Fake tactics article - several parts

[John Eberhart]

Part 1


Proper use of Fake Tactics – Part 1 Rattling/Sparring

With baiting being banned in 16 counties for 2018 and in all southern Michigan counties for 2019 bow hunters may want to consider the use of tactics such as rattling, sparring, decoys, mock scrapes, sex attractant scents, and grunts, wheeze, bleat and fawn calls in an attempt to entice deer in close enough for bowhunters to receive kill opportunities. However, some factors should be taken into consideration before doing so.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if a one size fits all generic article could be written or video be made on performing tactics and have that information fit for all for all deer hunting properties and circumstances across the country or even just here in our diverse hunting state?

Well that would be wonderful but unfortunately it’s literally impossible because from state to state, area to area within each state and oftentimes from section to section within a county there are monumental discrepancies in the amounts of hunters in an area, their kill criteria’s, how they hunt, how frequently they hunt and the general landscape of the property. While the amount of hunting pressure and hunter kill criteria’s have a direct correlation on how many mature bucks may be in a given area, each of those hunting parameters have some form of effect on daylight responses to tactics even if they’re performed perfectly, at the right times of day and season and in the right places.

Let’s focus on Michigan because we have more bowhunters than any other state and for hunters that don’t own, lease or have much property to hunt, Michigan is the most difficult state to kill a mature buck in. That’s why many bowhunters I know continue to opt out of bowhunting in Michigan to hunt in less pressured states like Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Wisconsin where taking mature buck’s is to put it bluntly, much simpler and I’m positive of that because I also go out of state for a week during Michigan’s gun season to continue bowhunting.

Aside from Michigan’s hunter density issues we also have another disadvantage when it comes to taking mature bucks and that is that we are a two buck state. With 320,000 licensed bow and crossbow hunters and 700,000 gun hunters each being able to kill two bucks, it’s amazing how any buck reaches maturity, but a few do and their really difficult to kill.

In heavily pressured areas where most hunters target any legal antlered buck, year and a half old bucks sporting their first set of antlers either learn quickly how to avoid hunters or they get wounded or killed, it’s that simple. Once they reach 2 ½ their pretty smart and those very few that reach the ripe old age of 3 ½ years old seemingly have Masters Degrees at avoiding hunters and typically do so by moving as little as possible outside their secure bedding areas during daylight hours and not falling for the hunter tactics that they’ve heard, seen or smelled on many occasions while growing up.

Michigan does have areas with extremely low hunter densities and the entire Upper Peninsula falls into that category. There are also many isolated large leases, private lands and hunt clubs in the southern Peninsula with minimal hunting pressure that manage their properties for trophy bucks by implementing either antler or age kill criteria’s.

On lightly hunted and managed properties where antlered bucks are allowed to pass by hunters with no negative consequences until they reach specific kill criteria’s, once they reach it they are much more likely to respond positively to tactics than mature bucks in heavily pressured areas because since their first antlered season they’ve been passed on when responding to tactics that were meant to call in mature bucks. By the time a buck reaches the kill criteria they are much more tolerant of human intrusions, odor and faulty tactics than mature bucks in heavily pressured areas.

No matter the game animal or foul, when and wherever there are no negative consequences for interactions with humans or hunters in this case, there are no reasons for them to alter their lack of fear of them or change their behavior. That’s why there’s hundreds of geese on every golf course, dozens of squirrels in every yard, and deer that don’t pay much attention to people in the outlying edges of every large city limits, in non-hunting state and federal parks, in lake associations, etc.

Because of the heavy hunting pressure on public lands in southern Michigan and in rural areas where it’s common to have 10 to 20 property owners per square mile with one to several hunters on each, what few mature bucks that exist are far more in sync with their survival instincts than their same aged brethren in lightly hunted and managed properties.

The amount and type of hunting pressure an area receives and how the property is laid out concerning security cover in the form of swamps, brush and marsh grass bedding areas, secure transition zones, mature timber with dense understudy, bedding area crops such as standing corn and dense river and creek bottom edges, or on the opposite side of security cover, open timber, exposed food plots and short crop fields also have a lot to do with how a buck may or may not respond to tactics.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 2

It’s blatantly obvious when watching TV and video hunting personalities that in the micro-managed areas they hunt where there are so many mature bucks that have been allowed to grow without consequence and now they’re all competing for breeding rights, that just about any of the overly aggressive tactics they perform whether performed correctly or not will work. Conversely, those same aggressive or improperly performed tactics will rarely work in heavily pressured areas where there are so few mature bucks and they rarely have to compete or fight for breeding rights.

