What started as small game and deer hunting in his home state grew to an obsession for Art Helin to hunt nearly every big game species across North America. In this episode, Art joins host Bruce Hutcheon as they discuss hunting, the outdoors, and deer vocalization. Art has been in the outdoors industry for 23 years does seminars on hunting and sharing his firsthand experiences especially with deer vocalization. Listen to this podcast as Art talks about the outdoors and shares some tips on hunting.
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Hear Amazing Buck Vocalizations – Art Helin
In this episode of Whitetail Rendezvous, we’re going to travel to Dodgeville, Wisconsin and catch up with Art Helin. Art Helin has Art Herlin Outdoors. Art travels all over the Midwest doing seminars all winter long because he represents some great companies like Vortex, Knight & Hale, and Realtree. More than that, Art spins a good story and he gets people laughing. He sure does know his stuff. In this episode, you’re going to know about deer vocalization. Pay attention because Art knows how to sound like a buck.
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I have my partner with me, Bob Roark, and this is episode three of our current whitetail webinar series. Our guest is Art Helin, timing up deer, vocalization, and rattling. Art, what do you think about all this deer talk?
There are a lot of different variations of it. There are a lot of different opinions on it. There’s no better person or no better vocalization than the deer itself. I’ve been fortunate to be able to learn a lot during all the phases of the season. I get to hear how these deer communicate and what they do, which helps instead of just reading a book or looking at something. That knowledge that I get firsthand, I get to bring it to people through seminars and through webisodes like this.
Why don’t you introduce yourself? You’re known throughout the Midwest, but we’re across North America. Why don’t you give us a little bio telling everybody what Art does?
I’ve been in the outdoor industry for many years now. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve filmed with Archer’s Choice TV show for almost ten years and able to film some other TV shows and hunt across the country. My wife and I do a lot of different things with special needs and youth to get young adults and young children involved in the outdoors. That’s what we focus on. I don’t do a lot of the filming and stuff anymore because I concentrate on my seminars and trying to get the youth, special needs and other people involved in the outdoors. I’m traveling around the country doing seminars, doing some outdoor writing, and working with a couple of people on some different things with some books. I have a wildlife habitat management company, so I help set up properties strictly for deer, turkeys, and wildlife. That keeps me busy throughout. I also have a photography business where I do a lot of wildlife photography work for a lot of different companies, some of the magazines and stuff you see out there.
If somebody wants to get a hold of you, Art, how do they do that?
They can go to my website, which is www.ArtHelinOutdoors.com. You can go through that and there’s a contact spot on there where you can send me an email and contact me.
Are you on social media at all?
Yes. They can go to Facebook, Art Helin Outdoors. If you like photographs instead, you can go to Wild Reflections Photo. That’s my photography page. There’s Twitter, which I need to do a little more of, I’ll be honest with you. I have Instagram and I have been trying to do a little more there, too. My main focus is on a lot of stuff on my Facebook page on the Art Helin Outdoors page.
Bob, I’m going to turn it over to you because I know you’ve got a lot of questions from our readers about deer vocalization. We want to know the story about the whitetail deer talk.
Art, this is going to be instructive, useful and educational for me as well. Why don’t we crank through the presentation and slides that you have here to keep us pointed? As we go, Bruce and I are going to run across a question or something and we’ll interrupt discretely.
Whitetail deer is the biggest thing that people have. Deer are social animals. I used to guide elk hunters and turkey hunters forever. People do that because they like to hear that bugle. They like to hear that gobble from the turkey. They say, “Deer don’t do that,” but they do. Deer are vocal and they do it for reasons. They want to locate each other, track each other, and intimidate each other. What our jobs are is we need to break down and figure out when do they want to locate each other, when do they want to attract each other, and when do they want to intimidate each other. The biggest problem that we have is using things at the wrong times of the year, different types of calls, and different vocalizations that we shouldn’t be using, so they’re not working right.
When we call these deer, we want to use their natural aggression and curiosity. These are things that we have to break down because we want to bring that animal to us. It gives us the opportunity to see deer that we may not otherwise see. These deer could be 200 yards away down in a thicket, checking a bedding area at a certain time of year. All of a sudden, you rattle, you grunt or you do something, it might draw that deer out to you and you would have never seen that deer otherwise. If you’re going to call these deer, what types of calls do you use? How do you call them? If you look at grunts, there are a couple of different calls. There are grunts, rattles, snort wheeze, bleats, and whines.
