Steve D I think you hit the nail on the head! And Shawnhu I agree 100%, nothing compares to fooling them with a call for me anyway.
This will be a bit long so if interested bare with me!
You have to be careful with using an aggressive buck grunt or snort. 90% of the time I see most bucks cringe when a dominant buck is in the area and lets his presence known with an aggressive call. Goes back to what Steve was saying about getting beat up by a larger male. This is NY and large dominant bucks are not very prolific, while rare I have heard of 2 dominant bucks clashing after a good rattling sequence but this is not the norm in most of NY unless you have a large amount of 3 year olds or older in the area. (Not typical in NY with some exceptions.)
Calling in doe with a doe call is dependent on how many deer are in the area I believe. JMO (Compare NYC to a small local town upstate.) In NYC the country guy or gal is use to saying hello to everyone but does not get the same response as when they are home where everyone waves and says hello regardless if they know you or not. If you have an area of large population many doe could care less about another doe in the area. If you where in NYC and someone who passed you said hello you probably would not acknowledge them but in remote area where few people live they communicate with each other more, I believe the same is true of deer. One exception is when they are aggressive towards each other like when entering a food plot, they don’t mind eating at the same location as long as they have their own table.
The best calls for doe I have found are fawn calls, more so if they have fawns that are not with them! The best thing about fawn calls is all deer respond to them. Bucks know a doe will be close soon and all deer are inquisitive, use this to your advantage.
Biggest issue with calling using a can is many of us are using them wrong. We try to make them loud and long by using the full can when this is an aggressive shout that most deer run from! If you use the can only use half of the call, if you let the diaphragm go to the bottom it is considered an aggressive call. Half way is a contact call or doe in heat.
Best call to use when pre-rut is starting, like this weekend! Doe in heat 2 calls followed by one high pitched buck grunt indicating a young buck trying to mate a doe in heat. Maaa, pause Maaa Burp. Next time you have a buck pushing a doe you want, try that followed by a grunt snort weeze if he is a large dominant buck. Otherwise a high pitched grunt call can lure in a doe that is not fully in heat to get that buck off her track and possibly into a fight to keep him off her back. (They get tired of being chased by young bucks when they are not ready!)
I will post a couple of videos that have helped in my learning of calling. It works but has to be done at the right time that’s for sure!
PS: Young bucks will come to almost any doe call when they start to come in heat, they just can’t help themselves unless they are on a hot doe track.
Like and LIKE! And another like for Jeremy K! I ran out of likes today.
