Just watched a buck roar
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: Pat Lefemine
08-Nov-21
In 40 years of deer hunting I’ve never seen or heard a buck roar until just now. An Ohio buck is hot on a doe and he started roaring at her. I flipped on my video and I think I got the roars but they were in thick brush so I didn’t get video of the buck as he did it. He was roaring a lot.
Really cool to witness that.
From: deerhunter72
08-Nov-21
That is really cool! Never have heard that or a wheeze.
From: Pat Lefemine
08-Nov-21
I did get the roars on video. They sound nothing like grunts.
From: APauls
08-Nov-21
I rattled then snort wheezed a buck in one time. I shot one and it roared the second the arrow hit it. Another bigger buck came in to investigate it, and I called it in with a can call and I shot it too. Had multiple tags in those days. That's the only roar I've heard. Ya, its way different than a grunt. Wish a coyote would have come in to all the death so I could shoot it and complete the Gordie Howe hat trick.
From: Casekiska
08-Nov-21
I have bowhunted since 1957 and have only heard a roar once. They sound very different than a grunt and are much louder. No comparison between the two.
From: BigOk
08-Nov-21
From: Grey Ghost
08-Nov-21
I've heard/seen mule deer roar before. Both times they were dominant bucks tending hot does, and they were annoyed by smaller bucks trying to get in on the action.
Matt
From: EmbryOklahoma
08-Nov-21
I’ve heard/seen it twice. If I hadn’t witnessed a big 8 point do it a few years back, I would’ve never knew what the one I heard last night was. Like yours, the 8 point I witnessed do it was hot on a doe and but out of range. I was completely floored because it was LOUD! Pretty cool!
From: Grunter
08-Nov-21
Ive also only heard a roar once. I heard it about 100 yards away. I thought oh my thats gotta be a giant. Here come the doe, grab my bow im jacked to see the culprit. Here it was a tiny thin horned 8 pt. Super cool to hear, but was expecting a much bigger buck! Always awesome to hear and see that stuff!
2 days ago i heard another thing ive never heard before. Smaller 2 year old 6pt was chasing a hot doe. They get 25 yards from me. She's in some thicker stuff, he's waiting 15 yards away for her to move. He starts this popping noise. Kinda like you were hitting a hollow tupperware container. Also sounded like a glunking elk. The second time he did it, the doe busted out and he chased. I was amazed ive never heard that before. Dam i love whitetail hunting!
Pat-ever heard a glunking whitetail?
From: Cheesehead Mike
08-Nov-21
I've heard the roar a few times, it's amazing. Also heard the typical snort wheeze a few times too.
Years ago I was hunting a dominant buck that bedded in big swamp. In the evening he'd make his way from the swamp onto the oak ridge and he would let out a long drawn out high pitched wheeze that sounded like letting air out of the tightly stretched end of a balloon. It was like he was announcing his presence and saying the boss buck has arrived. It was almost like an elk bugle. I also watched that buck roar before and as he was breeding a doe. He was the most vocal buck I've ever encountered in almost 50 years of hunting. I usually knew where he'd come out of the swamp because I'd hear him wheeze. He never came out in the same place twice in a row though and it was cat and mouse. I described the roar to many other hunters long before there were any buck roar calls on the market and nobody else I knew had ever heard such a thing, or ever heard the long drawn out wheeze. I think they thought I was making it all up. When people started talking about the buck roar and Primos came out with the Buck Roar call I finally had some validation for what I had heard many years prior.
From: Glunt@work
08-Nov-21
Interested in hearing it. I've heard what I would call growls. Basically long grunts that can almost sound like a cattle cow moo.
From: sticksender
08-Nov-21
It's a fun time to be in the deer woods right now.
From: Bake
08-Nov-21
It is cool. I’ve heard it twice. From the same buck in back to back years. Very cool sound
From: SCM292
08-Nov-21
I also heard a buck roar for the first time in nearly 30 years of chasing whitetail bucks. And it happened on Nov 1, 2021. It had the hair on the back of my neck standing up! It’s not a grunt noise at all.. it’s a very loud growling noise that sounds like a pissed off grizzly bear or something is coming to kick your ass! I also got it on video, but the buck is on the other side of a thicket and I couldn’t see him. Not sure how to attach a video. It’s worth hearing.
