Trolling for Deer

Editor's Note: Brad Harris, of Neosho, Missouri, the vice president in charge of public relations for Outland Sports, the mother company of Lohman's and M.A.D. Calls as well as API tree stands and other outdoor products, has hunted deer avidly for three decades. He knows how to grunt up deer.

Question: Tell me how you use grunt calls to troll for deer.
Answer: I use a grunt call just as a fisherman uses a fishing lure. If you fish with an artificial lure, you'll make a certain number of casts a day to catch "X" amount of fish. Some days you may load the boat with fish, and some days you may catch nothing. The key is making a lot of good casts to agitate those fish. As a deer hunter, I do the same thing with vocal sound, mostly with a grunt call. When in a stand, I basically cast those contact grunts into thin air. I try to catch a trolling deer that I can't see so he'll hear me and come investigate. I look at the situation as potluck -- you're hunting an area you know holds deer, but you don't know where the deer is there. It's like a fisherman picking a good area that may hold a bass and making a cast. He may make 30 casts or more to a brush pile. My tree stand is like the brush pile, and I'll make grunting sounds every 10 minutes, every 30 minutes or three or four times an hour. I'm trying to make something happen. If I sit in my stand eight hours a day and I call every half-hour, I have 16 opportunities that day to make something happen. You never know when you'll catch a trolling buck. He may hear that sound from a distance and come right to you.

Question: When you grunt like that, do you blow your call in one direction, or do you blow it all around the tree?
Answer: I try to blow it in the direction from which I think a deer may approach because of the wind. But I usually fan the call out. I blow it to my left, straight ahead and to my right. I blow individual grunts in those directions so I cast that sound in different volumes and directions.

To learn more about Outland Sport's calls and hunting accessories, call 1-800-922-9034 or visit the company's website at www.outland-sports.com.

Tomorrow: Different Types of Grunts