When Deer Calls Don’t Work with John E. Phillips
Day 3: Calls That Have the Best Chances of Bringing In Bucks with David Hale and Gary Sefton
Editor’s Note: Some days, a grunt or a bleat may pull a buck within bow or gun range. However, at other times calling may prove futile, or even frighten deer away. Don’t consider deer calls the magic cure-all to put the buck of a lifetime in your crosshairs anytime you use them. Sometimes deer calls don’t call deer.
Often bucks won’t come to any form of calling - rattling, grunting, bleating or clicking. But, if a buck wants to fight or to find a sweetheart, more than likely he’ll respond to a call. A buck in a more or less neutral mood only may come to a deer call because of his curiosity. Most often a buck will come to a short, medium-range, non-threatening grunt call that just says, “I’m over here if you want to come visit.” Too, a big buck may investigate light antler rattling. Young bucks spar playfully from the time they come into hard antlers until they drop their antlers. The sound of young bucks playing with their newfound headgear may make an older buck come-in and threaten the young bucks with his presence just to re-establish his dominance.
If you’ve ever sat on a green field and watched young bucks sparring, you’ll notice that a bigger, older buck may walk into the green field stiff-legged, bristled-up and with his ears back in an aggressive posture. As soon as that older buck gives those younger bucks the evil eye, they’ll usually stop sparring, move away from him and begin to feed, offering no indication that they want to challenge his authority. So, lightly-rattling antlers can draw in an older-age-class buck at any time when the bucks are in hard antler. However, as David Hale of Knight and Hale Game Calls advises, “When bucks are in the velvet, and you can hunt bucks like that in the early season in some states, you won’t have much success calling them with either rattling or grunting.”
But Gary Sefton, longtime avid Tennessee deer hunter, mentions, “Because deer are curious, often they’ll investigate any kind of deer sound they hear.” Doe bleats that invoke the curiosity of a buck to come into an area to see what’s happening also have a high percentage of success. Does bleat from time to time for many reasons, and an older-age-class buck often will come in to a doe bleat to learn why she’s calling. Therefore, I’ll have to name curiosity calls as the most-effective calls for any time of the year, regardless of a buck’s emotional status or the events occurring in his life. These calls don’t make a definite statement like aggressive grunting, loud furious antler rattling and/or continuous bleating do. They simply say, “I just called to see what you’re doing.” If a buck feels social, or if he’s curious to find out who’s talking to him, he’ll often respond to those calls. Even if he’s in a bad mood and doesn’t feel social, curiosity calls generally won’t cause a buck to retreat and leave an area.
Tomorrow: Times Deer Calls Don’t Work with Eddie Salter, Harold Knight and Will Primos
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