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How high of a rub for a bigger buck?

lafn96

lafn96

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Found a fresh rub today when I was out fertilizing the plots. Wasn't on a big tree at all, but seemed to be pretty high. Measuring it turned out to be 40 in. at the highest spot. Would that indicate a larger than avg buck?

I tend not to put a lot of faith in rubs, more so scrapes - but this one has me curious and I may have to put a camera on jt.
 
Depends on how big. If it's a tree small enough that the buck could bend over then height doesn't mean anything. But if it's too big to bend and there are gouges from tines up high above the raw spot the rub their forehead on, i take notice. The higher the gouges the taller the tines.

Here's a good example of a HUGE rub but it's all low. There are no tine gouges up high. Sure enough when I checked trail cam watching a scrape just a few feet away there was a 4 or 5 yr old 8pt with maybe 100" rack. Good buck but nothing impressive for antlers.
20241029_080855.webp
 
lafn96 said:
I'm 6 ft, this was the highest one. Crappy pic, sorry
Click to expand...

How far above are the highest scratches from the bald forehead area, and how deep are they? That'll give you an idea of rack size because he's only rubbing his forehead and brow tines. The other tines by default leave marks as well but they're random, not focused. The farther away from the forehead area, the bigger the rack.
 
Ski said:
How far above are the highest scratches from the bald forehead area, and how deep are they? That'll give you an idea of rack size because he's only rubbing his forehead and brow tines. The other tines by default leave marks as well but they're random, not focused. The farther away from the forehead area, the bigger the rack.
Click to expand...
I'll get a closer look and pics this wknd, thanks!
 
killingtime 41 said:
View attachment 250078I would like to know myself. I found this one late last season. If you zoom in looks like the antlers gouges go way up high never measured it. And the backside of the tree was tore up also.
Click to expand...

That one there would get my attention. Great example of at least one big rack buck. Looks like the rub has been hit multiple times or by multiple bucks. Considering a deer's height most of the rub could be any antlered buck. But at least one of them had tall enough antlers to reach way up high.

Doesn't mean he's coming back. Doesn't indicate age. Doesn't indicate score or tine count. All a rub tells me is that a buck was there sometime before and tine gouges let me guess general frame size.
 
In my decade-long rub study, I found height of a rub was just more of a factor of tree thickness than anything else. As someone pointed out early, if a sapling can be bent over, that gives a buck the chance to rub higher up the tree. Rubs on really big trees tended to be lower on the tree, probably as the buck needed more leverage.
 

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