Every professional sports icon had to initially move up the ladder to the next rung of success by playing against and outperforming their competitor’s through middle school, high school, college and lastly by outperforming other their professional rivals. By the time they reach the pinnacle of a professional sport they have literally competed against and outperformed tens if not hundreds of thousands of competitors while competing on the same playing fields, courts, courses, pools, etc. and that’s definitely not the case in deer hunting.

TV and video hunting personalities may be icons in the eyes of many hunters, but they are far from being experts because they never compete with anyone on the large farms, leases, pay to hunt ranches, or properties they own and hunt. Their standard advertised terms of 100% wild, 100% free ranging are meaningless and are simple references that there is no high fence enclosing the properties. They adopted those terms to garner some form of credibility to their kills even though there is ZERO competition.

Most TV and video personalities and many writers trophy rooms are not a true reflection of their hunting skills strictly due to the pristine properties on which they hunt. The properties they hunt are a total misrepresentation of normal hunting conditions which explains how their spouses and kids immediately take monster bucks the moment they begin hunting?

I struggle with TV and video personalities offering instructional information because they seem to have no clue that the hunting methods they use on the micro managed properties they hunt are so far removed from what works in areas with heavy hunting competition.

Since most Michigan hunters have to deal with heavy competition I feel the aforementioned TV and video hunting personality foundation of reality has to be mentioned so that hunters in pressured areas don’t waste a lot of their precious time replicating the hunting methods and use of tactics seen on most film.

Since there is no way of writing a generic tactics article, I’m going to assume anyone reading this is hunting in a heavily pressured area where just going out and performing tactics in the same manner and as frequently as seen on film, will likely do more harm than good. The good news is that anything that works in a heavily pressured area will work anywhere else.

Rattling/Sparring

Until I learned how to properly rattle and make sparring sounds, taking in account where I was hunting, seasonal and daily timing and how long and loud the sequence, my success rate was not only poor, I probably spooked bucks that would have otherwise come in to my natural destination location had I not rattled.

Rattling can be performed with a set of split antlers, manufactured antlers, commercial rattle devices, or with a rattle bag. My choice is a homemade mesh (mesh allows more sound) rattle bag with six 10 to 12 inch long x ¾ to 1 inch diameter hardwood sticks loosely sewn into the bag with an elastic band around it to keep it quiet when not in use. These can easily be made by purchasing a long hardwood dowel and cutting pieces to length and stitching them in a bag. For the few times you may need to be aggressive the long loose sticks can be separated in the bag and clashed together louder than a commercial bag with short and tight sticks.

Tine tickling or sparring sounds are made by twisting or rolling the sticks gently or slightly aggressively to get the sounds you prefer. A bag is also much more user friendly than antlers due to its compact size that can fit in a pocket or pack. I used a split 8 point before going to a bag and the antlers hanging in the tree were sometimes in the way of my 360 degree shooting mobility when hunting from my saddle. There were no noticeable differences in responses between the bag and antlers.

After observing many sparring sessions and a few all out fighting brawls during the rut phases it became obvious that much more time was spent pushing each other than twisting their heads and antlers (rattling sounds) to lock up, at which time the push for dominance began. The initial loud rattling sequence rarely takes more than ten seconds with tine tickling noises and moments of silence occurring during the pushing segments of the spar or fight.

Therefore, the initial time spent rattling should be kept to an absolute minimum of five to ten seconds, with intermittent tickling, grinding noises and silence for about another twenty seconds thereafter. During a 25 or so second rattle sequence there should be as much silent periods than noise periods. The first few seconds of aggressive rattling should be enough to get the attention of a distant or nearby interested buck, and the quiet and softer sparring sounds thereafter will allow him to lock in on your location once you have his attention.

After about a five minute period after your first sequence, perform another similar sequence and then quit. If you want to perform another 2 sequence sessions, wait at least an hour before doing so. Keep in mind I’m referring to these types of sparring sequence sessions because they have proven to entice responses by mature bucks 3 ½ years old and older as young bucks will respond to improper rattling sequences.