If you went and look up deer vocalizations and deer grunts, you’re going to get a list 10 miles long because they have many vocalizations. However, there’s truly three that will get you ahead of the game and get you started as far as grunts. Those three grants that you need to learn are going to be a social grunt, a tending grunt, and a challenge grunt. A social grunt is what most of us learn. That is what most people who go out use because they don’t know any different. They’ll use that at a time when they should be intimidating and it’s not. They need to learn that there’s also a challenge grunt. They want to sound like you’re mad and want to fight that other guy. It’s like when you’re in high school and you get mad at somebody. You’re going show that and you’re going to get louder as you go along trying to intimidate that person. That’s what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to intimidate them. That grunt is a long grunt out trying to sound mad.
There’s a tending grunt. A tending grunt is when a buck is following a doe that’s in heat or thinks that she’s in heat getting close. A lot of people hear this, but they don’t know what it is. When a buck is chasing that doe, every time he puts his foot down, he’s ticking it. Every time he’s exhaling, he’s trying to sound like he’s chasing her and then he’ll try to get her to stop. He’s doing the tending grunt and keeps trying to push her trying to get her to stop so he can get closer to check and see if she’s ready to be bred or not. The other grunt is rattling. When you get into rattling, people think that they’re going to take him and get all crazy with it as loud as they can. When they hit those, they’re going to get extremely loud and obnoxious.
There are different times of the year to do different things. There are times when truthfully, you need to take those and tick your antlers together like two small bucks coming together. You’re ticking those back and forth. There are times when you want to do that and make those sounds a lot less and not be as intimidating because the younger bucks are doing that. When you get into rattling later on when you sit there and if you’ve ever heard bucks rattle, they don’t come up and start rattling. They’ll come up, they tick those antlers together, they separate, and then they crack. They go through and they’ll stop because they have to push each other. When they push each other, those antlers come to a spot where they lock together. They’re going to push each other, stop, and then they’ll start rattling again. You need to learn the techniques on how to rattle properly, if you want to be soft or if you want to get aggressive, and when to do that.
The next one is the snort wheeze. When you’re snort wheezing, I don’t like to use the blind call at all. What I mean is I’ll rattle, I’ll grunt, and I’ll do those things when I can’t see that deer try to get its attention and bring it in. However, a snort wheeze is more for mature deer. If you have good age groups on your property, that snort wheeze works well on those 4, 5 and 6-year-old deer. The difference is those deer are a lot smarter than that 1-year-old and that 2-year-old. They aren’t going to come charging. They try to get downwind of you. If I see that deer moving and I know that the wind is coming in my face, I don’t want to snort wheeze at that deer until he’s at a point past me that I can call him down in front of me. If I call too soon, he’s going to try to get behind me, downwind of me, and bust me before I can get that shot. There are a lot of new calls out there that have it built right in. A lot of times you can even do that with your hands if you have to, but cup your hands. It’ll give that little extra boost to that sound and to that air. That call is used well with older, more mature deer. Don’t use that as a blind call.
Why do they snort wheeze?
The snort wheeze is an intimidation call. It’s strictly about who is who in the schoolyard. A snort wheeze is strictly to intimidate the other deer. That’s why it works more on your older mature deer than your younger deer. I’ve seen it done where you’ve got good age groups and you snort wheeze on a two-year-old deer. Where you got 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds on your property, it looks like you took that two-year-old and shot him out of a canon because he’s already intimidated. He’s been there. I’ve seen them turn around and take off fast. I’ve watched them when we filmed it. We snort wheeze at a two-year-old and they’ll try to get out of there fast. I’ve watched them spin fast, bolt off the trees and down through the woods. They go and they’re gone. For 1 and 2-year-olds, that’s a call that I usually don’t use on them. I use more of a grunt on those because it’s strictly intimidation.
I did that to a 2.5-year-old and he just went inside out. I was laughing.
Which is good and bad because one, that means you have a good age class and you have more mature bucks on your property. It also means that you’re probably not getting an opportunity at that two-year-old if you want to shoot that deer.
Let’s stop there because a lot of guys will get excited and they’ll see horns that have got a great frame, but it’s a young buck. They’ll snort wheeze at them. If he takes off and the timing of the season isn’t right, then that mature buck’s going to wonder what’s going on and he’ll get curious. Agree or disagree?
