Unread postby Brad » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:44 pm
I have already commented on here about my lack of success with calling, and I think a lot of it is simply poor setups on my part in the first place, but also I found myself pretty much sounding the same each sequence.
I did the same for years with turkeys, nearly every sequence was the same, same notes, same cadence, same length. I could make toms gobble like mad, but few came in, some ran away. This past spring I changed it up, and I told myself for one that If I wondered if I overcalled, I did. I also went away from yelps and cutting to purrs and clucks 90% of the time, and the birds started showing far more interest. I also had the best luck imitating other hens, that was the single fastest way I found to bring the toms in.
Now, with that said these are mature bucks, a lot smarter animal than a turkey. A turkey is skittish to the max but not overly smart in my opinion. Where I am going is I think MOST guys probably blow the same call, the same notes, the same length, over and over and over. If a turkey can tell the difference, for sure a deer could. I am guessing that the most successful callers are mixing it up a lot more, blowing different notes with different intensity levels, and maybe different calls altogether. I also think you are going to have more luck in a spot that a buck wants to be anyways. Of course if there is very few deer in the area (most likely a viable scenario on a lot of public lands) there are less animals to hear the calls, so less will respond
the biggest problem is all the "how to" videos are usually hawking a particular call so therefore biased, and of course the footage is probably from low pressured deer on premium ground with balanced ratio's. If the average Joe goes out and does the same on high pressured deer, the results will probably be pitiful at best.
So with that said, I would love to hear how you do it, obviously something is working and part of being a successful hunter is finding what works for you and then doing it well over and over. I am not going to go sound like a guy blowing on a trumpet, each fall, but it would be nice to hear first hand how an average Joe does it. and finds success.
Like Dan says, maybe what call(s) you use, when, tone, duration, intensity etc. Possibly a video?