Although I’ve seen many mature bucks on TV and in videos rattled in with constant and aggressive rattling sequences, don’t mimic them as they hunt on properties where just about anything works whether it’s performed properly or not and you don’t have the luxury of hunting in such areas with so many mature bucks competing for breeding rights.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 3

An example of being overly aggressive in Michigan happened on a morning hunt with a friend in 1997 in a long but relatively narrow cattail and marsh grass marsh. Because we were hunting across the marsh from each other we flipped a coin to decide who would get to perform a couple rattle sequences and he won the toss. Shortly after first light I noticed a mature 10 point slowly working down the edge of the marsh towards him. From his position 14 yards in the woods that bordered the marsh he couldn’t see the buck and I knew it was getting about that time for him to rattle.

Sure enough he began performing an aggressively loud and constant TV style rattling sequence and the buck instantly stopped and took an aggressive posture. He continued the loud sequence without any breaks or variation of pitch and after listening for about 15 seconds the buck turned and ran back from where he came. Had he performed a proper sequence with light sparring sounds and periods of quiet that buck probably would have continued along the edge of the marsh and offered the 14 yards shot. My friend never saw or heard that buck leave, and if I had not been there to witness it and tell him about it, he would likely still be aggressively rattling like he had seen on TV.

You can’t expect to just go out in the woods and rattle in a buck; it’s just not that simple in pressured areas. If rattling is not done properly and at the right time and place it will rarely be successful and will likely be detrimental to the success of that hunt as well as future hunts in that location using the same rattling tactic or likely any tactic.

From the moment bucks shed their velvet in late August or early September throughout all the rut phase’s bucks will be sparring and fighting for pecking or dominance order which leads to breeding rights. Unfortunately the time between our bow opener and the rut phases, mature bucks are mostly nocturnal and rarely move during daylight due to the onslaught of human intrusions during pre-season scouting and location preparation ventures and early season hunting pressure. After all they had been left alone during the winter, spring and summer months and the mature bucks know what the sudden influx of human activity means because they’ve survived through it before. The influx of early season human activity is immediately followed by about 3 weeks of the slow and natural loss of their visual security cover in the form of the leaves on the brush and trees dropping and the tall weeds matting over. They still spar and fight but it is primarily done during the security of darkness.

My seasonal rattling preference times are during the first few days of season in hopes that a mature buck may not yet be nocturnal. If a mature buck hasn’t already turned nocturnal from all the pre-season scouting and location preparation by other hunters in the area, and you’re in the right type of location, you may get a response during the first couple days of season.

I will then wait until pre-rut which is around October 25th before performing rattling/sparring sequences again. By then testosterone levels have raised to the level that a mature bucks desire to breed somewhat overrides their security precautions.

If I’m going to rattle my daily preference times are shortly after daybreak, during mid-day (during the rut phases only), or about a half hour before dark. Early mornings are my overall preference as bucks seem to be relatively calm early in the morning, probably because they had been casually moving all night and are more relaxed.

Mature bucks that have been bedded all day seemingly move with more caution in the evenings, and unless it’s during the rut phases they rarely make themselves vulnerable outside the security of their bedding area until near or after dark.

Subtle sparring sequences work best during the first few days of season. I’ve rattled in and taken 3 Michigan book bucks on morning hunts during the first 2 days of season and they were all in locations with adequate perimeter security cover and that I hadn’t set foot in since the previous spring when preparing them or cleaning them up.

On 2 of those 3 occasions I heard bucks sparring in the distance and when they stopped I simulated their sparring sequence noises and within several minutes on each occasion I received close shot opportunities and took an 8 and a 10 pint. The other time I heard deer walking through the woods heading towards a known bedding area and not having any idea what they were but knowing they were not going to pass by me, I performed a short sparring sequence and within minutes a 10 and 8 point came in together and offered me a twelve yard shot and I took the larger 10 point.

Because mature bucks in heavily pressured areas are so few and exceptionally wary, a key factor to receiving a response is where you are when the tactic is performed. For instance subordinate bucks may respond in open vulnerable areas such as; open timber with no understudy, along short crop field edges, into exposed food plots and into openings within timber, but mature bucks rarely if ever will.

