thinking about trying to call deer in but not sure if it will work in this part of texas due to bad doe to buck ratio do yall know if its worth a try or have yall had any luck with calls or scents?

When you get ready to leave your stand ease out by some brush and stomp your feet . Bucks will sometimes head toward you
if they haven't been spooked . It may sound silly but in low light they are very inquisitive of fighting sounds .

Grunting has worked on our lease before but never rattling.

Only worked once in over 20yrs fore me but was fun when it worked!

Thats a strong statement saying theres a "bad" buck to doe ration in east texas. You might get better answers if you knew your facts. Things hide in thick vegetation. Why come out when all your groceries are in your house? Doesn't matter on what survey you took/take. If you don't walk in the woods with many people, dogs and wheelers and flush the deer out, then a survey count doen't seem logical in east texas. They are there. Hiding from me and you. I would assume the techniques you asked about dont work as well in East Texas because of all the vegetation. Sounds likes to travel in the open and seems to stop when it hits a thick wall of vegetation. Try Right of ways, pipelines, pastures, large food plots, fields, or in the bottoms during winter when the leaves are gone. Sure rattle away. sorry for the rant

As for the buck:doe ratio, it's not as disproportionate today as it was prior to antler restrictions, but it still has a ways to go.

As for calling, I've never heard of anyone having any success with rattling, but I've seen and heard of others' success with grunting. Several times, I've grunted at bucks after I've let them walk to see if I get any response. A few times I did, and other times not. As mentioned, it's fun when it works. Last year, I watched a young 4 pt and 6 pt for a few minutes from about 75 yards out. The 6 pt was pretty rowdy, and continued to rough up the smaller 4. Once they walked in the brush, I hit my grunt call, and watched that 6 pt come running back out of the brush like he was ready to kill something. He got to within about 40 yards of me before he turned and ran back after the other buck. I hit my grunt again, and this time, nothing.

I hunt in Anderson County in East Texas and have for the last 6 years. Have NEVER rattled a buck up even during the rut. I have seen does coming running out in a food plot and have a big buck chasing them and rattled and they didn't even pay attention. For some reason they do get inquisitive about a grunt call during the rut. Doe bleat has never produced either. Rattled plenty of bucks in in South Texas, but not on my ranch in East Texas. I do buy into the thick vegetation argument.

Ive hunted in east texas quite a bit and i agree with fishin dude partly, b/c there is so much vegetation sound just doesnt travel like it does in the hill country. personally i have found rattling and grunting ineffective in east tx. But that def doesnt mean im not gonna try it at least once or twice everytime i go out. I like to rattle and grunt everytime im fixin to get out of the stand, i figure since im leaving it wont hurt to try. ALSO, try going out in mid-day in between hunts and rattle and grunt, ive had my greatest outcomes doing it like that...

Use the scents to get the deer to make their own scrapes where you want them around the stand... have seen rattling work but not in that particular county in ETX. There is a whole lot of does due to how things are in the area so it doesn't offer much of a competitive environment for the bucks.

I hunt in Northeast Tx, right now im in Nacogdoches at SFA tho. But back to calling, I personally have never had any luck rattling or calling but my b-i-l has had some bucks come running to him from a grunt. Our buck to doe ratio is getting way better he even saw two bucks fighting one day. I rattled one day for about 30 min and a doe and lil one was standing 20 yards away paying me no attention. Its just a toss up in the wind if its gonna work but definately wont hurt none trying it. About the scents I always put tinks 69 on the bottom of my shoe if im going to be walking through the woods. Have seen bucks trail me up.

I hunt in Freestone County and I have a small Primos grunt call that sounds like a small imature buck. Almost everytime I have used it bucks have come to it.
I also have a Primos hog grunt and I actually have called in a bobcat grunting like a piglet!
So I believe in grunt calls.
I have never had any luck with rattling though.

