Rubs clump on small smooth stems, and fresh ones drew far more doe checks

STEP 1 · Edge survey

Maine rubs clustered tighter than a random spacing

Benner and Bowyer tallied rubs on field edges once the rut had passed and reported them in the Journal of Mammalogy. Near Unity in central Maine they searched wooded edges of fields in March and April 1986. They kept only rubs dated from just before the rut through just after it. Seventeen plots contained 103 rubbed stems and 34 nested plots contained 96 comparison stems. Every rubbed tree had a single discrete rub. Mean spacing to the closest rub was 33.5 feet (10.2 m) versus an expected 40.7 feet (12.4 m) and the pattern was strongly clumped (P < 0.001) in this one late winter survey of one central Maine rut.

STEP 2 · Weak tags

Stem size and forehead glands mark buck age poorly

Rubbed stems in Maine were 0.7 inch (1.7 cm) in mean diameter measured at chest height and the maximum was 3.3 inches (8.5 cm). Stems on offer averaged 2.7 inches (6.8 cm) and those means differed (P < 0.001). Mid-rub diameter averaged 0.9 inch (2.3 cm).

Moore and Marchinton followed bucks around Athens in north-central Georgia and on the Okefenokee in south Georgia. The work is a chapter in the 1974 IUCN symposium The Behaviour of Ungulates and its Relation to Management. Rubbed species they name most often include eastern red cedar, winged sumac, sourwood, sassafras, short leaf pine and long leaf pine. Diameters spanned a half inch to 4 inches and averaged about 1 inch. The authors recorded 135 antler-rubbing acts and 32 scraping acts in a study of 14 bucks. About 350 hours went into locating and examining rubs and scrapes.

Atkeson and Marchinton reported forehead glands in the Journal of Mammalogy. They sampled 4 adult bucks and 4 adult does from a semitame captive herd in July and again in the November rut. Another 11 wild deer ran from 6 months of age to 9 years and older. Forehead glands outpaced nearby face and neck skin and were far more active in rutting bucks than in does or summer deer. Bucks rubbed with the forehead and with the inner antler base. The authors said their notes go against rub scent originating in the preorbital gland.

No adult class was big enough for a numeric age comparison. Two dominant bucks in the pen at 5 years or older had the most developed glands. A hunter-killed buck at 2.5 years from a herd under heavy harvest matched those dominants. They read the match as social standing and assumed he was breeding. The paper also says young males generally have less active glands than older males. Our read is these thin stems can be a mature buck's work or a younger buck's work. Glands in this sample climbed with age and likely with rank. The 2.5-year match is one animal.

STEP 3 · Local stems

Smooth thin stems were selected and cherries were passed over

Aspen (Populus tremuloides) formed 33.0 percent of rubs and 15.6 percent of stems on offer. For staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) the shares were 31.1 percent of rubs and 5.2 percent of stems on offer. Willow (Salix sp.) supplied 10.7 percent of rubs and 1.0 percent of stems on offer. Proportion tests marked those three species as selected. Passed-over stems included chokecherry and black cherry. As aromatic Prunus they were 5.8 percent of rubs against 30.2 percent of stems on offer (P < 0.001) despite smooth bark on 82.8 percent of 29 Prunus stems. Those calls held inside the diameter classes actually rubbed.

Among the 103 rubbed stems smooth bark hit 90.3 percent versus 61.5 percent among the 96 random stems (P < 0.001). First-branch means were 37 inches (94.2 cm) on rubbed trees and 31 inches (78.6 cm) on available trees (P < 0.001). First-branch height on rubbed trees spanned 30.0 to 179.0 cm above the ground. Benner and Bowyer describe chosen trees as smooth barked with chest diameter at or below 3.3 inches (8.5 cm) and the first branch at least one foot up (30 cm).