From: Hancock West
08-Nov-21
22years ago on my first deer hunt I just happened to hear a Buck Roar while walking into the stand that morning. My father had been hunting a few years but had never heard it before. At the time I knew it wasn't a grunt but it took a few years before I heard the term buck roar. The funny part is i've hunted thousands of hours since that morning and i haven't heard another one. Pretty rare..
From: yeager
08-Nov-21
I heard one once a few years ago about 20 minutes before legal shooting time. At first I wasn’t really sure what the noice was because I had never heard it before. Then about 10 minutes later, I could barely make out a 10 pointer walking by my stand at 10 yards. Haven’t heard the buck roar since.
From: DroptineDC18
08-Nov-21
I’ve also heard it twice on two occasions. Both bucks were some of the biggest I have seen.
From: buckhammer
08-Nov-21
I have heard it one time. It was 2014. If I had not recently watched a Drury brothers video where they showed a buck doing it I would have not known what I was hearing and seeing.
5 minutes after I witnessed the buck roar I double lunged him. He was a 4.5 year old 9 point. He only scored in the low 120's but weighed 204 pounds field dressed.
From: Bradford13
08-Nov-21
Had a buck roaring in PA about 10 years ago, and never heard it again.
From: Kurt
08-Nov-21
Arrowed a big 5x5 in CO back in '89. One lung and broke the upper front leg bone too. He went about 50 yds, went down and roared for about a minute while he was expiring. Sounded super pissed off, wouldn't have wanted to be near by for him to take it out on me.
Also heard a snort wheeze once. Very different than a grunt.
From: Pat Lefemine
08-Nov-21
I’ve heard lots of snort-wheezes including this morning from that same buck. And I’ve heard that popping sound a few times in Kansas .
Such a cool animal.
From: sasquatch
08-Nov-21
Heard it one time in mississippi. They had a deer on the property doing it every day, nobody would see him.
3rd day a member missed him.
When I heard it, I could not believe how loud it is and that it was a deer
From: sitO
08-Nov-21
Never heard it in the wild, would like to see the video.
From: Zbone
08-Nov-21
If it's calm ya can here that clicking noise a long ways off...
From: t-roy
08-Nov-21
I’ve heard and seen it several times over the years. The most impressive one I witnessed was probably one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever seen on the hoof. Didn’t bring enough clothes and got froze out of the stand, probably 30 years ago. While sneaking back to the truck, I spotted a nice buck tending a doe on the opposite side of a weedy fence line. I belly crawled up to the fence and peeked through the weeds and spotted the buck and doe headed to the dead end corner of the fence line, so I quickly crawled to try and get in position to hopefully get a shot at the buck. I got to where I needed to be, and peeked again, and right when I did, I heard what sounded similar to a bull bellering. The doe ran full tilt, about 20 yds past me, with the nice buck right behind her, and the giant 10 pointer right on his heels, roaring several times, as he chased after the smaller buck off.
A few years back, we also had a buck hanging around our house, that roared quite often. My wife nicknamed him “loudmouth”. We could never lay eyes on him. We figured he was a big old brute. Finally, one morning in the stand, I heard him 2-3 times and getting closer. I was expecting to see a giant buck, but when he finally showed up in front of me, and roared again, he was a 2 yr old 90” eight pointer. We never heard him again after that one fall.
From: Pat Lefemine
08-Nov-21
T-Roy, same here. The buck that roared this morning was a 2.5 year old 8. Not mature, and not impressive. Just a 90" 8. He sounded like the MGM lion in the forest!
From: Zbone
08-Nov-21
Sound like you're seeing a lot of action Pat...
From: Shuteye
08-Nov-21
I have been deer hunting for 60 years and have never head a buck roar. But then I am deaf in my left ear.
From: Kevin Dill
09-Nov-21
Once you hear it you'll never forget the sound. I consider it just an extreme vocalization exhibited by certain bucks, and not all of them. A 'roarer' might be heard several times during the rut in an area...usually it's the same buck. I associate roaring with the probable presence of a rival buck nearby. Incidentally, I've heard moose roar as well during intense rut excitement.
From: Shiloh
09-Nov-21
I heard it once in Kansas. I watched a mid 160’s buck go into a cedar thicket and heard a roar followed shortly by the same buck coming out. I am suspecting that there was a more mature buck in there with a doe.