Agreed. There are certain times these calls should be used when they shoot because those older deer that are using this call more than other deer have been down this road for years. They already have it figured out. The rut is all triggered off of daylight hours within a 24-hour period. When it gets to that, they understand that and they know when this is going to happen. This is when they start using this intimidation factor more throughout that time frame. I’m going to break down those actual dates for you for the Midwest. Dates fluctuate a little bit once you get out west and down south through what they are here in the Midwest. If you use that at the wrong time, it’s like using social grunts at the wrong time. Use those and that buck listens, looks at you and walks right on by. You get frustrated, you want to take your grunt call and throw it out of the tree because it’s a piece of junk and it doesn’t work. A lot of times it’s because we’re doing things at the wrong time of the year.
One of the questions that we get on a regular basis is they’ll catch a mature buck on camera at night and it’s nocturnal. How do you take and get that nocturnal buck into a position where you get an opportunity for a shot? If you knew as you were checking game cameras, if you’ve got a mature buck and he’s not coming in your direction, what types of strategies would come to your mind with calls to try to get that opportunity?
It’s all going to depend on the time of year. If it’s early in the year, we’re going to break down some different strategies for you on how they’re going to move through there. Once you get into that pre-rut and that rut, it breaks down even different depending on the days. A lot of these deer, if you’re rattling too late in the year, it’s not going to do anything to get that buck out of his bed and come check. They’ve already been through that intimidation phase and doing what they’re doing. You have to look at the days and look at the moon phases. When that moon phase is saying those deer should be on their feet throughout daylight hours, and then use these calls to your advantage.
There are different types of fawn bleats, different types of doe grunts and estrus whines. Why do you want fawn bleats? You need to learn those. Some of these new grunt calls are great because you can go from a buck grunt, switch over and go right straight into your doe. There’s also push-button for them. You can tell the difference between fawn bleats and doe grunts compared to a buck runt. Buck grunts are short, quick and deep. Fawn or a doe are going to be a little bit more drawn out and a little bit higher. That comes in handy during that first phase if you want to shoot a doe early in the season. As far as estrus whines, they came up with this neat little toy years ago. It’s hard to mimic that on anything else. They make different sizes for how loud you want to get. If it’s windy days, I like the bigger, easy bleat. The easy way to do your estrus whines is by going out and get an easy bleat. You can get different sizes so you can sound smaller or you can sound like an older, more mature doe.
When we call deer, we want to use their natural aggressions or curiosity. Share on XNow that you know these different types of calls, when are you going to use them? How are you going to use them? You want to use them throughout the changes in the breeding season. There are also seasons prior to that which would be the early seasons and there is no pre-rut or rut. You are what I call phase one, which is the season opener and it depends on where you’re at. You can go to North Dakota and Kentucky. Some of these areas open on September 1st when they’re still in velvet and coming out of velvet to other areas that are right around one week after they rub their velvet. Some states don’t open until October 1st. You’ve got a whole month there. That’s phase one that things are different. Depending on where you’re at, if you’re out North Dakota, Kentucky, even Wisconsin, and some of these states that are mid-September, I like to get out there and do a lot of your fawn bleats at that time and whines, your social grunts. Why do you look at that?
At that time of year, if those fawns are still with their moms, that buck mentality is telling him that if he hears fawns still with that doe and if she’s sitting there doing her fawn bleats and doe grunts, when the mature buck hears that, they’re going to come in there and they want to run those fawns off. The sooner they get that fawn off of that doe, the sooner that she comes back into heat. It’s not going to happen. Mother Nature won’t make it happen, but that’s his mentality. It’s that way with all nature. Bears are the same thing. The sooner they can get those cubs away from their mom, the sooner she’ll come back into heat. It’s the same thing with deer. The sooner those fawns are gone, the sooner that she’s going to come back in. You got to play the curiosity card. Do those fawn bleats and try to get that buck to come in with the curiosity and say, “I’ve got to push these fawns away. I get these fawns away from their mom and she’s going to come back into heat.”