Georgia clumps also formed inside home ranges. Moore and Marchinton called the early clusters dominance areas and a mature buck can hold several of them. Rank could flip by area and some low-density bucks seemed to defend loosely. One dominant also trailed an estrous doe off his marked ground. Marking was mostly a late afternoon act. Bucks shifted between clusters at a fast pace, and night held most of those moves. Pre-rut radio centers often differed from rut centers. Our read is one buck's marked patch can still hold other bucks.

STEP 4 · Doe checks

Rubs younger than two days drew far more checks

Sawyer, Marchinton and Miller watched 3 tame does living free on Whitehall Forest in Georgia. The Journal of Mammalogy carried the paper. The tract measures 833 acres (337 ha). The does were 1 to 4 years old and wild bucks bred all 3. Forty-five full days of watches ran from 30 May 1979 to 21 February 1980. One hundred approaches inside 66 feet (20 m) of a rub fell between 18 September 1979 and 18 February 1980. From 6 October to 14 January sniffing or licking or nibbling occurred on 23 approaches out of 100. During 4 approaches the dominant doe laid her forehead on the rub lightly. The rub looked unchanged afterward. Responses came in 23 of 61 group meetings. Rubs aged under 2 days produced 17 responses across 29 group meetings. Older rubs produced 1 response across 24 meetings.

The authors call the information the does obtained unknown. The authors suggest a doe may be judging dominance or condition in the buck. They also mention a hypothesis that rubs can help bring does into estrus. Near conception each doe went 1.0 to 1.4 miles (1.6 to 2.3 km) from her core center and was gone about 24 hours on breeding excursions. Scope is three tame does in one forest.

STEP 5 · Pen posts

Upright structures got more use before the breeding peak

Auxt, Michel and Jenks watched artificial signposts with cameras in a South Dakota pen and published during 2019 in The Prairie Naturalist. An upright post was paired with a horizontal post at the north end of the pen. The south end and the west end each had that same pair. Pen area was 2.5 acres (1.01 ha) at the South Dakota State University Wildlife Research Unit in Brookings County with 20 bucks plus 6 does inside. Cameras covered 5 October 2017 through 1 December 2017. Over 9 weeks 13 bucks produced 169 interactions. From 5 to 28 October came 66 percent of uses. From 29 October to 8 November came 15 percent. From 9 November to 1 December came 19 percent. Those blocks were set by stepping back a 210-day gestation from captive fawning dates in North Dakota.

Day use averaged 0.91 per day (SD 1.05) against night use of 0.55 per day (SD 0.87) at P < 0.001. The upright mean was 1.22 per day (SD 1.02) against a horizontal mean of 0.24 per day (SD 0.59) at P < 0.001. The authors allow those captive patterns to be extended to free-ranging deer only with caution. Our read is the upright posts drew more of the rubbing. A calendar anchored on North Dakota fawning dates will drift from the timing on your farm.

STEP 6 · Cover plan

Fresh clusters are a reason to sit the cover side

By daylight check a field edge or a ditch bank or a fencerow. Log date, place, species if known, bark texture and a diameter bin. Our bins are under 1 inch and from 1 to 4 inches and thicker than that. Notebook bins follow the Maine diameters and the Georgia range. Call bright damp fray fresh, gray hard wood old, and unclear wood unknown.

The scouting observation log separates sign from live deer and tags sign fresh or old or unknown. That log states no formula for a rub's age in hours, so record it as sign. The doe project split age at about 2 days. In the Georgia buck notes a trained hound still detected deer scent days after rubbing and the scars stayed visible for at least several months. Our read is pale wood can already be old. Log fresh only for bright damp fray.

On flat ground set the fresh cluster against cover. The flat-farmland bedding guide calls a bed a cover zone that has a small dry rise and wind from behind the buck. Hunt the rim of that zone. A string on a ditch or a grassy waterway or a fencerow is reason to hunt the rim while fray is fresh. The string is a weak locator for the bed.

Walk the same edge the next week. Georgia rubbing was heaviest ahead of peak breeding and 66 percent of pen interactions landed in the block labeled pre-breeding. Our rule is to sit the cover side of an October patch with new fresh rubs and to switch logged edges when the string goes quiet.