From: fishin coyote
09-Nov-21
In 40+ yrs in the deer woods I never heard a roar that I can remember but last week I heard what at the time I believed was a single deep dog sounding ruff followed a couple of seconds later by a growling glutteral grunting then there was a 3 or 4 second pause and second set of the grunting about 100yds from me. Made the hair on my neck stand up. About 15- 20 minutes later a 1.5 yr old 5pt with attitude that I had never seen before came from that direction. He was all roughed up with his left eye looking like it was ruptured. He started harassing some doe and let out the same single dog bark sound with out the grunting. So I can only assume that it was him making all the racket I had heard earlier.
From: WV Mountaineer
09-Nov-21
I’ve heard a deer roar several times es o e morning before daylight. He was digging a doe around my stand. He chased her up and down the ridge. They came back behind me and he let out one. He did it two more times over the course of the next two minutes.
It was cool. It was pitch black too. Never saw either deer. Just heard them running and such. Funny thing is I never heard that deer grunt at all. He just roared those times and that was it. Of course they moved on before daylight. If sound was an indicator, he was a world record. But, I’ll never know.
From: drycreek
09-Nov-21
Never heard a roar, and very few grunts, but I’m about half deaf so there’s that. The funniest thing I’ve seen regarding deer communication was a buck snort-wheezing. I was in my tripod and it was probably a half hour until full dark. I had a bout six deer in front of me including does, fawns, and two very young bucks. All heads went up, I looked the way they were looking and here comes a buck that I’ve only seen once and fleetingly at that. He was extremely palmated, a mature buck, and his antlers looked more like moose antlers than deer. At his approach the other deer loosely scattered into the surrounding brush. He walked up, stopped and surveyed the territory, and blew snot for twenty feet ! I was amazed and my bow was still in my lap. When he blew all the other deer hauled ass ! He looked around as if to say “Y’all take that !”, then turned and went into the mesquite brush. I watched him jump the cross fence and walk down to a pond and get a drink, and walk out of my life.
From: esean
09-Nov-21
Heard it twice two years ago. Only times in 40 yrs of hunting. Didn't get a good look at the buck either time. Once was when a couple of bucks were chasing a doe around a thicket. The other time I didn't hear anything else, just a sudden roar down the hill. The most impressive thing was how much louder the roar was than a grunt.
From: kodiak&crunchy
09-Nov-21
I roared through my bugle tube at a 6x6 bull elk I killed this year. I've had countless hung up bulls in my hunts through the years, but I've never tried roaring before. In fact, I've never heard of anyone doing it, nor have I ever heard an elk roar. He was hung up about 60 yards away and it was obvious he was pissed at my bugles. I was pretty fired up, too...it was an intense exchange and my roar seemed like a natural progression of aggression. It worked! He immediately came in to 35 yards and I arrowed him. I'll definitely try it again on a future hunt if the situation warrants it.
From: hunt'n addict
09-Nov-21
It's cool. I have heard it twice in 40 years of hunting, but my father never heard it during his 60+ years of whitetail hunting.
From: Kurt
10-Nov-21
Kevin mentions moose roaring. in 2010 we set up and called on a dandy bull here in BC we had spotted off a logging road way down below in the swamp and river bottom. We called for a while....nothing doing. So we moved over to where he'd been. Busted him out of big willows at 15 yards from us. Bull went 30 yards away and started roaring at us for a minute or more. Pretty impressive, made your hair stand up...but we never got him into the open for a bow shot. Climbed up high and could see him in the thick stuff. He stayed there until it got dark and was no where to be found the next morning.
From: deerhunter72
10-Nov-21
As I mentioned above, never heard a roar or wheeze. But I did have a great experience with a wheeze call with a huge WT, although not one of my finer moments. Had this mature buck walk into a stand one morning and got to within 12 yards of me, but because he was headon and then in a bunch of saplings I couldn't get a good shot. He got up to the edge of woods 40 yards away and I used the snort/wheeze call. His reaction was instant and awesome! He whirled around and literally started stomping his way in a wide arc around me trying to get downwind. His hair was bristled and he was looking all over and he was ready to rumble. It was a tremendous sight. But, when I got a shot I missed judged the distance and my arrow went right under his chest. One of the top 2 deer I've ever had in bow range.
