Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Tricks To Play On Trailing Bucks
We’ve all hunted the rut, and listened to the pig-like tending grunt of a buck as he trails along behind an estrus doe. The buck may be 10 yards behind or it can be 200 yards behind the doe.
It’s hard to mess with a tending buck’s mind when he can see the doe moving ahead of him. But bucks love to trail the hot doe with their nose to the ground, and those are the ones a hunter can play with.
Sometimes these little tricks lead to a shot at a nice buck. Sometimes the tending buck grunts his way past your stand without breaking stride.
Two tools work. The grunt tube is the easiest to use, and rattling antlers or a rattling bag requires more motion and provides a greater opportunity for a tending buck to spot your movement.
One trick I use is to keep a really deep and guttural grunt tube handy around your neck. Once a doe passes by, and the buck can be heard grunting along the trail, grunt once at the oncoming buck, and he may stop or may keep going.
I like to grunt once when he is 40-50 yards away, and he may stop to look around. Often, they may stop or keep coming, and I’ve used a medium-pitched and rather sharp “eh-h-h-h” sound when they are in the right place for a shot.
This means stuffing the grunt tube back inside your jacket so it doesn’t tangle with the bow string, and be at full draw when the buck stops in the right spot for a quartering-away shot. This works on some bucks and fails miserably on others.
Grunting really works best before the rut starts, but a tending buck will often stop to look around if he hears what sounds like another nearby buck. He doesn’t want to get whupped by a larger buck horning in on his doe.
A clash of rattling antlers can do the same thing. They work best before the rut rolls into high gear, but nothing is cast in concrete when it comes to hunting bucks. I’ve seen bucks stop at the sudden sound of rattling antlers, and again, they start looking around for the big buck to avoid getting busted up pretty bad.
I wouldn’t begin to vouch for this one, but once had a guy tell me that if a doe passes by, and is being tended by a grunting buck that he can hear coming. he waits until she starts walking off, and dribbles some water onto the ground in imitation of a doe urinating. This guy swore up and down that the buck would always stop where the doe stopped, sniff the ground, and this would give him plenty of time to draw, aim and shoot.
I have to admit I haven’t played with decoys very much, but have talked with hunters who have. Placement of the decoy is very important when using them.
A real buck will approach a buck decoy from the front so it’s important to place the buck decoy so the buck approaches it, and offers a clean open shot to the heart and lungs. Bucks will always approach doe decoys from the rear, and the best set-up is for the decoy to be facing away from your stand at a slight angle. The buck must walk into your line of fire to sniff the decoy’s hind end.
There is much that still needs to be done to make decoying, grunting or rattling more successful. Of the three, a short grunt to a tending buck will often make him stop and allow for a shot. The trick is to be ready for that shot opportunity because the buck won’t stand still very long.
Try these tricks this fall during the rut. Mind you, there is nothing that works 100 percent of the time. If grunting or rattling works once or twice for a hunter, consider it a bonus.
Experimentation with these techniques may, and I repeat, may help and they may not. A hunter will never know what will or won’t work until they try it. And there is the beauty of bow-hunting for whitetail deer. Every day offers something different.—The Whitetail Wizard