The odds of mature bucks responding are also much higher if they can transition through or along some form of security cover from where there at to your location and then feel safe moving in close enough for a shot due to the kill zone having adequate perimeter security cover. To be clear, I’m not referring to hunting within a thicket, dense brush or dense swamp, just having adequate transition and perimeter security cover so they have an immediate and secure exit route option.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 4

As we age our security precautions of where we go and when we go there become more acute. I doubt you would have issues walking through a small rural town several hours after dark yet I’m quite positive you would have issue with walking through a known crime laden area in Chicago or Detroit during the same time frame. The point is that we do not have the exclusivity on the desire to survive and just as our security precautions become more acute as we age, so does the security precautions and movements of mature bucks in heavily pressured areas.

Prime rattling/sparring locations would be within bedding areas, along perimeters of standing corn fields, natural isolated destination feeding locations such as old fruit trees and white oaks, active scrape areas, terrain feature dumps, and pinch points in transition corridors to name a few and one thing all of these locations must offer is the transition and kill zone perimeter security cover requirements.

Improper rattling or the daily timing of proper rattling can potentially ruin hunts for mature bucks at prime destination locations such as at; isolated fruit or oak trees and active scrape areas. At prime locations your odds of seeing deer are very good so they should be allowed to work solely on the merits you chose them for at least the first hunt or two. When you do rattle at prime destination locations don’t ruin your hunt by rattling too often, if you don’t get a response with 2 sequence sessions, put your rattling device away as the remainder of your hunt should still be good.

Whether the general landscape is agriculture or big timber, isolated fruit trees should not be hunted in mornings as your entry could potentially spook the very deer you’re trying to kill. In agricultural areas, oaks in nearby timber can be hunted in mornings as the deer will likely be feeding in crops during your early arrival time. In big timber areas where there are no crops for miles, acorns are a primary food source and morning hunts are not advised because you will likely spook deer feeding in the oaks with your entries.

On morning or all day hunts you should be on stand and settled in an hour and a half before dawn so that you’re not spooking any deer making their way back to bed prior to dawn. Mature bucks are more nocturnal and it’s common in pressured areas for them to leave open vulnerable areas where they may have been feeding or chasing at night and head back towards their bedding area a half hour or more before dawn. You have to be set up and quiet prior to them making that transition otherwise you will spook them with your entry or while setting up.

Hunting interiors of known bedding areas require all day sits with the same hour and a half prior to daybreak on stand time and half hour after dark departures so as not to spook deer before they leave the bedding area after dark.

During the rut phases there is a decent chance of receiving an opportunity during mid-day. Depending on the layout of the property and the security cover, mature bucks that are not with estrus does will typically get up and move sometime between 11:00am to 3:00pm to scent check their core area for possible estrus does that moved through in the morning.

You must however be in the right types of locations to receive mid-day opportunities. If you’re; within a bedding area, at a destination location with all the aforementioned security cover requirements or in a secure transition corridor between bedding areas, a couple mid-day rattle/sparring sequences might entice a buck to respond.

When it’s dead quiet an approaching deer can be heard just as rattling sounds can be heard from longer distances. If you hear a deer approaching tie your bag to your bow rope and lower it to the ground and gently tickle it in the leaves to give the buck an exact direction. This should only be done for a few seconds and not at all if he is already coming directly towards you. The rattling noise coming from ground level is more natural than from 20 to 30 feet high when the buck is fairly close. If you’re not wearing ScentLok gloves so as not to leave odor on the bag, don’t lower the bag to the ground.

It will be assumed that wind direction will be taken into consideration prior to any hunt, or that wind direction is irrelevant to you because you’re wearing a properly cared for ScentLok complete suit comprising of jacket, pants, gloves, head cover with drop down facemask and a clean pack and rubber boots. Bucks that respond to rattling could come from any direction because it’s not part of their routine movements.

On morning hunts your first 2 sequence session should start about half an hour after daybreak. If you see a buck later that is out of range use your grunt call to try and bring him in before rattling again. Bucks during the rut phases will frequently grunt as they are moving through an area, whereas it takes two bucks to spar or fight. If I can see a buck from my stand there is a good chance he can see the ground below me and not respond because there is no visual of two bucks sparring and moving around below the tree. In such an instance rattling will likely hurt that and future hunts at that location.

