I sometimes can rattle deer in during various times during the season. Sometimes it works like a charm and other times it doesn't. After 25 years I still hit and miss when it will work well and the timing of it and how I should do it. I have a family member who is a rattling master and seems to have great success with it compared to most hunters I know. Seems some are just wayyyy better at it than others.
Share some stories if you will about the bucks you have rattled in over the years and how you did it. Were you using a sparring sound or hard core rattling. what were you using for the rattling etc?
If using bait /feed please refrain from sharing unless you are sure the rattling is what brought the buck in. like the scent stories thread i have seen some think the rattling is what brought the deer in but the same buck that was harvested that day had been on the bait pile 30 times prior to that event.
It will be great to read the differing thought and techniques used and when and where
The following year from that same area, but from the woods on the other side of a narrow corn field I rattled in 130"-140" ten pointer. My first arrow deflected off a branch and he started walking on my second attempt at 30 yards so I hit him in the rear leg.
The next year the field was beans and I didn't hunt there during what I consider the best time to rattle, but I rattled another area that wasn't as good and only called in a yearling.
I went several years without rattling. It wasn't that I wasn't confident, because both those first two years was either the first or second time I rattled that season. But I started hunting staging areas or travel corridors and not places I would consider rattle freindly. I'm hunting a different area all together now, but still on public land, and the last two years I have rattled/decoyed in deer every time out. Last year twice, and on both nights a buck and doe came out and I shot the buck on the second night. This year twice, the evening a fawn/doe came in the and following morning two yearling bucks.
These were all October hunts. But ten years ago I did rattle on the 10th or 12th of November and I called in heavy 8 pointer from the river bottoms, but he came up the other side of the ravine from me and there was no clear shot, but he was also just out of range.
I read two things back in the day about rattling that made sense to me and what I take into consideration. First, when bucks first start scraping that's the time to rattle. This does two things, it gets you in the area where bucks are nearby and it lets you know bucks are in the mood. The second is intensity. This article was in a Deer and Deer Hunting magazine where they did studies on bucks responding to rattling. The two things they noted was how loud and intense the rattling was that brought in more deer. I never start soft, nor have I ever done light sparring.
So in a nutshell, I like to rattle from about October 19th through Halloween weekend. The 19th is when I rattled in that first buck, so it's kind of my gauge. I typically rattle in evenings because I want to get bucks on their feet earlier and provide a place to go. And I typically do 3 rattling sequences about 30 minute apart with the last one finishing a half hour before sunset. I don't the buck showing up at last light. But I also like to rattle near cornfield edges with the wind blowing towards the cornfield. If I'm high enough my scent blows over the top. The bucks feel comfortable travelling along cornfield edges, because the corn is their safety. Also, this keeps them from coming through the woods and you should have plenty of shooting lanes to the corn, which was my mistake on that second buck I rattled in. That big 8 I pulled up from the river bottoms I was not near cover, he stood out 50-60 yards from me, didn't see any deer and continued on. He came in 20 minute after I rattled, but he had ran up the hill so I don't know how far I pulled him, but he was in line with me. He knew exactly where that sound came from. You need some form of barrier to keep them from holding up, but a pond or river won't do because they can still scan the area from a distance. Corn is best, they don't know if the deer are in the corn or not.
I generally don't rattle in November because the bucks are searching for does and I don't want to keep them from coming through. But I can see where rattling works, just like on that big 8, when one that is between does hears you. Also, November just has too many variables with the peak of the rut approaching. Most guys can't tell you whent it came or if it's still going on. Some places are hot and some are not. Also, most of the corn is picked by then too.
More on tequnique when I get back from the woods...
