We have recent posts about different methods and styles of deer hunting. Spot and stalk, feeders, trails, etc. I am a die hard coyote caller, so naturally my preferred method to place a shooter buck in front of me would be calling them in. Rattleing gets my sound out the furthest, grunt calls I use no matter what phase of the deers cycle I’m hunting. I mix in doe bleats occasionally and only snort weeze at a mature buck walking away.
When my daughter was young, I showed her the methods I have used with success. At the time I was going through my antler hunting phase, so that is how she got started into deer hunting. Her first deer, many would consider the buck of a lifetime. I hunted a long time before I ever killed anything in that class... She took it on the youth hunt, in 2011...
Neither of us knew he was that nice till we got down to him... We got up in our stand before light... When it got light enough to shoot I noticed a smaller buck on the sand ridge at about 90 yards... I told her to get ready... It was funny cause she had to put on an extra heavy coat to cut down on the recoil... She also had to put in a set of ear plugs and then another set of ear muffs on over the ear plugs before she would shoot... She still had fear of the rifle... I put her up on the stool and got her situated and the rifle pointed in the right direction... I asked her if she saw it as she was looking through the scope... She said "yes!!!" I looked down and she was not pointing anywhere near the direction of the deer! "No! No! Over there!"... "Awe now I see it!" When she moved the rifle it banged on the rail and this buck was bedded down.. The sound made him stand up... I told her to shoot the bigger one! She fired and he ran about 40 yards and pilled up bellow a cedar tree... By the time she shot I was a nervous reck.. I get more excited watching her shoot them, than if I did myself...
As for myself, one thing that tops coyotes on strings is rattlng in a mature whitetail... The encounters elevate even higher when watching them through the eyes of my daughter... Seems as if during those encounters I see life a little less serious yet much more profound... Perhaps those encounters preserve an element from the Dark Ages, before Enlightenment brought about its many changes... Whatever it is, it definitely holds an element that only exists outside the realm of civilization...
On her next deer, it came in after rattling with the black rack. I finished up a series and bent over to set the antlers down... As soon as I rose up I see this deer at about 200 yards heading straight for us... I nudge my daughter; "Shooter get ready!" The deer was coming in on my side... I leaned back and got the rifle rested on the railing and pointed in the direction of the deer's approach... He was closing the distance fast, did not want to risk movement so I told my daughter that she was going to have to "just shoot over me"...
I looked at him through the binos and recognize him from trail cam pics... "It's Trash!" It's a name my daughter and I came up with... Trash was one my daughter was hoping to shoot...
He stops at about 150 yards out... I grunt at him a couple times and he starts heading towards us again... I notice my daughter is breathing heavy... I whisper "relax... don't rush the shot". As he continues to close the distance I realize I need to relax as well... She is leaning over me and my jitters could affect her accuracy... I look over at her and think “[beeep] she is calmer than me”... Watching him through the scope she is calm, focused and has not said a single word... I whisper "are you good?" As she exhales she simply replies "yessssss....”.
He is less than 100 yards and his approach has slowed... I feel burning in my lungs… He is zig zagging through the cedars occasionally stopping, looking for the deer he thought he heard fighting... The closer he gets, the more the air around us seemed to grow a life force of its own, one fed by the power of this deer... It's the life force all true hunters know without words and it was filling all available space as I whisper "when he gets in this next opening I am going to stop him... Shoot him then"...
He steps into the shooting lane and I grunt at him... He stops immediately standing broadside, slightly quartering away and looks up at us... Absolute dead calm and silence... At that exact moment I felt like a 3rd wheel... I had set the stage for this faceoff between Trash and my daughter... Now the situation is completely out of my hands and up to her to close the deal... I remember thinking; "I would have shot by now" and then CRACK!!! He ran wobbly with his tail spinning like a cork screw just over a small rise and out of sight... I scanned every opening watching for him to run through and saw nothing...”Did I get him?!?... Did I get him?!?”… I told my daughter; "yes… the way he was running he is not going far". After a few minutes I decided for us to go down to where he was shot and look for blood... I did not see any blood so I walked to where I saw him last and looked just over the rise... There he was, not 30 yards from where he was shot...
Season changes and we set out again… My tactics for this hunt was to rattle in staging areas just off food plots and travel routes to bedding areas in the mornings... This year I let my daughter do the rattling...
A few minutes after a rattle series, she whispers "there is a deer"...