If you like to shoot does in the early season, that’s when you want to do the distress calls. If you do a fawn distress, it’s mother’s way of protecting the young. She’ll come in, usually gang busters coming in to try to protect those fawns. We’re sitting there being all mean and everything, waiting for her to come in to fill the freezer. Working off of her instincts is what we’re trying to do. We’re playing them. The other thing is social buck grunts at this time of year. They’re coming out of velvet. This is like the first day of high school and all these guys are coming in. You got your freshmen that are walking into high school and they’re like, “This is my first year with the antlers. I’m big stuff.” They come walking into school doing their thing and all of a sudden, that senior comes around the corner, which is your 5 or 6-year-old buck, that one-year-old is like, “I’m not big anymore, am I?” He backs off. That’s what social grunt is about.
Those older mature bucks will come in to see which new bucks are in their territory because they’re trying to figure out their home range. You can only have many mature bucks in a certain home range. Those mature bucks are trying to figure out what is their home range. When they hear these other bucks with curiosity, they’re going to come in there to see who’s there, do their posture thing to show them who they are, and move on. That’s a good thing early like that, especially before that 15th to 20th of September. If you’re out in a different area doing that, then you’re going to move into phase two. Phase two is that September 15th to 20th through that first week of October. You’re picking up your other states. The other calls work well up until the first of October. There are other things that you can add that you can’t put ahead of time. What I like to do when I get into this part is not only social buck grunts, but I start to bring in that light rattling. At this time of the year, in all the seminars I do, I usually ask the question, “How many of you guys are rattling by the first couple of weeks of September or mid-September?” You might get 1 or 2 guys. I say, “How has it worked for you?” They all go, “It works great.”
As long as you don’t go gangbusters because you’re not going gangbusters at this time of the year. You have to learn the different sounds and the different techniques of rattling because, at this time, this is when you want to do tickling the antlers together. You want to tickle because at this time, usually, the big deer are not out there fighting and brawling because they already know. It’s 1 and 2-year-old sitting there and they’re tickling their antlers together trying to figure out who is who and pushing each other up. That big deer is going to come in again with curiosity like that first day of school and say, “Who’s making these sounds? Who’s doing the grunting?” He’s going to come in and try to break them up, posture, and show them who’s the boss. These calls early in the season like this work well, especially here in the Midwest when you have your better concentrations of your 1, 2, 3 and 4-year-old deer plus your 5 and 6-year-old, your good age class. This works well early like this.
I had a friend of mine years ago who called me up and said, “I got this big buck every night coming to this field. He won’t do anything. He sits there, I grunt at him, and he goes up to the top of the hill. There are these two little bucks that have fought over there a couple of nights. It’s a couple of one-year-olds. He doesn’t even pay attention to me. He goes over there, breaks them up and then he follows them down in the woods.” I’m like, “Get out your rattling antlers. Do a little tickle and do some stuff when those bucks aren’t there.” He’s like, “I didn’t think about that.” He’s been watching it for how many nights and nothing’s happening, so he did. I knew this kid and he kept telling me, “This was a giant buck,” and I’m assuming that this giant buck was 140 inches, which is a good deer.
Don’t get me wrong, but when I hear people telling me giants, I’m thinking, “Giants.” This kid ends up shooting it and calls me up. He’s telling me the whole story of how the deer came out when he grunted at it, did a little tickling with the antlers, and the deer turned and walked into him. He said, “It didn’t come running like it does in a rut.” I said, “They’re not going to because it’s curiosity. They want to see who’s there. They don’t want to come and fight. They want to see who’s in their territory.” The deer came in and he shot a 187 and 5’8″. It was a giant, so it works. That’s a big deer. I don’t care what state you’re from or where you hunt, 187 is big.
How did the kid keep it together?
I don’t know, to be honest with you. A couple of years prior to that, he was like, “I shot an absolute giant. You should see this thing. It’s huge.” We got out there and it’s like a 115-inch deer. He’s like, “It’s the biggest deer I’ve ever seen and I’ve ever shot.” That’s why when he was telling me that this thing was a giant, I was like, “Okay.” I don’t know if he truly didn’t know that it was that big and that’s how he kept it together. I know once we found it, he didn’t keep it together good. It was neat to watch him. It was a neat deer and he said it worked great. This time of year, they’re not going to come running to you. They take their time and slowly come in because it’s the curiosity factor.
What dates are those again? This light tickling is like tickling the points. I tick the points.
