FOURTH AND 40 BUCKS
More Grunt and Run with Bob Walker
 Editor’s
Note: Some people perform their best under pressure.
When the last day of deer season and your last opportunity
to hunt a trophy buck arrives, you must have the same
dedication, poise and firm belief in your strategy as
a star football player does in fourth quarter to bag
your buck of a lifetime.
”Get into your tree stand before daylight, and
grunt softly just when enough light glows to see for
shooting,” Walker explains. “As the sun
brightens up the day, imitate the sounds a buck makes
while chasing a doe or that several bucks will make
if all chase the same estrous doe.” You either
must set up on the edge of a thicket or in a thicket
where you can see 50 to 100 yards away to observe the
buck as he approaches. When a buck chases a doe, he
grunts almost continuously with short bursts of air
as his lungs bounce. Fast, short grunts on a grunt tube
imitate these sounds.
 ”As
a buck chases a doe, he doesn’t run, walk or trot
at the same speed,” Walker reports. “When
he changes the speed of his gait, his lungs and internal
organs bounce to a different rhythm. Therefore, vary
the pace of your calling as you go through your grunting
series.” Using a tube-type grunt call, Walker
points the barrel of the call at the ground and moves
the call around the tree in which his tree stand rests.
He throws the call and makes the grunts sound like a
buck moving in the area of the stand. If you make the
sounds of a buck running and chasing a doe but don’t
move those sounds around your tree, your grunting may
not call in bucks.
”I use the loudest grunt call I can find that
won’t break the grunt when I blow it hard,”
Walker emphasizes. “If you use a loud grunt call,
you always can blow that call softer to call in a close
buck. But you can’t loudly blow a soft grunt call
without the call’s breaking up. If a buck doesn’t
hear the sound of your calling, the grunting has no
effect. To penetrate a large expanse of thick cover
where a trophy buck may hold, you need to use an extremely
loud grunt call. I think  when
a buck hears a loud grunt call, he can’t tell
if the grunt sounds louder than a real grunt call.”
By extending and collapsing the tube part of the call,
Walker gives the call a different voice, making the
call sound as though more than one deer is in the region.
”I grunt continuously as long as I can when using
the call,” Walker explains. “I can blow
the grunt call constantly for about 45 seconds without
becoming winded. I then wait for about a minute and
grunt again for another 45 seconds.” The entire
time Walker blows the grunt call and waits between calls,
he holds his rifle, prepared for the shot. “Expect
the buck to come running to you,” Walker mentions.
“Using this tactic, you stand right outside his
bedroom window and dare him to come out and fight. If
you call effectively, an angry buck will want to come
in and whip you quickly. Be ready for him.” Walker
has observed often that as long as a buck hears grunting,
the deer will move toward him. But, sometimes when the
grunting stops, so does the buck.
” To
keep a buck moving toward me, I never wait more than
one minute between calls,” Walker advised. “If
you can see the buck, call for about 30 seconds, stop
for 30 seconds, and then begin your calling sequence
for another 30 seconds. By pausing between your grunts,
you allow the buck to stop from time to time. But don’t
let him become disinterested in your calling.”
Walker continues this grunting sequence for about 15
minutes at first light. He’ll then stop calling
for 5 minutes and call again for another 15 minutes.
”If after 30 minutes of calling,” Walker
says. “If I fail to see a buck, I’ll come
out of my tree stand, put on my camouflage headnet and
gloves, move very slowly and quietly 150 to 200 yards
to another thicket, sit on the ground and repeat my
calling sequence once more. I’ll run and grunt
until a buck appears.”
Walker wears full camouflage when he utilizes this
grunt-and-run strategy with Mossy Oak Fall Foliage pants
to blend with the leaves on the ground and a Mossy Oak
Treestand shirt to resemble the trunk of a tree and
the branches of bushes just above the ground. “Never
grunt while you walk,” Walker advises. “When
you hunt the last day of the season, nervous hunters
may mistake you for a deer if you sound like one. Always
have a clear view in front of you and a tree wider than
your shoulders behind you when you grunt.”
TOMORROW: FOOL THEM WITH DECOYS, SCENTS AND ANTLERS
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