Post by Russ Koon on Jan 26, 2021 14:41:22 GMT -5
Called in several mulie does with the can call out in ND but it was mostly when I was heading back to camp after a burger and beer at the local pub. I was seeing several crossing the road almost every evening at about that same time, and one night I just stopped my old van right in the middle of the gravel road and stuck my arm out the window and tipped the can over a few times to see their reaction. Even with the headlights on and the old Chcvy six rattling like a threshing machine, they still slowly approached until several were within easy bow range. That gave me the confidence to use it more during daylight, but as I recall, the only whitetail I ever stopped with it was a button that stopped and came up a sidehill to the base of my tree on the first day of gun. I suspect he was looking for his mom.
The only decent WT buck I ever called in was by accident one morning as I was climbing a skinny white oak just about at legal shooting light one morning and wasn't trusting the stand to get a good bite on the bark, so I "set" the v-bar each time as I went up another foot or so, making a solid "chunk" that I tried to keep from being too loud.
I was about twelve feet up when I heard something coming at a lope on the ridge behind me. I turned my head to watch and it was a good medium eight, coming in with a stiff-gait, mane standing up, and a look in his eye that said he was looking for the trespasser who was thumping a tree in his territory! He came directly under me as I hung there from the climber section of the old imitation Baker, and stopped about twenty feet past me to look over the territory still ahead of him apparently wondering what became of the other buck he'd heard. I was still hanging there watching him a few minutes later when he seemed to relax and went on down the ridge and out of site, and I was able to finish climbing and pulling up the bow.
Thinking back on 55 years of bowhunting, I suspect that a good part of my lack of success with rattling and calling was probably my lack of confidence in them. Read a good article one time on the selection of fishing lures by expert fishermen. Seems that most of them interviewed for his research tended to stay with the type they first had success with. As a result, most of them were very sure that their crankbait, or spinner, or plastic worm was the best thing they could throw in the water, and so was their selection to try first on a fishing trip, which gave it the advantage of getting first opportunity on a fishy looking morning, while others that may well have done as well or even better staid in the tacklebox, and may only have been tried after prime time. I know I had carried rattling horns and a grunt tube many times without trying them until well after the first light. Hard to try something you don't have much confidence in when it feels like you'd more likely be messing up your best chance on a nice still morning in the best part of the season, so the lack of confidence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The only decent WT buck I ever called in was by accident one morning as I was climbing a skinny white oak just about at legal shooting light one morning and wasn't trusting the stand to get a good bite on the bark, so I "set" the v-bar each time as I went up another foot or so, making a solid "chunk" that I tried to keep from being too loud.
I was about twelve feet up when I heard something coming at a lope on the ridge behind me. I turned my head to watch and it was a good medium eight, coming in with a stiff-gait, mane standing up, and a look in his eye that said he was looking for the trespasser who was thumping a tree in his territory! He came directly under me as I hung there from the climber section of the old imitation Baker, and stopped about twenty feet past me to look over the territory still ahead of him apparently wondering what became of the other buck he'd heard. I was still hanging there watching him a few minutes later when he seemed to relax and went on down the ridge and out of site, and I was able to finish climbing and pulling up the bow.
Thinking back on 55 years of bowhunting, I suspect that a good part of my lack of success with rattling and calling was probably my lack of confidence in them. Read a good article one time on the selection of fishing lures by expert fishermen. Seems that most of them interviewed for his research tended to stay with the type they first had success with. As a result, most of them were very sure that their crankbait, or spinner, or plastic worm was the best thing they could throw in the water, and so was their selection to try first on a fishing trip, which gave it the advantage of getting first opportunity on a fishy looking morning, while others that may well have done as well or even better staid in the tacklebox, and may only have been tried after prime time. I know I had carried rattling horns and a grunt tube many times without trying them until well after the first light. Hard to try something you don't have much confidence in when it feels like you'd more likely be messing up your best chance on a nice still morning in the best part of the season, so the lack of confidence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.