Well fast forward to the first week of Nov in ohio. I know you guys dont think you should rattle or call unless you see a buck, but I had tons of success rattling and grunting blind. First morning a rattled in a really nice buck but he caught a does scent that came by earlier and he headed in the other direction. At noon i decided to move to a lower tree where alot of bucks cruise through to scent check a thicket. Got set up and decided to rest my eyes real quick. I stood up at 1:55 and started a rattling and grunting sequence. Within a minute of stopping here comes a nice 8 pt. walks in and turns broadside at 23 yards. I made a great shot he only went 30 yards. I looked at my watch and it was 1:59. It all happened real quick!
Throughout the rest of the week i rattled in alot of bucks. One that made me really wish I still had a tag. Im not sure if it was luck on not. I will know better after another year. But I do honestly believe that real antlers are the only way to go when rattling.
Last year I rattled six bucks into stickbow range in a 30 minute period one morning, four of them P&Y class. I rattle like two bucks trying to kill each other, stomping my feet and grunting throughout. I do two or three sequences of one minute each, about five minutes apart. Then if I don't see a buck I tickle the tips together, then sometimes rattle hard again. Sometimes they run in, sometimes they sneak in. Sometimes they pay no attention. I've had whitetails coming form one direction and muleys coming from the other.
Best story ever was from one of my Bowsite live hunts, when I rattled-in 22 does and four bucks from 200 yards away. They came on a run and some stopped at five yards. Here's a photo from that sequence. I didn't shoot that buck - no way I could draw on the ground where I was hiding with so many that close. But I ended up shooting another one just as big that I called and decoyed in.
If I had looked first, he would have been 25 yards broadside. Later I was able to see a picture of that deer. A 10pt with 2 stickers off his G2's about 150".
I also like to attach my antlers to my pull-up rope. Then I "jig" the rope, kicking up dirt, leaves, hitting the tree...
In 2010 it was Halloween morning. I rattled in 2 - 2 1/2 year old 8 points and 3 - 1 1/2 year olds in one morning. That was using a rattle bag.
12 days later I climb into a stand a mile from where I rattled in all the bucks. As I am climbing into the stan a buck shows up at 10 yards. He catches me moving in the stand and runs off. Well I wait for good shooting light and I decide to rattle. Here comes the biggest buck I would have ever shot at down the edge of the field. At 30 yards he catch's me drawing. It turns around and runs back the way he came. At 100 yards I grunt to him. I get him to stop and turn around and come back to the tree. I shoot him at 40 yards. My shot looked like it was back. Maybe liver area. The deer runs off a 100 yards. Then walks off. He is in the middle of a 240 acre cut bean field. So I climb down follow him by staying in the tree line. When he makes it to the road ol lady Peterson is going to work for the morning. He freak's out and runs across the road and into the neighbors woods. 5 hours later I get permission to go in and look for him. There was great blood in the field where I shot him but by the time he covered the mile to the woods he went into there was no sign of blood. My uncle and I spent 3 hours looking for him walked every square foot of them woods and zero sign of him. No blood and no deer. I don't know if he went south onto another neighbors property or crossed the river or what he did. We could not find him. Still to this day it bugs me that if I had only been 6" forward the outcome would have been better. Bad shot on my part in a very exciting encounter.
In 2011 I look across the field one morning and I see a buck go into the woods on the other side. I tried grunting at him but I don't think he heard me. Well about 10 minutes later he comes out again. I try grunting at him and he still don't hear me. So I grab the rattle bag. I do a loud sequence. He hears it. While he is walking across the field another buck comes out half way from me to the 1st buck. These 2 bucks get into a big fight. A mere 100 yards from me. When the fight was over the loser who was the 1st buck I seen walks into 30 yards and I shoot him. He goes down 100 yards from the tree.
Well its a couple days later. I got my 2nd buck tag in my pocket. Its rainy drizzly out so I am on the opposite side of the field in a blind. It gets to be about 9 so I think why not rattle. I rattle and here comes the winner of the fight out from the trees I seen the buck come out of that I shot days before that. He walks into 30 yards and I shoot him. 70 yards later he crashes in the woods.
Seriously.
