Terrain Features And Rub Lines

Finally the decision was made to just tough it out and hunt where I thought the bigger bucks were hiding. I located the most remote areas of the public land that I hunted and began hunting terrain features that had some low browse and acorns but no deer sign at all or at least not any that I could detect. Ironically the very first time I tried this I had a decent six point meander by my tree well before dark which was very unusual at my old stands even for a small buck. Needless to say after many hours on stand and fine tuning this technique, to include rubs, my buck sightings has more than doubled and just as I suspected but was too caught up in all those tracks and rubs and scrapes down by the fields, I see very few does now and even though I like seeing deer activity I would much rather see the horns.

I will describe a scenario of one of my hunts this season that might help you see the possible advantages to this approach.

A lake surrounds my hunting area on three sides. I like to find two or three coves fairly close together. These coves form peninsulas where deer bed and feed depending on what is located on them. Ideally I prefer at least one peninsula that contains some thickets for potential beds, and remember it need only be big enough for one deer if you are hunting big bucks. A lone brush pile left by a storm can be enough of a bed for these loners.

I had located some big rubs all the way out one of the peninsulas where there was no food at all and it was fairly open so I figured the buck must be making his rounds there under the cover of darkness but he has to get there. Now comes the decision on where to set up for your ambush. The peninsula with the cover is where I felt the buck was spending his days so you don’t want to get too close to that area but close enough to get a shot during the day as the buck leaves his bed to patrol his area, which may or may not include the third peninsula, between these two, which consisted of very open hardwoods and lots of acorns so it very well could be where he feeds but again probably at night, so you want to be setting at the entrance to this peninsula. So I set my stand between the bed and the rubs and at the end of the peninsula with the acorns with the lake in sight of my stand. Now if the buck decides to leave his bed and check out his territory I have it covered because the rubs tell me that he prefers that area and gives me a direction I can have confidence the buck is traveling. If I am wrong I have enough visual coverage of the area to determine if the buck is coming from another direction. It really helps when you have a rub line connecting all the peninsulas, which is what I had in this location.

This particular stand site provided many buck sightings. Most were not shooters but one was. It took three days at this stand before he showed himself at 9:45 am on a hot windy morning. I nearly departed my perch several times that morning as the thoughts that deer won’t move in this hot (in the 60’s) and windy weather. The deer sightings were spaced apart enough to keep me on stand and it’s a good thing as the buck was the biggest I had ever seen in 15 years while hunting this area. He did give me a glimmer of a shot but he was about 48 yards and I felt like he might come a little closer, but he continued, to my surprise, right down the shoreline in the wide open. I just was not comfortable with a 48-yard shot with my bow and I let him walk. Goes to show, you never know. These rubs are marked in memory as well as GPS for future reference so I can set-up here year after year with confidence especially if that big eight pointer makes it through this season. You can bet he will be there and so will I.

The rubs helped with the decision on this set-up, but many times the rubs don’t show until late in the season. I saw several bucks at this stand sight and many would be a shooter for most. These bucks came from every direction, as they seemed to use the terrain feature as a guide for their travel as they investigate their area for food cover or most importantly hot doe’s. These bucks will travel out these peninsulas to search for doe’s, and as they leave that peninsula the natural path to the next is around the back of the cove that created these peninsulas. The backs of these coves usually contain a creek or drainage that usually provides great bedding areas for doe’s, which is another reason for the bucks to cruise through here on his way to the next big peninsula in his quest for love.

So get out there and do some early season scouting. Look for early rubs and make a note, then look at the big picture and try to imagine where these deer are traveling and put together a plan. Locate the terrain features that tend to funnel deer movement into a confined area and you just might fill your tag early. Later in the season, cautiously scout these locations and some new ones for active and aggressive rubs. Put it all together and you just might find that this tactic really works, and don’t be surprised if buck sightings increase. This approach to hunting may not be for everyone. It took me several seasons to stay away from all the sign and focus more on where bucks like to hang during the day, which is not with the doe’s that tend to make the more visible sign we see around fields and logging roads.

Some hunters, even if you proved this method to them would still prefer to hunt where they can see a lot of territory and a lot of deer even if they are doe’s and yearling bucks, even with a bow. I do understand, and to each his own, but if you want to get serious about bagging a good buck, especially with a bow, then try this approach. Give it time as this method takes some time to learn and begin to see the whole picture in your woods and put together a successful plan to harvest a mature whitetail buck.

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