Buck Rubs: What They Mean and Why Deer Make Them

One of the first pieces of sign most deer hunters learn about is the famous buck rub. Not to be confused with a deer scrape, rubs happen when a buck literally rubs his antlers on a tree, bush, or even a telephone pole, often removing the bark and leaving it hanging in obvious strands that even the most novice of hunters can easily recognize. They are proof positive that a buck has traveled through the area at some point in time. Over the years, many myths and legends have emerged about deer rubs and what exactly they mean to the animals making them. Since we can’t ask a deer why they create these signposts on tree trunks every year, the only thing we can do is observe and learn to determine a likely meaning. Today we’ll examine everything we currently know about the rubs created by whitetail deer every season. We’ll also attempt to bust a few big buck myths related to them. To top it off, we will also give you our best tips for what to do when you come across one this hunting season. Mainly, the best ways of hunting them in hopes of spotting a big buck returning to them.

What Do Buck Rubs Mean?

This has been the constant question of hunters since the beginning of time. In truth, they probably mean more to deer than we as humans realize. There’s likely something being lost in the translation. Initially, it was thought rubs were used exclusively to remove the velvet from the antlers once the late summer and rut approached. However, researchers have since determined they serve as a form of communication, both through smell and a visual display. Bucks have scent glands on their heads. When a buck rubs his antlers on a tree, the bone shreds the bark and leaves behind an odor that tells other deer the buck was there.

According to the National Deer Association, the best guess of scientists is that that rubs communicate a bevy of information. They tell does a mature buck is in the area. At the same time, they can communicate to rival bucks that the area is a specific deer’s territory, and they should stay out. As the NDA further points out, there may be something deer are communicating with the scent of the tree too. If you notice more rubs on cedars or pines, you are not alone. There’s a heavy aroma of shredded bark created when a deer rubs his antlers on these types of trees. It may help other deer to easily locate rubs.

It also seems likely some bucks make rubs for no reason at all. Every deer hunting enthusiast has likely found a one-off rub in a unique place that gets hit once and then seemingly never again. It seems bucks sometimes use a rub to work off their frustration during the rut. If a rival isn’t around to fight, the nearest trees or saplings can work as a stand-in.

How Long Will a Buck Rub a Tree?

There is almost no rhyme or reason to this. As we already mentioned, many rubs seem to be one-off moments where the buck hits a tree once and then never again. On the flip side, there are some trees they may return to and work on a regular basis. How bucks decide which trees are one-offs, and which ones are regular signposts is anyone’s guess. Proximity to a buck’s regular feeding and bedding areas likely plays a part in deciding the trees that become regular signposts. Bucks do a lot of wandering in search of does during the rut and they may make dozens of one-off rubs at random during their travels, much to the chagrin of hunters.

However, if you are fortunate enough to find an active rub, some bucks will start using it in the early season and continue hitting it right up until the end of the rut. To find a rub like this, you need to nail down the buck’s core area, which isn’t easy to do for any buck over 1.5 years old. It requires a lot of scouting, and a ton of monitoring of rubs using trail cameras.

Can You Tell the Size of a Buck by a Rub?

The conventional thinking is that big rubs automatically equal a big buck. However, with more cameras than ever before in the woods, we now know this is something of an antiquated way of thinking. While large rubs are more likely to be a big buck, small bucks have also now been documented working over trees eight to ten inches in diameter. On the flip side, a small rub does not mean a small buck either. As there are plenty of documented cases of big bucks shredding saplings into kindling. Rubs that are higher on a tree may indicate a larger deer, but unless you see the deer making the rub, it’s difficult to figure out a buck’s size based on rubs alone.

Some bucks also do not rub trees nearly as often as others. For instance, in 2003, I shot a 140-inch 10-pointer here in Southwest Michigan that had very little bark in his antlers. Ten years later, I shot an older buck, a roughly 115-inch 10-pointer who had bark embedded in every nook and cranny of his antlers. He had been rubbing so aggressively that there was bark all over his forehead. There were long, shredded, strips of bark hanging all over the place. To the point I was surprised an entire tree wasn’t hanging in his rack!

The NDA notes that older bucks seem to rub trees more often than younger ones. In the case of that gnarly, 115-inch buck, he was an older deer with a rack on the downslope. We noticed something similar with an older buck my dad shot years ago too. So, in my experience, that seems to be true to some degree. Although it’s likely anyone’s guess why bucks become more aggressive in their rubbing activities as they age. Assume noting about the size of the rub until you can get a trail camera on it to confirm the animal using it.

What’s the Difference Between a Rub and a Scrape?

We’re not sure who chose to name rubs and scrapes, but as I told my editor, I’d really like a word with them. We wish they had chosen an entirely different terminology for scrapes. Just because there’s so many similarities between the words, “rub” and “scrape.” Many newer hunters end up using them interchangeably. There’s probably some additional confusion since bucks are essentially “scraping” the velvet off their antlers when they finish growing. However, rubs are the marks deer make on trees with their antlers. Scrapes are the spots of bare earth on the ground that deer tear up with their hooves. Deer also urinate into scrapes to help mark their territory. There is an additional bit of confusion here because scrapes serve essentially the same purpose of acting as a signpost for deer activity. We don’t really have any tips for remembering the difference between the two. It’s just one of those things you need to pound into your head until you can remember the difference.

What is the Best Way to Hunt a Rub?

When you find a solid rub line along a field edge or following a trail that’s being hit frequently, it can make a dynamite spot to hunt. We highly recommend monitoring a rub location with a trail camera to ensure it’s going to be worth your time. You don’t want to waste time on a one-off rub that gets hit infrequently. The great thing about rubs is they give you an indication of the side of the tree the deer was standing on when it made it. This allows you to strategically place your treestands at an angle where the buck is likely to be standing on the trail. Rubs can be especially helpful when setting up your bowhunting spots.

Try to set up on rubs that make sense. What we mean by that is that there are scrapes, trails, a food plot, or a funnel leading to a bedding area nearby. A rub with little other fresh sign around it is more likely to be something the buck did out of frustration or boredom while wandering the area.

There is a traditional line of thinking that rub lines indicate the movements of one buck along a trail. However, there have been numerous studies of rub lines that produced trail camera results indicating it’s more likely to be the work of multiple bucks than a lone dominant one. That makes them a solid place to setup, but don’t be surprised if you get visited by a buck you didn’t have on camera previously.

It seems obvious, but play the wind while hunting rubs, especially those sitting on food plots. There’s a chance they’ll be visited by cautious does first that could blow your cover. Pay attention to the times the bucks are visiting too. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to hunt a rub line that’s only being visited after dark, and believe us, there are plenty of rubs that fit this definition.

As for timing, most hunters are going to be most successful on rubs during the early seasons of the pre-rut. This is when the bucks first start to feel that testosterone kicking in, and they start scrapping with trees out of pure frustration more than anything else. You’ll almost always see the heaviest rubs between October and mid-November when the rut peaks in many Midwestern states.

For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram For original videos, check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels. 

READ MORE: THE HILL GOULD BUCK HAS STOOD AS MAINE’S STATE RECORD NON-TYPICAL FOR 100+ YEARS

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