So if you spot a distant buck that is obviously not moving towards you, rattling should not be attempted unless there is abundant ground cover between the base of your tree and him to mask his vision. However, one or two short grunts could come from an individual buck standing behind a small amount of cover. In this situation a grunt call is much more likely to coerce a buck to within shooting range.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 5


Decoys

I have to make reference to lightly hunted and managed areas before discussing decoy use in heavily pressured areas. On my out of state rut phase hunts to Kansas, Iowa and Missouri I saw as many antlered bucks as I did year and half and older does and shockingly as many older bucks as older does making it very clear that the buck to doe ratios as well as their age classes were on par with each other whereas the antlered buck to year and a half and older doe ratios on the public and knock on doors for free permission properties I’ve hunted in Michigan over the years have been skewed heavily to the doe side with oftentimes few if any 3 ½ year and older bucks.

So what does buck to doe ratios and age class ratios have to do with tactics and especially a visual tactic like a decoy. Once a decoy is set up it is there for the duration of the hunt and the more does there are in an area compared to bucks, the more likely of them seeing the decoy first.

In my history in Michigan, does have been very curious of decoys and have almost always moved in within 10 to 20 yards to check them out and at some point knew they weren’t real and did the head bob thing before stomping their front hooves on the ground, snorting and spooking back from where they came.

These reactions will; spook any buck that may be with them, ruin your prime hunting time and notify all other deer within hearing distance that something isn’t right in that direction. Their hoof stomping of the ground also leaves a strong interdigital odor (to deer) which equates to danger to other deer that smell or wind it.

On the other hand in the lightly hunted states and in lightly hunted and managed areas where there are as many older bucks as older does, the competition for breeding rights is extremely competitive. In such areas mature bucks not only move during the same daylight time frames as the other deer, they cover much more ground in search of estrus does making the likelihood of a buck seeing a decoy first, very probable. When I go out of state I always take a decoy and when the situation has requires it, I’ve used them with an excellent success rate. But that’s out of state and we’re in Michigan which requires an entirely different game plan.

After owning six different manufacturers decoys my preferences are a Carrylite and Montana. From a distance the Montana decoy is the most alluring because it is an actual picture of a doe transposed onto both sides of a piece of soft fabric which is wrapped around a spring steel coil which opens like some of the pop-up blinds. It looks real, quietly sets up in seconds and is flat when folded up and will fit in a backpack without taking up much room. Its downside is it’s also flat when set up and when deer come in directly from the front or back, it basically disappears because it has no 3-D width.

The upright Carrylite is a 3-dimensional hollow bodied decoy that comes with a carry bag but I bought a military duffle bag for it for easier transport into the field and the duffle bag can be put into the decoys hollow body cavity once set up.

Although the Carrylite comes with detachable antlers I have typically used it as a doe because when I used to go out I was much more apt to seek out women to talk to than men. Just consider how many times you’ve watched a buck see a doe during the rut and come over to check her out and possibly take up chase vs. having a buck see another buck and come over to check him out. That contest isn’t even close.

There are rare occasions when a buck decoy may outperform a doe such as if a buck is with an estrus doe and they come within sight the buck is more likely to come over and run the buck decoy out, or in areas as seen on TV where there’s a lot of mature bucks and they very aggressively fight for breeding right. Those are rare in Michigan and the sex you put out a decoy as is a total judgement call.

The first thing I did was to trim (with a razor knife) where the parts go together to make them easier and quieter to assemble in the field. If using as a buck decoy in Michigan it’s advised to trim the 8 point antlers down to a 4 point so it will not intimidate bucks you’re trying to entice in. If you are going out of state where there are lots of mature bucks the 8 point rack it comes with will suit your purposes well if not using as a doe.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s I used a decoy several times a season and had many year and a half and two and a half year old bucks come in to check them out and took a couple two and a half year olds. But because the doe to buck ratios are so high, my overall decoy experience is they’ve done more harm than good so I rarely and very strategically use them in Michigan because I’m primarily trying to kill 3 ½ year old and older bucks. That may not be your criteria though.

Decoys were designed for their visual effect and they should be placed where they can be seen from the greatest distance or placed strategically within sight of where you know a buck will be yet there is no closer place to set up on him so the decoy is the visual attractant.

Because decoys are used as a visual for every deer within sight, they require a lot of forethought before strategically using them. For instance, once doe’s or small bucks you may pass on have encountered a decoy a single time and eventually spooked from it, they will be on to the gig and when used in the same area again the does will totally shy away from the decoy when seen which could alter their future movements and with it the mature bucks that pursue them.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 6

If you’re pursuing mature bucks (3 ½ year old and older), decoys shouldn’t be used in high traffic yet secure destination locations zones such as at fruit and mast trees, active scrape areas and in pinch points of transition corridors where does will likely see them first. In such zones let the location work on the high traffic merits you chose it for.

