It works but the conditions have to right.I wouldn't have shot my buck this year without a grunt call.
Haven't had much success with grunt calls but I've had a ton of success with rattling and will go ahead and proudly say I'm the "I rattled him in" guy!! I probably rattled in 4 or 5 bucks this season alone including the one I shot last Tuesday morning. It's pretty easy to tell based on how the deer comes into your stand if you rattled him in or if he was just out cruising. I never use a rattle bag and always use real antlers - never too big of antlers, just a typical 8 pointer with the brows sawed off. To explain how effective it has been for me this season alone. When I shot my buck last Tuesday I rattled at 7:45 a.m. about 10 minutes after shooting light came in. I had this buck come off a ridge and was heading away from me shortly their after - I grunted and he just looked at me kept walking the other way. So I decided to rattle again (he's no more than 60 yards away from me) and he turns and comes right in... Safe to say I don't kill that buck without rattling, if I had to guess he was bedded down already nearby and I pulled him out of his bed. So my hunting buddy asks me what have I been doing to rattle these bucks in and I explain to him the following. 1. It doesn't always work but that doesn't mean you shouldn't rattle. Either you don't have any bucks in the area or they are not interested in what is going on. 2. Don't be afraid to really bang those antlers together. Starting the last week of October through pretty much the end of November I do it once every 15 minutes for the first hour. Once every 30 minutes in the second hour and once every hour after that. 3. If you do it right they should come directly to your location within just a couple minutes of you rattling and a lot of times they will end up directly under your stand because they can pick up the location of that sound so well. Can't tell you how many times I've rattled to have a buck come directly underneath my stand. So my buddy has last Friday morning off and I told him go hunt that stand I hunted Tuesday, throw away your rattle bag and use my real antlers and do exactly what I said. He sends me a text message at 7:50 a.m. with a personal best 8 point buck on the ground. That stand produced two bucks in two hunts within the first 30 minutes of shooting light. The common denominator of both hunts - "we rattled them in" proudly I might add!
I grunted in two small bucks Sunday morning. They were about 30 minutes apart. Jumped the fence about 125 yards from me and headed away. I grunted loudly to get their attention. When they turned my way, I gave a single grunt. They both came in to 20 yards. It works when the time is right.
"rattled him in" on the 4th. by the time i had my rattle bag back in my backpack he came in. Alert, investigating, curious. He definitely came in to my sequence. i e seen deer go the Opposite way or ignore also. Just depends on their mood and if they just had their *** handed to them by a more dominant buck or not.
Don't have much luck with calls either. I think the buck to doe ratio has a negative effect for me. There are a lot of does around so a buck has little incentive to fight. So rattling doesn't work. No luck grunting either. The can I have brought out numerous times then ask myself why. I have the large and small one. Both useless to me
This thread is awsome i jus got a set of real antlers from a friend jus wonderin if the size would make a difference. They come off a deer farm and they are cut off and nedd less to say there a dandy pair but would it spook them if they sound to big? Maybe a stupid question but im curious
Probably a couple different schools of thought here. Part of it depends where you are hunting. The first would be to match the antler size you are rattling with to the average size bucks you see in your herd. If the majority of big deer you have on camera are in the 130" to 140" range then any typical 8 point buck set with the brow tines cut off will work. The second would be that timing, sequence and technique are just as important as the antler size. So for timing, what time of day do you rattle (morning vs. evening), for how long (30 seconds, a minute etc.) and how often (every half hour, every hour etc.)? For sequence, do you just rattle at random, wait until you hear movement or wait until you locate a buck. For technique, do you just tickle them together, do you bang on them so everyone in the woods knows where you are at, do you rattle and grunt at the same time, do you rattle and try and ruffle some branches around you etc. A lot of those questions can be answered with trial and error. What works for me might not work for you - you have to see what works and make adjustments and changes based on that. For me I prefer a smaller set of antlers (110" range prior to being cut down) as they are easier for me to store in my Sitka Tool Box pack and it more accurately matches the average size of bucks we have in this area. I like to rattle at random, when I hear movement that sounds like a buck but not in view and also when I locate a buck. I will often randomly rattle at smaller bucks just to see what works and what doesn't - I want to know when they are starting to get fired up and interested in a fight. I usually don't even bother bringing my antlers with me until late October. I will start by just tickling the antlers together - if that doesn't get any action then I will get a little more aggressive. Again, I am constantly changing my technique.
Thanks ive done a little of all of it... im sittin in the middle of a big woods so mostly blind calling. This morning they paid no attention to my bleet can... but they showed up 5-10 min aftr i rattled real hard bit didnt act like they wer lookin.. so its a little tough knowing jus what works and what doesnt yet. Im relatively new to calling but its never worked real good for me
Wel I actually rattled one in i believe jus used a lil different techniques and i no more then sat the antlers doen and he was ther jus happened to b a lil one and he didn want his butt kickd and skirted around me..
Calling works great when used at the right time. When I see a deer, I only call if I think they're moving away. Here's the scenario in the video below on a hunt from a couple weeks ago.... I had two does about 80 yards from me that were milling around. Suddenly, they took off running away from me up the hill. I notice a buck running toward where the does were standing so I started calling to him. He didn't stop on the first two grunts so I assumed he didn't hear me. I grunted longer and louder with the 3rd grunt which stopped him. The 4th grunt was to let him know where I was. Then I just watched to see what his next move would be. I noticed he was sniffing the ground where the does were standing and was looking up the hill in the direction they ran so I let out a bleat and followed up with a grunt to make him think the doe was with the buck he heard grunting. About 90 seconds later.... [video=vimeo;191554882]https://vimeo.com/191554882[/video]
They were coming your way without the call, if you used no call you would still have the same video up here minus the call.
As mentioned previously, calls do work under the right circumstances. It has been my experience that rattling does work if you have the proper buck to doe ratio. Rattling here in my area of Pa simply spooks bucks, plain and simple. There are enough doe around that bucks just don't have to fight over them, and honestly I have never heard two bucks fight here. Conversely, when I hunted in Alberta I rattled in a few bucks, and I mean they came in quickly! This is because where I was hunting there were about 2 or 3 doe to one buck, so there was serious competition for these doe. As far as using a grunt tube goes, I'll only use one if I see a buck that seems like he's going the other way. And that can be hit or miss. I have also used "the can" a couple times and had bucks come into it, one of which I killed. So, calls can and will work some of the time. Just my 2 cents.
You say do a couple light grunts and see his reaction... See that's just it. I've grunted or rattled or both at more than 50 bucks over the years and the only reaction I get is they RUN!. They don't stop. They don't come. They don't ignore it. They RUN!! everytime.. That's why I say calls don't work. Because for me they don't. Never.... I would like to see a buck just stop once and look back but they RUN.
No the deer are not pressured.. I hunt a 120 acre woods that is between 3 neighborhoods and a lake. This area is Million dollar houses. It's a township ordinance that your house has to be valued over a million to live here. I've lived here for 30 years and know everyone on the 2 roads that surround the woods and they are not hunters. One of them is Booby Richie (you'd know him as Kid Rock) A few of the others build motors for nascar and Lear Jets. They all stick there nose up to hunting. But because It's a small town and I know everyone they've all given me permission to hunt the land. It's just myself and 1 other guy that hunts the land. We both only shoot bucks that are 8 pts or bigger and have 3, 4 and even 5 years of pics of the same bucks.
