When antlers are regrown, they are covered in a soft velvety fur during the entire growing process. When they have reached their largest size of the year, they start to "itch" the buck, causing him to want to "scratch" at them. Deer use trees to "rub" the velvet off and prepare them for their primary purpose... Sparring with other bucks in the area to determine breeding priority with the local does. They use trees to rub this velvet off. Generally the larger the buck's antlers, the larger the tree that is used to rub off the velvet. Small bucks will usually use brush or small treelings for their rubs, while the larger ones will use trees up to 3" or 4" in diameter. Generally all bucks will use trees that are "aromatic" as they want to add that scent to their own. You can find the more dominant bucks in a given area by finding the trees he has used to rub off his velvet. All members of the deer family in NA exhibit this behavior, from Whitetail to Moose. I would guess that other deer in other areas do the same to one extent to another.Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the deer family. They are true bone and are a single structure. They are generally found only on males, with the exception of the caribou.[1] Antlers are shed and regrown each year and function primarily as objects of sexual attraction and as weapons in fights between males for control of harems.
Bucks will also create scrapes. A scrape is a spot near a trail where a buck will leave a couple of different "calling cards" of his presence. One of these calling cards is the scent from his forehead glands on a broke or low hanging branch. He also clears off the ground under this branch, removing all of the dead leaves and grass. This leaves a patch of bare ground. Then the buck will "squat" over this bare ground and pee on his legs. His urine passes across the tarsal glands on his legs, combining the two scents (and pheromones) leaving it on the bare patch of ground he created. The more dominant bucks in a given area will create a larger patch of cleared ground. This appears to be mostly a Whitetail habit, although Blacktails do this to some extent as well, with modifications. Mulies have a much broader home range, and while they may make scrapes, these are much harder for a hunter to find.
Elk and Moose tend to use vocalizations to advertise their presence in an area more than their smaller cousins. Elk scrapes are extremely hard to find, but they can be found when trailing a bull. They tend to make these as they walk. They will splay out their front legs and pee on their legs, just as deer do. but they don't tear up a patch of ground to make them. I honestly don't know if moose make scrapes like their smaller cousins do. You would have to ask some of the more die-hard real life moose hunters in the community.
These are basically sign posts. They advertise the buck is in the area, and what his health condition is. This advertising marks the territory as "his" so it warns off the smaller bucks of an area. It also can tell the does in the area where they can find the bigger males when they come into cycle.
Bucks have a "home range" meaning they have an area they are generally associated to. So they will usually follow a route in their given range. They will visit the rubs several times through the rubbing season, as they still itch, and want some relief. Scrapes are something they will visit throughout the majority of the breeding season. And a dominant buck can have several of these scrapes in his home range.
I don't know if the mechanics of the game give a certain deer a "home range" or not. If it does, the idea of rubs and scrapes could be easy to incorporate, giving the hunter clues about the bucks in an area, over the clues we already get through the Hunter Mate. (Weight, trophy size, etc.) With practice, finding a rub or scrape can actually pinpoint a home range for a given deer.
Anyway, in a nutshell, these are the ideas I have for other tracks for the deer family. They could be used to help find the larger, more dominant bucks or bulls during your hunt, if they were in game.