Had a nice 8 pointer come towards my stand tonight then walked down a hill towards the creek just before he got in shotting distance so i tried ratteling to get him in and all he did was take off running. Do you think he will return to the spot or scared away? I know he is coming from the other side of the timber i have pictures of him.
If you tried to rattle at a time the buck could see your location its nearly impossible to get positive results. He probably didn't know what was going on but I wouldnt rattle in that location again. You need thick cover or a decoy to call deer that are already within sight, need the visual reinforcement. I'd probably let it settle down a day or so then think twice about calling next time or let it get out of sight first.
Grunting would've been a better option here. A loud banging noise when he could obviously see there were no deer around.... yeah, that's going to scare him away. He'll come back, next time toss a grunt his way if he walks out of sight.
He thought there was a mature deer in the area more than likely, so odds are there is a bigger one in the area. Him coming back is a good chance of it still unless he gets pushed out by a bigger buck. The antlers do not associate with danger so if your area is in that buck's core area he will be back. Late season if you got food on the ground very good chance as well.