This is my first time to use any type of call I have really never trusted them so im kind of confused on somethings will the grunt scare anything off i know a few of yall have said that yall have used it and it worked but how does it work is it the sound of a younger buck that i am trying to make to get the larger bucks to come in?

have any of yall used to doe bleats and it has worked im just wondering if its worth going and buying or just hoping something will follow my does into my area

fishindude, i did not mean to come off as a expert who knows everything about the property I hunt on to tell you the truth I have done little to find out how many of what we have on the area and your right it is to thick for me to tell me what is beyond the wood line my information was based off the owner of the property who has been hunting it for many years telling me that we have more does then buck

and thanks again for the information guys

quick question: does the landowner live on the property, right next to it...or on down the road somewhere?

he lives maybe 5 mins from it why?

just curious.. if the guy is out there all the time and hunts as well, he should have a good idea of travel patterns.

yea i get a good deal of my information from him and that is pretty much why i have set up where i am and im also waiting on another place to finish getting clear cut b/c he says thats the main high way area where the deer are traveling

TxHunter, to answer ur question about the grunt call. The whole purpose of it is to attract bucks, of course, but how? Simple, Bucks are territorial just like any male, so naturally there gonna see whos in there "area" so to speak. Same for rattling. WHen bucks are fighting or grunting its usually a dispute over a hot doe so other bucks want a piece of the action! Not to mention "Curiosity killed the cat", (deer in our case). Im sure theres better and more correct explanations but that oughta give u an idea. Ive done a lot of grunting and rattling in my 21 years of living and noticed the deeper the grunt the bigger the buck comes running... Just gota find out what pushes there buttons so to speak.

One more thing, u said u put scent on ur boots, good idea. Whenever my dad an i kill a deer we cut off the houcks on the inside of the back knees where there scent glands are and tie those to our boots. seems to work better than bottled scents!

will any of this scare off does or anything like that or do the doe bleats also bring in does i have been trying to read up on them and found some good info. on them but dont know which calls such as brand names would be best

thanks for all the advice everyone

I have had success rattling in East Texas. Cass, Morris, and Hopkins County.

I've learned to be patient, concealed, and look really really hard. Our bucks sneak in and it aint hard for them to sneak in the timber. When I see a sign of a deer be it leg, head, ear twitch etc I stop and glass the area close. I have never had a perfectly clear shot nor have I ever watched a buck for more than 2 min at the most after spotted. Just gotta be ready and paitient and take the shot given.

Not sure if the grunt call matters that much for rattling but I have used it several times to get a deer to stop.

Posted a pick last year of a nice 9 I stopped with one of Dogcatchers deer calls.

0809_deer_002

Cant post pics from work but here is the thread.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/u..._s_g#Post487469

maybe i'm the exception to the rule, but when we had a lease in east texas, i rattled up several bucks, two of them were very nice bucks by east texas standards. however, it was NOT a big pine plantation, it had a mix of about 50/50 hardwoods and pines, so that might have something to do with the sound carrying.


i've never tried grunting up a deer so I would't know anything about that

i hunt in Leon county, east texas?? anyway i have tried rattling but have only had success with a grunt tube...

I've only seen rattling work once and if I had been the hunter rattling, I would have not even killed the deer. I was walking back to meet up with my bro to tell him it was time to go eat lunch and as I got closer I could hear him hammering away with the horns and grunting. I started chuckling and was thinking he would do anything to shoot one of my trophy bucks off the lease. I then hear something hit water so I slipped off the edge of the road in the open timber and just stood there leaned up against a tree waiting for something to pop out of the thicket along the slough. Then I could see a big bodied deer walking in the thicket and figured my bro was about to get busted b/c there would be no way in heck for him to know that deer was about to be checking him out from about 150yds out.... sure enough, buck saw him and instead of haulin' butt, he just slowly started backtracking down the slough. He passed me up, but instead didn't go back across the slough....so I stepped back out on the road, turned around and walked about 100 yds back down the road (logging road...not CR, FM, HWY) laid down on the ground and started watching a dried up slough bed that ran all the way down and connected with the slough the buck was walking down. Took him about 5 minutes, but he stepped out in the open long enough for me to age him and pull the trigger. My brother then walked down my way and was glad to see I had bagged a decent buck. He wasn't so happy when I thanked him for rattling the buck in for me and if I had walked 10 more yards down the road from where I was originally watching the buck that he could have seen me from his stand.

wasn't a monster, but qualified for a cull on the lease. sry for the long winded story telling, but it was one of my most memorable hunts.