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Deer sign - Pine woods

hokiehunter373

hokiehunter373

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Location
Maryland
Similar to the other thread I just started, my brain got to thinking on a recent scouting trip. Several sections of public I have lightly hunted are covered in pine trees. The ground is usually covered in pine needles and the bark of trees doesn't seem conducive to rubbing. It seems that I find far less rubs and scrapes in these areas because of this. I have never found a rub on one of these pines. I find plenty of deer poop, trails, and beds still but it makes things a little more challenging to figure out where the killer spots are. Has anyone else seen the same and have any approaches to pinpointing where you need to be? I'm wondering if the deer will travel different/farther to a spot outside the pines to lay their sign and communicate with each other?
 

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Pines are tough hunting. Alabama is full of paper land, so it's something I unfortunately have some experience with.

Young, thick pines are MONEY when it comes to bedding. Especially if they're grown up with blackberries, yaupon, deerberry, and privet. I just jumped some deer out of that mess yesterday, matter of fact.

Older pines are a mixed bag of apples. Usually if there's good understudy to provide food and cover, it'll hold deer. They wont usually rub pines, but they'll rub anything else that grows in there. I generally find a fair amount of buck sign, if the area holds them.

Streamsode management zones inside pine woods are generally money. So are edges between two different ages of timber. Islands of thick underbrush are good bedding areas too.
 
Georgia deer rub pines all the time. Maybe because they have to rub the velvet off somewhere. Thick young pines are awesome as Nutterbuster pointed out but almost impossible to hunt. The tough part in vast areas of pine timber is finding something that deer key in on. I like to hunt the edges and old fence rows.
 
The deer around here rub small pines....makes following rub lines easy because the pines die and there will be an easily seen line of brown dead/dying trees. Seems they like cedars most followed by 3-7 foot pine trees
 
I find rubs on pines and cedars up here in the north country.

I'd say keep looking.
 
What I've seen matches what Nutter said.

I've hunted a paper farm pine plantation in south Alabama where I could hear them sparring in the thick pines, but never saw them - even when the sound was only a row or 2 (15-30 feet) away. They feel pretty dang safe there.
RARELY saw them in the taller thinned open pines - never saw bigger deer there at all - but you'd see does or small family groups move through once in a while, following a trail.
We had food plots that bordered streams on one side and thick stuff on the other, and those edges are where the best action was, in mornings. 2nd best was overlooking roads between thick stuff, where there were heavy tracks. But nobody bothered setting a stand just along or in the opened pines - I think it was too open for them to feel safe. You didn't find tracks in the road there, and you never saw anything on a sit.
 
Yep, open, thinned pines are wastelands. But...

This old boy was caught right by a log landing after they thinned our lease last year. He laid down a scrape line following the skidder trail, and I promptly set up on it.

FB_IMG_1558103270089.jpg

Weird about them rubbing pines. I literally can't recall ever seeing a rub on a pine down here. They do seem to love cedars though. It's almost a given that a lone cedar sapling will be rubbed up, and the larger ones seem to frequently become community rubs.

And they LOVE to make scrapes under yaupon bushes. Any yaupon branch that hangs out over a road, food plot edge, or skidder trail is gonna get gnawed on and pawed under.
 
When they rub the pines around here they are a good indicator on how recently they have been in there or how often they're hitting it. Some will be dripping fresh sap, some the sap is skinned over but still ''wet'', and the older rubs the sap is white and hardened up....it may be the lack of options since pines trees are 98% of the trees on most public land around here
 
What seems to be the most reliable thing around my area is that if you can find a arm to leg size tree that isn't a pine tree within a large sections of pines that one is sure to be rubbed up
 
The variety of pine is key.
I hunted a S central Ohio lease several years ago. It was paper company property and had lots of acres of pine of all maturities (I believe they were loblolly). It was almost impossible to find a single rub anywhere on a pine on that lease. Non pines were rubbed and trail cams proved there was a heathy population of mature bucks, but zero rubs on those loblolly.
Then there is the other Ohio property I hunt that has a pile of white pine of all ages. Every size from 1 year sprouts to fully mature 24"+ dbh. The amount of rubs on those white pines is absolutely mind blowing.
On my property here in PA, blue and white spruce are hardly touched. Norways get decent use and white pine will he killed if not protected by cage or tubes.
Bucks rubbing pines?? It depends on the variety.
 
Last edited:
Allegheny Tom said:
The variety of pine is key.
I hunted a S central Ohio lease several years ago. It was paper company property and had lots of acres of pine of all maturities (I believe they were loblolly). It was almost impossible to find a single rub anywhere on a pine on that lease. Non pines were rubbed and trail cams proved there was a heathy population of mature bucks, but zero rubs on those loblolly.
Then there is the other Ohio property I hunt that has a pile of white pine of all ages. Every size from 1 year sprouts to fully mature 24"+ dbh. The amount of rubs on those white pines is absolutely mind blowing.
On my property here in PA, blue and white spruce are hardly touched. Norways get decent use and white pine will he killed if not protected by cage or tubes.
Bucks rubbing pines?? The variety is the key.
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Very interesting observations. I too know for sure there's a very solid buck population on this property and yet the rubs are scarce. I plan to get back in there tomorrow morning to see if I can find anything new.
 
Here's a cedar tree in Iowa that has been rubbed. The rubs on cedars out there is crazy. Literally hundreds of rubs on an acre or 2 in a few places.
And the size of some of the trees dwarfs the one in my pic. Some were much bigger than a person could put their arms around.
But I witnessed (actually videoed) behavior that makes me wonder if these rubs are for scent marking behavior.
I watched 2 tiny, yearling bucks together take turns rubbing a well rubbed cedar (larger than the one in my photo) and proceed to pick at, and eat the shreds. Apparently, there is something about the taste of cedar bark sheds that they find tasty.


Iowa rub.jpg
 
Northeast they seem to prefer hemlock, white pine are seldom touched, cedars are popular for community marking post rubs. Some. Ucks seem to prefer hardwoods as well, silver birch and the like
 
rutjr said:
I can't remember ever seeing a rub on pine, cedar yes.
Click to expand...
Which varieties of pine are you referring?
I've seen some varieties that never get rubbed. On the other hand, some varieties are rub magnets. Rubs in one patch of white pines on a property I hunt number in the hundreds...literally. Some are on 5" trees, too. Not an exaggeration in the least.
 
Sometimes I hunt a spot down state when I can it’s mostly pine woods and there’s a tree there that’s been getting rubbed on every year there’s a big impression on each side of the tree it’s pretty much dead but it’s still kicking trying to heal itself over almost every little pine we walk up on has been rubbed


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I find in my area that pines hold lots of deer. It is hard to find the sign however I have a few tickets that have single oak trees dropping. That is where you want to be when they start falling. They have security cover and food


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