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Whitetail Deer Calls
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I remember back in the late eighties I read an article about using deer calls for whitetail deer. They had used the call in the empty field at night and after calling they turned lights on and discovered that several deer had come into the field, presumably in response to the call. This sounded good to me, after all you just blow in the call and they come a running. It sounded easy so I shelled out some hard earned money. The call was about the size of a rifle scope and could imitate the sound of a doe bleat and a buck grunt on each of the two ends. Of course with whitetail deer calling I have had to learn everything the hard way as I always do. I cannot remember a deer ever reacting to this call, just a lot of funny looks from deer that I could see or empty woods in previously empty woods. Soon the call became a toy for my kids.
Later in the mid nineties I decided that I wanted to try this deer calling thing again so after I dropped my son of at Pre-school one day I went to Quality Farm and Fleet and purchased a call made by Martin Brothers right here in West Virginia. Surely you can’t go wrong with something made in good ole West Virginia and on top of that the deer magazines were still talking about calling deer with these things, big deer too, not just the little ones.
In that same week I was bow hunting behind my house when an 8 point buck came from behind me and about 40 yards to my left. He was traveling in a direction that would take him straight away from me. When he got about 60 yards out from me I grunted at him. Over the next several minutes, by grunting at him each time he would start to go in the other direction I was able to get him to within 5 yards of my stand on the right side. He had circled around from the left to the right and walked this close looking for what was making that noise and finally looked straight up at me. This exciting encounter made me a believer in deer calls.
Since then I have had several deer react to my deer call. The most notable was the 10 point buck that I shot in 2001. The deer had approached from a thick area behind me making it difficult for me to determine how big his antlers were. As he was walking away from me I was finally able to determine that he was big enough to shoot, but in the time it took for me to prepare to shoot, he had put too many tree limbs between us. I grunted with my deer call and he stopped, when I grunted again he turned and started walking back towards me. He continued to walked straight back to me and gave me a nice shot. Without using the deer call I would not have gotten a shot at that deer.
On another occasion in 2001, in that same stand, I had used the call just to see if a deer would come to it. A few minutes later a doe came walking in with a small buck close behind her. Over the next several minutes three different small bucks arrived. One of the bucks left with just a little intimidation and the other two eventually got into a sparring match. After awhile one of them must have been declared the winner and he left to catch up with the doe. The loser didn’t give up and followed at a distance. Now just to see what would happen, I grunted. At this the winning buck raced back to the loser thinking that he had grunted and ran him off. This has to be one of the most entertaining hours that I have spent hunting.
Both bucks and does will react to deer calls. One year I was getting situated in my stand and decided to blow on my grunt call to see what pitch it was on. Immediately a doe came trotting in to see what was going on. I didn’t even have my release on or an arrow nocked. Surely she had to have heard me walk in there but must not have seen or smelled me.
I have had varying results with whitetail deer calls. One time I will grunt at a deer and it will turn on a dime and come looking and another time the deer will not pay any attention at all. I have never had any success trying to call a deer that has recognized that something was wrong but I have never had a deer turn and run. I think that success using deer calls depends on several things including; how close it is to the rut, buck to doe ratio, whether or not the deer knows that you are there and probably several other unknowns.
Antler Rattling
I have not yet had much success with antler rattling although I’ve tried it on several different occasions over the years using both real antlers and the store bought gizmos. I am going to continue to experiment with it and have a Lohman Dynamite Rattler that I use. We have also put Lincoln Logs in a sock and produced a sound that is just like some of the rattling bags on the market, but I have given the Lincoln Logs back to my son and started wearing socks again.
