Deer Hunting and Deer Scouting

This page covers open country trophy deer scouting, hunting and rub line density. We apologize for the poor picture quality as these pictures were collected before the entrance of digital cameras.

In this deer section we recognize the importance we place on pre season scouting and how we encourage every deer hunter to spend as much time deer scouting our lease land as he has time to scout. To that end we continue with this section on deer scouting concentrating on the central mid west deer habitat to give as much of a jump start to any deer scouting and subsequent hunting trip as words and pictures can provide.

Pictured are some rubbed trees on a rub line that developed only this season. This is a case of a line of fresh rubs compared to other rub lines to be found where rubs are on top of previous season rubs. the entire number of trees that had been rubbed were in excess of our willingness to count. This new to this season rub line is not significant. What is significant is the open ground this mature buck moved into this year. The next picture down shows the stand of trees containing these rubs and the third picture the 240 acre hunting lease fallow and open field this buck has as his core bedding area.
	This is the small stand of willow bush trees a mature trophy class whitetail deer has chosen for the first time this season to rub. Other trees distant from this cluster have signs of rubbing, but no where the density as this one spot that is less than 50 feet wide.

The above trees stand containing the rub line is pictured dead center in the panoramic photo below of the 240 acre open weed field this buck beds in, tough hunting in any description. Other deer activity included varying number of doe and yearlings that also bedded in the fallow field and apparently fed on the neighboring crop land. This field is surrounded by crop fields on all four sides. This year's crop was corn and bean. This is the significants of this page.

Many deer hunters pass by such open ground and call it bird country and that is true. It is also true that this type of habitat is not a strong deer attracting type either. What else that cannot be denied is that occasionally trophy whitetail deer select such a field as its home range and that was the case the first season we leased this land. A non-resident deer hunter attempted to hunt this deer and did get eyes on that buck, but not an arrow. Successful bird hunters know these fields as trophy deer country and frequently are the ones to harvest these deer over that of more dedicated deer hunters seeking what is perceived as better deer habitat.

This is just an attempt to show that deer scouting needs to cover all types of habitat and while the wooded creek bottom should receive the bulk of time on any scouting trip the self guided deer hunter with limited time needs to pay attention to all the land surrounding what he may consider the most likely deer spots.

Trophy Whitetail Deer Scouting - Rub Lines