I came across this rub yesterday, and am pretty sure it would take a pretty good size deer to do this much damage to a 2" tree? what are your thoughts?
big bucks can rub on small trees like that, sure. its kind of hard to tell what size deer did it tho, the one thing you probably could assume is that it wasnt a spike or deer of that caliber.
I watched a little 1 1/2 yr old buck last year that had little stickers everywhere, just destroy a pine tree that was probably 3.5" in diameter, and if you'd have seen the rub, you'd have SWORN a MONSTER was in the area. But alas, no such luck, I saw the perpetrator and while he was a neat little fellow with probably 12-14points nothing over 3", and very spindly, he was also very destructive. I've yet to see him this year, but if he's still around, I wonder what his rack looks like this year.
I don't think he's talking about the rub itself - he's talking about the tree being snapped in half. Deer are pretty strong animals and even at 1 1/2 years old I would imagine a buck would have enough strength to do that. Hard to be sure though. IMO the only time you can really tell the size of a buck making a rub is if it's huge. We're talking thigh-sized and bigger. In that case, you know it's a big one.
I saw two thigh sized rubs last year and i had alot of pics of the deer i think did it...he was like 4.5 or 5
I've seen larger deer rub on trees that small before, and I've heard that its because the smaller trees move more and to the deer it feels more lifelike. Not sure if that's the real reason though. Like Justin said though, deer are strong animals and even a small one could be capable of that. However, IMHO I would think that a slightly older buck that is a little more aggressive likely made that. If you got a spare trail camera I'd put it on a major trail in the area of that rub just to make sure. Without a proof, the most any of us can do to help is speculate.
Looks alot like this one I took the other day http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af225/slayist/368ab6ff.jpg