He came in from behind us on her side... I look and this deer is less than 20 yards... He was standing facing away from us... I whisper to my daughter, "wait till he turns broadside"... All at once he pranced off... A couple minutes later he appears in an opening in front of us... This is the best pic I could get with my iPhone, my hands were kinda shacking;
I whisper "I am going to stop him, when I do shoot him"... I "meep" and he stops... I waited for what seemed an eternity and then "CRACK"... As he ran off I could tell he was hit... We waited about 30 minutes then crept down.. We found him 80 or 90 yards from where he was shot;
This is her first buck that she rattled in herself
Continued in comment
When my daughter was young, I showed her the methods I have used with success. At the time I was going through my antler hunting phase, so that is how she got started into deer hunting. Her first deer, many would consider the buck of a lifetime. I hunted a long time before I ever killed anything in that class... She took it on the youth hunt, in 2011...
Neither of us knew he was that nice till we got down to him... We got up in our stand before light... When it got light enough to shoot I noticed a smaller buck on the sand ridge at about 90 yards... I told her to get ready... It was funny cause she had to put on an extra heavy coat to cut down on the recoil... She also had to put in a set of ear plugs and then another set of ear muffs on over the ear plugs before she would shoot... She still had fear of the rifle... I put her up on the stool and got her situated and the rifle pointed in the right direction... I asked her if she saw it as she was looking through the scope... She said "yes!!!" I looked down and she was not pointing anywhere near the direction of the deer! "No! No! Over there!"... "Awe now I see it!" When she moved the rifle it banged on the rail and this buck was bedded down.. The sound made him stand up... I told her to shoot the bigger one! She fired and he ran about 40 yards and pilled up bellow a cedar tree... By the time she shot I was a nervous reck.. I get more excited watching her shoot them, than if I did myself...
As for myself, one thing that tops coyotes on strings is rattlng in a mature whitetail... The encounters elevate even higher when watching them through the eyes of my daughter... Seems as if during those encounters I see life a little less serious yet much more profound... Perhaps those encounters preserve an element from the Dark Ages, before Enlightenment brought about its many changes... Whatever it is, it definitely holds an element that only exists outside the realm of civilization...
On her next deer, it came in after rattling with the black rack. I finished up a series and bent over to set the antlers down... As soon as I rose up I see this deer at about 200 yards heading straight for us... I nudge my daughter; "Shooter get ready!" The deer was coming in on my side... I leaned back and got the rifle rested on the railing and pointed in the direction of the deer's approach... He was closing the distance fast, did not want to risk movement so I told my daughter that she was going to have to "just shoot over me"...
I looked at him through the binos and recognize him from trail cam pics... "It's Trash!" It's a name my daughter and I came up with... Trash was one my daughter was hoping to shoot...
He stops at about 150 yards out... I grunt at him a couple times and he starts heading towards us again... I notice my daughter is breathing heavy... I whisper "relax... don't rush the shot". As he continues to close the distance I realize I need to relax as well... She is leaning over me and my jitters could affect her accuracy... I look over at her and think “[beeep] she is calmer than me”... Watching him through the scope she is calm, focused and has not said a single word... I whisper "are you good?" As she exhales she simply replies "yessssss....”.
He is less than 100 yards and his approach has slowed... I feel burning in my lungs… He is zig zagging through the cedars occasionally stopping, looking for the deer he thought he heard fighting... The closer he gets, the more the air around us seemed to grow a life force of its own, one fed by the power of this deer... It's the life force all true hunters know without words and it was filling all available space as I whisper "when he gets in this next opening I am going to stop him... Shoot him then"...
He steps into the shooting lane and I grunt at him... He stops immediately standing broadside, slightly quartering away and looks up at us... Absolute dead calm and silence... At that exact moment I felt like a 3rd wheel... I had set the stage for this faceoff between Trash and my daughter... Now the situation is completely out of my hands and up to her to close the deal... I remember thinking; "I would have shot by now" and then CRACK!!! He ran wobbly with his tail spinning like a cork screw just over a small rise and out of sight... I scanned every opening watching for him to run through and saw nothing...”Did I get him?!?... Did I get him?!?”… I told my daughter; "yes… the way he was running he is not going far". After a few minutes I decided for us to go down to where he was shot and look for blood... I did not see any blood so I walked to where I saw him last and looked just over the rise... There he was, not 30 yards from where he was shot...
Season changes and we set out again… My tactics for this hunt was to rattle in staging areas just off food plots and travel routes to bedding areas in the mornings... This year I let my daughter do the rattling...
A few minutes after a rattle series, she whispers "there is a deer"...
He came in from behind us on her side... I look and this deer is less than 20 yards... He was standing facing away from us... I whisper to my daughter, "wait till he turns broadside"... All at once he pranced off... A couple minutes later he appears in an opening in front of us... This is the best pic I could get with my iPhone, my hands were kinda shacking;
I whisper "I am going to stop him, when I do shoot him"... I "meep" and he stops... I waited for what seemed an eternity and then "CRACK"... As he ran off I could tell he was hit... We waited about 30 minutes then crept down.. We found him 80 or 90 yards from where he was shot;
This is her first buck that she rattled in herself
Continued in comment
