NY Bowhunter

What gets you more excited when you see them? Personally I love seeing big rubs in the woods, but I think I utilize a scrape for hunting more than a rub line.

GregH

Good question. I've hunted both and had good results with both, but when you see a line of trees approaching the size of telephone poles, that are shredded......... Rubs win. Your mind can run wild imagining the size of the buck that made them.

Dave_G

Neither scrapes nor rubs get me too fired up, unless they're in the right location. Granted, they both indicate that there's bucks in the area, but unless you find these scrapes and rubs in the right locations, they're pretty much useless. For instance, scrapes and rubs along field edges, power lines, or tram roads are most often indications of nocturnal travel by the buck. And those big sign post rubs that one often finds are often made to look even more impressive because they're visited by a number of different bucks.

But I have to admit, if I happen across a line of scrapes that run through a nice thick funnel area, with a lot of good doe sign as well, or if I see a cluster of rubs in a real thick bedding area, then I might just hang a stand or two if the terrain and predominant wind direction is right and access and exit routes to the area allow me to get in and out with a minimal chance of being detected.

GMMAT

Ditto.

I like seeing them....but I don't hunt "sign".

Schultzy

Big rubs are exciting as heck!! If they don't excite you when you find some then you have some issues deer hunting!

kevin1

Rubs, never had much luck with scrapes other than using them for detecting activity.

Cougar Mag

Both get me excited though I hunt them far less than I used to. I will say this though, if I find a new rub(one or two days old) during the rut, specifically on a corner of the woods I will be hunting that spot hard for a couple of days. By not doing so last season cost me a 15-20 yd. shot at a huge 10 pt. I knew I should be there the next morning but didn't until it was too late. On a morning hunt the day after finding two brand new rubs I went to another area. At mid-morning my gut told me I should have been at the new rub area. I high-tailed it over there at 8:30 and as soon as I parked my truck I saw the buck looking for does. Too damn late! He came right past the corner of the rubs, 20 or so yds. past the tree I had picked out the day before[:@]. All I could do was look through my binocs at him as he walked along the edge of the corn field

Sliverflicker

Well I sure enough get excited when I find them, more so whenthey in the right spot!
Ichoose to hunta scrape, but when I cant hang a stand onone because of the wind, tree size ect. I will hunt the rub lines going into it.
I have takenall most all of mybucks off scrapes and rub lines, or trails leading into a place that has such buck sign.

I hunt the buck sign!

125py

i love seeing both, but nothing gets me more excited than a great funnel

ABarOfSoap

The best is a huge rub, with a licking branch bent above it, right near a huge scrape.