I'm new to hunting (well I've been trying for a few years but haven't had any luck yet). I found what I think is a buck rub near some tracks. While I was hanging out on the same ridge I found the rub, a doe approached me. This is the first time I've seen a deer where I feel like I could have made the shot (50 yds, didn't know I was there). The doe finally spotted me and bolted.

Do you think it will come back next week when the season starts? If it does come back, should I take what I can get or wait to see if a buck comes by?

Try and get a stand in the area, the buck that made it WILL be back, if you don't spooke it. Don't touch the tree or anything around it, try and stay away from it. other deer will check it out also. Try and find a tree down from prevailing wind, and don't shoot any does till end of season. You can get some buck pee in a squirt bottle and hit the ground infront of the tree, and scramble into your stand and be ready for a mad buck to come in Good luck

Tigerhunter: Kneel down at the rub, placing your eyes about same heiight as deer's head. Look directly upwind to the furthest point you can see at that level, yet still be able to see the rub. Go to that spot and pick a point crosswind that you can get a shot into that spot. Often, with BIG rubs, the rubs are placed in locations that the buck NEED the does to be, such as a wind transition area. They will view the rub from upwind location, and move in when they see does near the rub acting normally.

You might just intercept the buck at that upwind location.

Don't do anything. All it means is that there was a buck there at one time. It doesn't mean he will be back, especially if there is only one. He may have done it at midnight. It is more important to find good fresh scrapes.

This is definitely a rub madeby a buck. That I know. The rest is a guess. It looks fairly fresh. Look at the other trees that size in a 50 yard radius. If there are others you can tell which way the buck was going by which side of the tree the rub is on.

You can say nothing of the size of the buck. If the rub is on a larger tree (3 times that size, the size of a normal man's bicep), then you can assume that a big buck made it but all size bucks make this size rub.

As for when he will be back, who knows. I am in Indiana. If you are in the midwest, the prerut is just getting started. Add to that the beginning of gun season and deer will be running everywhere. I would not set up on the rub next weekend but I would not avoid it either. You know that deer are there and that's all you need to know the opening weekend of gun season.

Yes, that is a rub. Try and look around the area and look for more rubs, then set up your stand in the area.

That is definetly true. Good sign, but doesnt really mean much after that.

What????

This rub that you found really only tells you thata buck has been there. Was there just one rub? Was there several rubs along a trail. In my book there is only one way to hunt rubs. You need to find a rub line. A rub line is a series of rubs that lead from a bedding area to a food source or from a food source to a bedding area. I prefer to hunt the rub line that is coming from the bedding area towards the food source. This will be productive in the evenings. Walk that rub line from the food source straight to the bucks "bedroom". If you spook him from his bed you've done it right. Do not worry. Hang that stand that very moment 75 yards down the trail towards the food source on the down wind side of the rub line. Give the area a day or two to cool down and then hunt the stand. The first sit in that stand is going to be your best bet. Get in there early and be ready during that last 30 min. of light. I have taken 3 P&Y bucks using this method of madness.

2 Lunger: Just as you have you used your method to take several p&Y buck, I have used my method, on BIG rubs-6-8 "diam.-for mature, 4 1/2 old,130+ bucks. MY experiences have been that many of these types of rubs are located in wind transition areas, where the normal prevailing wind currents abruptly change, usually due to a topography change, often very subtle. These are the areas that I concentrate my efforts in, simple as that. My method of locating interception points is based on MY use of those experiences over 40 years of hunting. The trick, more often than not, is the decision of whether to set-up IN the wind transition or at the edge of it. Bottom line, regardless of how great a hunter some think they are, confidence in the SPOT, and being in the right place at the right time are the two biggest keys, IMHO, to being consistently successful.

I might add that my theory on BIG rubs fits with hunting high pressure areas that come with hunting in New york State and a 40 day firearm season.

All it means as there is a buck in the area. I shot my first buck over a rub. I have seen bucks revisit a rub, but a active scrape is what you want to find.