F or three years I have come face to face with this buck! Grunting made all the difference!
I am officially a believer in grunt calls and scents to help compliment my deer watch. Although my experience with them was very positive, I quickly found out that a successful hunt is still based on the accuracy of the shooter!
During the afternoon of Day 2 of the Rip� N Tear 2005 Deer Hunt, saw me 20ft in the air in a tree stand. I was in the area known as �The Pines� to our Hunt Club. It was a calm, sunny and quiet fall afternoon. After enjoying the view and taking it all in, I remembered that I had better load my gun and take out my deer calls.
It had been suggested to me to use two types of calls at the same time while grunting (Meaning � grunt with a buck call and follow up with a doe call or vice versa). I should also mention I sprayed various trees on my journey to the tree stand. These were trees that I could clearly see from my ambush point high in the stand. When my rifle had been reloaded, I tipped over my doe bleat can, twice. I followed this up with 3 grunts from my buck call. You may be asking yourself, why I chose that number of bleats/grunts? Don�t! It just felt right. I had just put my buck call down in my pocket when I started to hear the familiar crunching of leaves on the ridge beside me. Sure enough, a large buck was grunting along the ridge parallel to me. He was grunting as he was shuffling along. His current course would take him past me at a considerable distance in gaddy underbrush. In desperation, I grunted with my buck call. The buck stopped. Then, he began to move down the ridge right towards me! I was not expecting such a reaction. I have never been this fortunate. As if scripted, I brought my rifle up and picked a spot where I anticipated the buck would exit into a clearing beneath my stand. The waiting was unbearable, but I held on.
Suddenly, the buck stopped and sniffed the air.
He began to head back the way he came (he must have detected my scent). I fired.
He stopped. I fired again.
He ran to the right and stopped. I fired.
He ran back to the left and stopped. I fired.
Yet again, he headed back to the right and stopped. Ok. I’ll shoot again. Bang.
He ran back to the left and stopped. Click! I needed more ammo.
I had time to take off my jacket, rummage through my ammo pack and reload. The deer obviously had no idea where I was. He was close to the area I sprayed with doe urine. Fortunate for me! I brought my sights back up on the buck and fired my sixth shot.
The buck began to head down towards a logging road that leads to the stand. He paused to prepare his jump. I fired…and like a ghost he jumped the road and was gone!
I came down from the stand still shaking my head in disbelief. How would I explain this to the boys?! I followed his huge track to ensure I had not wounded the ghost, but ghost bucks do not bleed. You can be sure that when I returned to the Camp, the guys kept their part of the ‘unwritten’ hunt camp code of ethics. My pride was slightly bruised, but my memory of the whole event will keep the embers burning for next year’s hunt and put deer calls on everyone’s else’s Christmas list!
-Bill Anderson, Muskoka Outdoors
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] I decided to take a chance and slowly lifted my gun to my shoulder. Somewhere between the soft click of the safety and the butt of my rifle tapping my shoulder the deer went into ’super-pursuit’ mode! He let out three blood chilling snorts that echoed across the swamp. My full broad shot was now nothing more than subtle moving swamp plants and foliage. No shots fired. Plenty of story when I got camp accompanied with the usual ‘cheeky’ comments from the other members… It’s rack was tall and full. Similar to the deer’s rack in this post. It was the first time I had ever heard a grunt from a buck. It was not the last time I ever saw this deer. I tangled with him last year as well. You can read that story here. [...]