FOURTH AND 40 BUCKS
Fool Them With Decoys, Scents and Antlers
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.
Steve Stoltz of Oakville, Missouri, is an avid deer
hunter who takes trophy bucks each season. “If
you’ve scouted all season,
you should have a good idea where the biggest buck on
any property must bed,” Stoltz says. “On
the last day of the season, get as close to that bedding
area as you can, and fool him. To learn where the biggest
buck holds, I look for rubs on big trees in thick cover.
Once I locate the regions where big bucks travel, I
come from downwind and move close to those rubs. I place
a buck decoy close to thick cover. Then I walk back
downwind and set out two types of scents/lures - a doe-in
heat lure and a dominant buck urine - to pull a big
buck coming in downwind to my decoy. I want a buck to
smell and confirm what his ears and his eyes tell him.
”I stand close to the decoy and rattle. I use
a buck decoy because when the trophy buck emerges from
thick cover, I want him to think the decoy is
a buck invading his territory. A buck decoy pulls a
buck out of thick cover quicker than a doe decoy, especially
when you use rattling antlers. For safety purposes,
use this tactic only when you hunt from a tree stand,
and wear as much hunter orange as possible. As soon
as the buck can see out of the thick cover, he’ll
spot the decoy.”
Stoltz doesn’t utilize the light tickling of
antlers many hunters employ when they rattle. He begins
with loud crashing sounds resembling a full-blown buck
battle. Stoltz wants the antlers to sound loud and aggressive
to get an instinctive response from the buck holding
in the thick cover. Stoltz triggers this reaction move
by the buck much like a bass fisherman triggers a reaction
strike from a bass. Stoltz expects an instant reaction
to the sound of the rattling antlers causing the trophy
buck to break from thick cover and run into the opening
looking for a rival
before the buck can think about what he has done. “I
rattle continuously for a minute or so at first light,”
Stoltz reports. “I then wait 5 or 10 minutes and
give a light rattling sequence.” According to
Stoltz, before you begin your second rattling sequence,
look over your area intensely, because many times the
buck may stand close. You don’t want him to spot
you moving. Don’t start your second rattling sequence
until you can’t see the buck, or more importantly,
the buck can’t spot you.
”I rattle lightly for 1-1/2 to 2 minutes and
then stop,” Stoltz mentions. ”Then I wait
30 minutes before beginning the entire sequence once
more.” If by mid-morning Stoltz hasn’t rattled
up a buck, he’ll meet a friend and make two-man
drives using one hunter as a driver and the other as
a stander in thick-cover areas until the day’s
end. However, the rattling, decoying, buck-lure tactic
consistently produces big bucks for Stoltz at the end
of the season in several different states.
TOMORROW: CONTINUE TO PUSH
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