You can’t rely much on buck behavior to determine the rut. Bucks testosterone levels remain low from post rut on. They get a spike in testosterone levels at the start of antler growth, then it falls off again. Towards the beginning of summer the levels start to ramp up and peak around the rut or shortly thereafter. Scraping, peeing on tarsals, fighting, rubbing is all dependent on that specific buck and not a good indicator of anything really. I shot a 10 point last year, right in the middle of the rut, and his tarsal glands were fairly clean. He was dogging does around a feeder the night before (game camera).

I’ve also read that young bucks breed a majority of the does and a mature buck will only breed 1-3 total. He made breed those does several times each during the lock down period. Young bucks typically start acting stupid a couple weeks before the mature bucks do. I guess that could be an indicator.