RE: old rub lines
Gove,
First off, welcome aboard. Second there are many on here that I am sure will be glad to pitch in on the three topics you bring up.
1. Rub lines, 2. Scrapes and 3. Mock Scrapes.
I have a little experience with whitetails as many do here and from what I have experienced in my neck of the woods on public ground whitetails, rub lines exist for about 3 reasons. One being a bucks feeding travel routes leaving his core area on his way to food, he's building up his muscles for the rut and he starts the day he sheds his velvet in late August to early September. 2. Rub lines constructed in regards to his rutting travels later in the fall that often lead to and from his scraping areas and 3rd clusters of staging rubs in and around a food source, often just inside the timber edge of a field that are often not visited until after dark.
With all that to say, a couple of my very best!!!!! year after year whitetail buck harvest areas are right smack dab in the middle of what I"tag" as a"traditional rubbing and scraping area." This is where bucks intersect with doe travel and theysimply rub and scrape the area up year after year after year due to the consistent year around doe travel through the area. They act like hound dogs in there during the scraping and breeding phases of the rut and they follow the path of the does that use it dailly.
If you found a distinct rub line with many older rubs and some newer rubs you could easily be walking through 1 main bucks travel area to and from feed or to and from his rutting grounds/scrapes. I had one buck one year that would show up in an area like clockwork right around the 20th of November. He would come in and just destroy and overmark every young bucks scrapes and rubs for about 1/2 a mile down this timbered creek bottom funnel. This place looked like a war zone when he showed up.
Look around very close in there now that you found this sign, there may be scapes, it's just that vegetation and debris has them covered. You also may have found a nice traditional rubbing area and travel route for several bucks. orthis may be a feeding travel route ofrubs.....Nevertheless you have found where a buck and most likelybucks travel. Now step back and take a look at how the does use that area, how the wind blows in that area day to day, and where the closest food sources and obvious bedding areas might lay in close proximity to what you found. Knowing what your does are doing in the area are key to what your bucks are doing during the rut. Good luck with this. Like I said one of my MONEY stands for the rut lies in a creek bottom that funnels does yearly and bucks through there during the rut consistently everyday. It did take me a couple years to figure out exactly where, when and how to hunt that bottom though due to the changing thermals and winds.
Scrapes, I love hunting scrapes, but I will be honest from my experiences and these are just mine, Scrapes are often made at night. The KEY is finding scrapes that bucks feel comfortable checking during daylight hours. I hunt scrapes that I KNOW does walk by daily during the daytime and where I KNOW a buck feels safe to hit during the daytime. I rarely hunt a field edge or clear-cut edge scrape unless I know the area is not pressured much. Even then these bucks in my area like LOW LIGHT CONDTIONS TO MOVE....
Mock Scrapes, I have been using mock scrapes since 1998 and have had some really awesome hunts and harvested some great bucks in them and have really enjoyed setting them up and seeing a buck check them out. Once again.. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION IS key...if a buck feels comfortable with the area he will check it during daylight hours. I have had the best luck with mock scrapes in and around KNOWN doe bedding areas in thicker cover......I use a synthetic scentby Hawgs limited to overmark bucks scrapes, licking branches and rubs. It has worked well for me. I also will dig the dirt from a fresh scrape(using rubber gloves and a zip lock)pack it into a secluded scraping/travel area and put the dirt right in an active scrape. This has worked well for me too.
The key to all whitetail hunting whether it be during the tail end of the feeding phase, the pre-rut, the scraping phase, the breeding phase is obviously location of a stand that deer will walk by during daylight hours.. what ever their motivation may be, sign doesn't help much if its only laid down at night.
Troy