other one, oh, 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 a usually kind of a dead giveaway that there's multiple bears coming in on a bait, is 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.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So but deer do the same thing, it's just a way of communicating.
SPEAKER_00And a bait from like when you could legally bait. We're not talking about baiting now. We don't know. So yeah, we're not we're not baiting bear, but back in the in the 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 and maybe kicks them off so that it's not just me barreling in.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So uh you know, I I'm I'm a whistler, so I'll whistle on my way in, and typically they hear that long before I get there. And 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_00Yeah. 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 uh any of this, but if you have an iPhone, they have an update with iOS 18 where you can satellite text now. And 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. Yeah, yeah. That you you have a way of contacting, communicating with people. Right. So back to the topic.
Scat Clues And Predator Pressure
SPEAKER_00So Scat, if you're seeing buck versus dough, what what would the difference look like? Or even small buck and large buck.
SPEAKER_02Okay, 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. Like rabbits. Yeah, yeah. And and buck looks like a bunch of junior mints melted together.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And so now is a small buck the same as a large buck, or uh is it just a smaller version of that?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Okay, exactly. As far as yearlings go and stuff, I've heard guys say that that a buck, small uh yearling or a toe head will will have pellets, but they'll be dented, they'll be dimpled. Oh. On one side and stuff. And I don't know i 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.
SPEAKER_00You got something for the freezer.
SPEAKER_02There you go. And but I mean, if I'm if I'm trying to locate a big buck, then yeah, I'm looking for those junior mints melted together.
SPEAKER_00So if we're seeing predator scat in the area, will that as a sign for deer, will that tell us to leave leave the area because there's just like like if we were seeing bear scat everywhere.
SPEAKER_02So typically deer don't want to be around bears. Bear scat is is kind of tricky because it it dries out and and for lack of a better term, it disappears quickly.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02It'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 and then disappears quickly. I'm more concerned about cougar and coyote myself. 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 they're hitting a lot of grasses and and green shoots off of plants and whatnot. They're not on solids for about three, four weeks, and then they kind of make their way onto solids. But then in June, you know, the deer start dropping fawns and whatnot, and fawns are 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, he's just waiting to find them. And 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_00Bobcats go after deer, yes. Deer a lot too. Which is amazing to believe because you think that they the size difference and everything. But I saw them in your yard one night pulling in, and there were I I see a couple deer standing there. It's dark out. Like, oh, there's a couple deer. And then a bobcat goes tearing across the driveway towards them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wasn't expecting that. And I actually, one of my sets that I was hunting, I went in and I thought it was it was coyote dropping. And then I saw somebody had posted pictures of Bobcat dropping. And I think that's what it was. Yeah. Because the coyote typically will have a lot more hair in it.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Coyotes kill a lot more rabbits.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And smaller game like that. And so yeah, it will always have a lot of hair. Not to mention that they're constantly grooming themselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Bobcat will have hair in it and whatnot, but they like a lot of rabbits. But again, they like the deer as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I 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.
Rubs That Mislead And Rubs That Help
SPEAKER_00So 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_02Right. So rubs I 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. The buck I killed last year, Lucky, there was no rubs anywhere around that set.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And that was the first day of late season, late Ry last year. So it was around Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00Thanksgiving weekend.
SPEAKER_02I could hear him in the slap. We were in a s on the edge of a swamp in a green belt. And I could hear him in the sow law, running through the bushes, chasing the does and stuff. Long, I mean, hours before he came in.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02But I mean, we 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, you need the bedding area located and you need the doe's. 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 and guys were like, Well, I see all these rubs out in the clear cuts.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, Yeah, I was gonna I wanted to actually bring that up because one of my sets, you saw a lot of rubs. We uh we were both spotting them out in a clear cut clear cut, real small jack fur. Uh-huh. You know, four to eight foot jack fur. Right. It was real open, and there were but there were rubs everywhere, and you said those were dominance rubs, or yeah.
SPEAKER_02What it is is you have what we have a what we call a rub line. Okay, so a rub line is is typically there's multiple bucks creating a rub line. Okay, everybody here in the northwest has walked down a skitter road that has a bunch of viny maples on it, and you've seen just rub after rub after rub in there. That's a rub line. Okay. 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.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02So the bucks go out to the clear cuts at night to what? To find the does.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right? 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, 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 yeah, obviously, a bunch of bucks running in here. And the reality is, is like, no, it's out in the open, chances are it's done at night.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's a good sign because it tells you that there's bucks in the area. Correct. But it's not telling you to hunt right there.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00It'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 and start working those edges. Right, right. And figure it out. Okay. So then just real quick, so you see these bucks, and this is just curiosity from my point. When you see a buck rub, how do you know that it's got eye guards? What is what's the difference between because I know people have said, oh, yeah, that buck has really nice eye guards because of the way that the rub looks and right.
SPEAKER_02So the 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 you 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Bucks will leave strands of bark hanging on the tree from when they where they rub, just because they they don't have the strength to just uh you know shred it all off. Yeah, yeah. A bull will delim a, you know, a 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. 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, uh-huh. You know, it'll it'll look like he reached a second layer inside of that tree.
SPEAKER_00Kind of gouging it.
SPEAKER_02Correct. As opposed to just Yeah, and it'll look like it'll look like hair. Okay. You know, all the little wood shavings will look like hair hanging there. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the way it ends up shredding it. Yep. Okay. Last thing, can you identify the size of a buck by the rub to an extent? I mean, is there a way do bigger bucks rub differently to bigger trees? Okay.
SPEAKER_02Typically, yes. Typically, yes, yeah. But I've been on rub lines and I've I've watched bucks on rub lines. Sometimes the dominant buck will let all the little bucks do the work.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Because the dough 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 that that 70% of the does get bred in that first estrous cycle, and that they want to be bred by the two top two bucks, the dominant one and the one underneath them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's just for, you know, the preservation of the species, the, you know, the strong survive kind of thing. And and but I so does will 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 doe comes through and leaves her scent, he just kind of walks in there and smells her and then tracks her down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I don't know if it's that's just him saying I'm done, you know, you guys do all this.
SPEAKER_00So just uh it's like she's gonna 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.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Go practice. Okay. Any other thoughts on on signs that we might be wanting to look for?
SPEAKER_02Or
Stop Overthinking And Stay Consistent
SPEAKER_02well, I would just say, I would just say this that that don't make anything, it doesn't have to be difficult, so don't overthink it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. 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, yeah, 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. It's there it's not that smart. We tend to make it harder than it needs to be. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Trying to make 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_02Yeah, 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So 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 consistently. Don't sit there and listen to the guy who kills spikes and forked 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it it's your tag, you put it on the buck you want to put it on. But if you are in the 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_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's who you want to listen to.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
Wrap Up And Patreon
SPEAKER_00Well, with that, we're gonna 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.
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