Decoys should be used for luring bucks in close that you were either; not able to get close enough on a prior hunt or you’re using it in conjunction with another tactic such as rattling to entice him to close the distance due to a visual. Once they acknowledge and willingly respond to rattling they will still come in to a doe decoy.

If there is a mature buck traveling an area that I can’t get close to by hunting from a tree such as through weeds and marsh grasses, I will find the nearest tree within visual distance and set up a decoy. If the buck is sighted I will wait until he moves into a position where the decoy will be visible to him and then perform a grunt or doe bleat (depending on which decoy I am using) to get his attention. On two occasions I’ve had to make a second and much louder call to get his attention. If he is not with a doe he will typically come in.

The very first time I used a decoy a very nice eight point came in from eighty yards away and gave me a ten yard shot. I’d seen that buck on two occasions but he was traveling through a weed field with no trees to hunt from, the first use of a doe decoy however lured him in within easy shooting distance.

If your scent control is such that you have to hunt according to wind direction, always place the decoy upwind at least 15 yards from your stand or whatever your comfort shooting distance is. With the decoy upwind, even if he circles it slightly, he will still be upwind of you.

Bucks will usually come into a doe decoy from the rear and a buck decoy from the front. When using a doe decoy place the decoy slightly quartering away from you and place a buck decoy broadside to you. Never set up a decoy facing your hunting position. It’s possible the deer coming in (especially does) will want to look for what the decoy is so intensely looking at and then pick you. Bucks coming into a doe decoy from the rear will also be facing your direction offering a poor shot angle.

When coming into a decoy a buck will be focused and rarely take his eyes off it which gives ample time for preparation. Even though a buck will come in focused on the decoy you still want to be in a position so very little movement will be required for a shot.

The use of real (not store bought commercial) tarsal glands in conjunction with a decoy really arouses a bucks curiosity. Tarsals cut from mature bucks during the rut phases will have a strong rancid odor that will often spook subordinate bucks and does that are not ready to breed so be very strategic in where you use them. Doe tarsals have a mild and oftentimes sweet odor that is non-threatening. A decoy gives a visual to zero in on and the real scent of a real deer in the form of a tarsal, be it a doe or buck tarsal, will offer the scent to help verify the decoy.

Real tarsal glands can also be used as a scent drag for the last 50 to 100 yards to your decoy set up spot, or as a drag from out of sight runways to your location. A properly cared for full ScentLok suit including gloves and odorless rubber or neoprene boots should always be wore whenever dragging a tarsal through areas where you may brush against vegetation or are expecting deer to cut and follow your route.

Tarsal glands are those longer tufts of dark hairs on the inside knees of the hind legs. Buck and doe tarsals become more pungent as the rut phases approach and bucks reach their most pungent odor during peak rut while does reach their most pungent during their estrous cycles. I cut tarsals off the deer I shoot and have taken them from friend’s deer and fresh kills along the highways. I shrink wrap them and mark them according to sex, how pungent and date. They last for several years when shrink wrapped and frozen and I use them during the same time of season I took them.

It’s also advised to occasionally wash the storage duffle bag used for the decoy in scent free detergent and to occasionally wash the decoy with scent free detergent and only handle with ScentLok gloves on thereafter and when setting up the decoy.

Calls

Like rattling bucks in, calling them in totally depends on a buck’s mood or attitude at that moment. I typically only call when I see a buck out of shooting range that I know isn’t going to come in and have also cold called when I felt cold rattling was a bit much and intrusive for the tight quarters I was in.

On several hunts I’ve heard other hunters blow on grunt or doe bleat calls every 10 or so minutes and in pressured areas it just doesn’t work that way. Unlike the bucks TV and video hunters pursue, in most areas within Michigan our mature bucks have brains and have been there done that and know not to reply to such repetitive calling.

 

[John Eberhart]

Part 7

If you’re going to cold call which is calling in the absence of seeing or hearing deer, keep your grunts or bleats short and abrupt and space them about 10 seconds apart and don’t do more than 3 calls per sequence. Does don’t make long bleats like sheep blats and bucks don’t make elongated grunts like you hear on TV and making too many calls per sequence isn’t natural.

I carry two grunt calls with me at all times; one is an inhale call and the other an exhale call. When hunting in cover and a buck’s relatively close but not within shooting distance, I use the softer inhale call. When hunting somewhat open areas or trying to get the attention of a distant buck I use the louder exhale call.

