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Anyone Puppet Rattle?

After reading Mike Mitten's (Herdbull) post on Puppet Rattling, using several sheds tied together and using a cord to rattle from the stand with the sheds on the ground, I have been curious about it.

Anyone else but Mike do it? Successful at it? I think Mike could kill a big buck anywhere, so I am curious how any of you regular guys have done doing it.

I think Mike is a great hunter, but let him come to the Northeast and see how he does on big bucks. Totally different ball game up here. Puppet rattling has been around since the 80's maybe earlier. I have never tried it but have read stuff about a long time ago. Shawn

When rattled in deer get close they are listening and looking. At this point in the tree you can't make a noise or generally move so the rattling like Mike does makes perfect sense as it focuses everything on the ground where it belongs.

Why would anyone one hunt in the east if they lived in the Midwest? I hunted NY, CT, MA and RI for 20 years but for the last 16 I now spend most my time in the Midwest. The east is a great place to learn how to hunt but if you can do it try the Midwest you may find it quite addicting!

Charlie, exactly. I am firm believer if you can kill decent bucks in the northeast on a consistent basis than the mid-west is fairly easy. Shawn

The southern deer have a higher IQ too, just ask TBM.

I took my best buck ever in Iowa years ago when Mike first publicized it. Worked great then and now in places like Iowa and Kansas. I don't rattle here in Michigan; I've never seen a positive response to ANY special technique in high pressured areas like our entire state.

I have done it 20 plus times from the ground , in thick cover, it works as good as from a tree. You must have a way to secure antler to a tree and a stiff smaller sapling , or two small saps. , to get the right sound. It would have worked a lot more for if I had clear shooting lanes, often deer snuck up on me and were just staring at me when I turned my head .

I like using this technique under the right conditions. I personally believe the sound of the leaves and the sound of the antlers have equal importance to the sound of a fight. If I can't make the rustling leaves sound in the tree stand or if my tree stand doesn't have good cover to hide my movement then this is my method. I have also used this in the dark to cover the noise of getting into my tree stand.

Never tried it Todd wouldn't like the tradeoff with movement and not a fan of blind rattling

If you,think.midwest hunting is easy come hunt public land in Illinois. A friend,has done puppet rattling and has taken some nice deer, and as mentioned the leaves and ground sounds complete the scenario.

LBshooter, come to NY and hunt public and see what you have to say. Sorry but compared to NY it is easy. I have hunted public land in Illinois and done quite well. I also have a friend who hunts public every year in Illinois and he has taken a P&Y buck 8 out of the last ten years. Shawn

i just love arguments about where the hunting is tougher. it all comes down to your ability and where you hunt in this so called tougher area. a smart hunter finds the best place to hunt, then hunts the best place in that place. getting into a pissing match over which area is tougher only serves to give the guy who can't kill something a reason why. it can't be him as he is a great hunter, it must just be that his area is tougher and his deer are much smarter. the object of hunting is not to find the hardest place to kill a deer!

1boonr, it is not a pissing match. There is a reason that most of the shows you see on TV and most mid-west hunters kill bigger deer than in the northeast. It is a fact there are more big deer in the midwest, you cannot argue that. I have no problem killing deer where ever I hunt and I have hunted the Northeast my whole life and the mid-west only the last 6 years. I can without a doubt say it is easier to kill deer any deer in the mid-west. Shawn

I've been doing the antler rattling from tree on haul line since the '80s , but only wrote about it for the first time in 2007 in Traditional Bowhunter mag. coining the term "puppet fights." Ha! I'm sure other folks have been doing it, but I have never read about it nor found any articles in previous searches. Anyway, the idea is to try and call in mature bucks. Conevtional rattling will bring in a lot of young bucks during the rut, but I really like to use the puppet fights during the late season where less does are coming in heat and there is increased competition due to an increase buck to doe ratios around late season food source. ie Bucks tend to travel further for food since they are usually more stressed than does this time of year. As the mature bucks come in and start to circle, simple tine tickling can bring them in on a straight line instead of catching my scent. I can only do this with minimum movement, thus the haul line, when the buck is that close. This year I have not even done it once, and the late season in my area I refer to is after Dec. 20th. I use four good sized sheds, and yes the scraping against the ground and bushes at the base of the tree are also very important sounds. Please swing the antlers way out away from the trunk of the tree when climbing down for safety reasons in case of fall. Give it a try if you want. Mike

I have done this in the past but only used 2 antlers so maybe I will give the 4 antler setup a try next time. Have also climbed down from my stand rattled, stomped the ground, raked the ground then quickly climbed back into my stand. This is extremely risky as they can come in really fast at times, a couple of time I have rattled for friends were I sat on the ground and rattled and that works well even brought in a red fox once doing that.

Rock you must climb a tree like a squirrel! I could never get away with rattling on the ground and then climb up without getting caught. I give you kudos for thinking outside the box on that one.

deerman406,

The reason your post turned this into a pissing match is that the OP didn't say anything about Herdbull's hunting prowess or where he hunted. He simply asked what others thought of puppet rattling. Nobody drew the parallel from puppet rattling to "I'd like to see him kill big bucks on my turf" but you.

I've done this for a number of years, but like Rock, only with two antlers. Great idea to add in more. I will try that in the future.

Genesis, you've not a fan of blind rattling?? Wow, IMO you are missing the boat. I think the best rattling is blind rattling pre-rut and rut.

This buck is on of 3 that are 160" class I've killed in WI on public land, blind rattling over the last 5 seasons.

This puppet fights will come into play for me usually after Dec 20th. Colder weather, and fawns from this year coming into heat play a role. Mike

Elkaddict....of course it works but at what cost?I guess you killed 3 good bucks but how many caught your scent and got educated??

The stewardship thing is what I don't like about it not the fact if it works or not.Pre/during/post rut blind rattling will for sure work.

Without being able to quantify it's ill effects...I'm out on it is all.

Blind bleating,blind grunting and calling elk and turkeys from the road kinda all hit me that way....

only late at night when the wife is asleep. 8)

Genesis, too each their own I guess. Don't know how many got my wind or got educated. Again that's just a guess. Maybe 0, maybe not. When it comes down to hunting all one can do is play the odds and see where the cards fall. I can tell you where I killed the above buck that I never got winded once this season and I set that area for 13 straight days. It was the perfect setup. Good luck.

For those of you that employ this tactic late season, are you mostly rattling early evening as the fawns/late does are moving toward feed? Or what other times of day have you had success using it?

On a side note...most bucks I've killed came to a grunt call. The only problem I have is they come straight to the sound and I've gotten no shooting opportunity/been busted as often as I've made the shot.

I've mulled over the possibility of stretching out a plastic tube several yards from my stand to alleviate the prob of bucks coming directly to ME.

Anybody else ever try this? I'm gonna play around with this and see what it sounds like, etc.

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