is it bad to rattle up a buck without shooting him? sort of like calling in coyotes without shooting them, makes them smarter and harder to call in next time?

reason i ask is id like to rattle some up and take pictures or just see what all i can rattle up. ive never rattled though

Well, I rattle a lot, and 99.9% of the bucks that come in don't get shot at. Now, would I go out and rattle for the heck of it, without a bow or firearm, or without a buck tag in my pocket? Heck no. You are, at least to some extent, educating the bucks by doing that.

I partly agree and partly disagree. UNLESS you spook the deer and give away what was actually making the rattling sound (in this case, YOU) the deer will have no reason to believe it wasnt anything other than two bucks making the racket. You just dont want the deer to associate "rattling" with humans... Hope that was helpful!

they forget year to year but if you rattle in the same area several days in a row they do remember.

If you rattle a big buck in and don't get a shot off not impossible to do it a gain but your odds dropped for best case 20% response to 2%.

Dont worry about it they will come to it next yr or even this yr again. The drive is someone trying to date there girls and they are not to worried about you even if they wind you they may learn to come into the wind but they will come.

last yr i rattled up the same 4 bucks countless times....