It’s also advised not to use a grunt call to stop a moving buck for a shot opportunity. While grunting may work most of the time at stopping a buck broadside in his tracks, there is always the possibility of him immediately turning and defensively facing the sound because a grunting buck can be confrontational and thus give the shooter a straight on, poor shot angle. A short vocal doe bleat is much better suited for stopping bucks that are moving.

Since 1972 when I learned how to make a vocal doe bleat I have never shot at a moving whitetail. Any time a buck is moving I always perform a vocal doe bleat to stop him prior to taking the shot. The vocal bleat must be performed while you’re at full draw, otherwise once he stops he may notice your drawing movements and spook. Knock on wood, this practice has never failed me.

A vocal doe bleat or matt can be easily made by pushing the tip of your tongue up behind your top front teeth and then slowly opening your mouth while slurring the word matt.

Doe bleats or cans can also be used successfully to entice bucks in certain situations. If the call is coming from an area where a buck can move through or along some form of security cover to access, there’s a decent chance for a response. A ten second gapped, three doe bleat call sequence may persuade a mature buck to come see what’s going on, but like anything else don’t overdo it.

While I always carry a Fawn bleat call which I originally purchased for predator hunting, I’ve only used it twice when deer hunting and both times had a visual of a buck with a hot doe before I called. The first time they paid no attention to any of the calls I made and went on about their breeding business.

The second time a nice 8 point with a hot doe moved in to about 150 yards distance and they were just lingering in the area. I tried rattling first with no reply, after about 5 minutes I grunted 3 times with no response, then about 10 minutes later I performed a couple doe bleats with no reply. While sitting there I remembered I had the fawn bleat and thought what the heck, maybe the doe will come in to the fawn bleat and bring the buck with her.

That’s exactly what happened and as soon as I made the call she started my way and he followed like a bird dog. It was a 130 inch 8 point and I took him at 5 yards. If a proper fawn bleat is made and the doe is curious or concerned she may come in to investigate, and more than likely the buck will follow her in.

I haven’t used commercial urines or calming scents in Michigan for over 25 years and now that baiting is banned, the likelihood of me using them will be far less if that’s possible. The majority of hunters in Michigan have been hunting over bait in which scents are not typically used. Now that baiting is gone the use of scents will become much greater and I’ve always tried to hunt adverse of how the rest of the hunters hunt otherwise I would have no reason to expect to be more successful than them. I do use doe in estrus scent on my out of state hunts, but not here.

Mock Scrapes

Mock scrapes can work if they; are put in the right high traffic locations, remain human odor free and the proper scent is put in the scrape. Actual active scrape areas are always in areas with heavy doe traffic and mock scrapes should go in the same types of areas because the doe traffic attracts bucks and a mock scrape may entice a mature buck to visit it more frequently and with aggression towards the intruder buck of which he is not familiar.

When making mock scrapes look for heavy doe traffic areas that are surrounded by some form of perimeter security cover and that have adequate transition security to known bedding areas. These are areas where a mature buck may move to during daylight. Pick a tree with one or more head high overhanging branches that can be utilized as a licking branches and make the mock scrape below it.

Using the end of a stick, scrape all the grass until you have about a 20 inch diameter bare patch of ground and then carry the stick away before discarding. My scent choice is to rub (with ScentLok gloves on) the bare ground with a rancid buck tarsal but you can also use commercial buck urines.

Leave it alone for a few days and make sure you come back early enough that if it hasn’t been touched that you can hunt elsewhere. You may want to scent it up again and return one more time before abandoning.

Wrap-up

While rattling/sparring has proven to be my most consistent and successful tactic, every tactic can occasionally work if performed properly and in the right types of places using the correct seasonal and daily timing. Wait for the best time to attempt any tactic and do not overhunt or overdo it at any single location as the best location in the world can be rendered worthless for mature bucks if overhunted or by using tactics improperly.

In Michigan I’ve received the most responses and shot opportunities at mature bucks during the first two days of season and then during the pre-rut and rut periods (October 28th through November 14th which is the day before our gun opener). It’s also nearly imperative in Michigan or any of the other heavily hunted states and areas for the kill location to have adequate perimeter security cover and transition security cover from a know bedding area for a tactic to entice a mature buck in during daylight hours.