Here in Wisconsin, the opening weekend is around that 15th and it goes all the way up until usually the end of the first week to the second week of October. What happens is you fall into our October lull. Anytime right up until then usually works because they’re trying to figure that out. They want to know who’s who and who’s moving in the areas because sometimes, those deer die. We have CWD here, so sometimes they’ll die from that. They die from EHD, they get hit by a car or they get pressured and move to a different area so now there’s a new buck in that area. They’re always trying to figure out who’s moving into their home range, this mature deer, so they want to push them out or are going to get pushed out themselves and do a different home range. That’s why it works well.
How big is my home range if I’m a mature buck and I’m about 4.5 or 5.5 years old?
As the deer gets older, his home range gets smaller. I’m doing some studies with the DNR and we’ve been tagging deer and putting collars on them. We get to watch where they move to and what they’re doing. The 1 and 2-year-old don’t travel too far yet. I was talking to the guys who are running the collars and they’ve got a buck that is 12.5 miles away from where they collared it. He’s moved a long way. The majority of them don’t. Most of these, as they get to 5, 6 and 7 years old, they’re finding out that some of these deer live in 800 to 900 acres or less. They keep getting smaller depending on the biography of land and different things. It’s different watching that and how they are.
As they get older, their home range shrinks. That 3 and 4-year-old bucks travel a long way. It’s like us. When we were 16 to 17 years old, we’d go far. Once we got into our twenties, we’d take a car and drive 50, 60 or 100 miles to see your girlfriend or farther. At that time, it’s no different than them. That’s how I class a 3 and 4-year-old deer. That 20, 25 or 28-year-old man that likes to fight and likes to travel. He’s the one that likes to do that. As they get older, I look at it like my dad who’s in his mid-70s. He’s got his own routine and keep staying close to home as the years go on. That’s what deer do, too.
A lot of people have different ideas about it, but pay attention to what Art says because if you got the right size acreage doing everything with your food plot, you’re holding mature bucks even if you haven’t seen him. He’s there.
They’re there. They’re sneaky though so you got to figure it out. Everybody hates the October lull. The thing is with the October lull, calls don’t work well. A few do. The reason is that a lot of these older deer and mature deer start locking down on your proteins. They want your acorn ridges. They want whatever you have planted in your fields that are the highest protein because they know that the daylight’s getting a little bit shorter. They know what’s going to happen here shortly. They’re going to be burning all that protein and all that fat off. They’re trying to put on as much weight as they can. You have to hunt them smarter, get in their bedroom or get as close to their bedroom as you can. At that time, you might try to do a few social grunts or some challenge grunts as you get closer to the end of that October lull, then you can start maybe a few challenge grunts. Honestly, at that time, it’s tough to call deer because they don’t want to move much, especially those mature deer.
It’s food source hunting during those days. That’s what you got to do.
It is. The problem is when there’s a lot of food sources is you have to hunt that food source smart because they don’t want to travel far, so they’re bedding closer to those food sources. You have to get your ingress and egress routes so that they’re not winding in and walking in. They do not see you there. You have to be screened and there are little things that you have to do differently to get in there. If you keep bumping him off there, you’re going to bump him and not even know you’re bumping him, and then he’s going to disappear. You have to be smarter in how you hunt those little areas. It can be done because they have to drink still, eat, and do their thing. They can’t just disappear. I’ve always heard people like, “My buck disappeared. It’s October lull.” They did not get on a plane and go to Jamaica for a vacation for two weeks, at least not that I’ve ever been aware of. They’re there and they’re there somewhere. It’s that they don’t want to move as much, so you have to adapt to it.
Here’s a Whitetail Rendezvous tip, long-distance scout. If you know the buck’s there, you’ve got them on your trail camera, and you’re like, “Where did he go?” Get on a hillside a mile away and watch that food source early in the morning, late in the day, and low light conditions. Watch that and you’d be surprised what you’re going to see. What are your thoughts?
I 100% agree with you. Try not to put pressure on him because the more pressure you put, the more he’s going to move. They don’t like pressure, especially those older deer. Scout from a distance and then try to sneak into those areas if you’ve got good ingress and egress routes. Get in there and hunt them smartly.
The final thing on that, you got one shot. I call it a one-shot deal on that food source because if you blow him out, he’s gone.
Here’s a little tip for you that I like to do at night. I’m hunting the food source early in the year and you’ve got a concentration of does, fawns, and stuff on that field but you still got those big deer. What I like to do is take a coyote howler with me, and then as it gets dark, wait until right after dark where you can’t see, I’ll blow that coyote howler down in the woods. The woods make it sound like I’m getting closer to that field. Those deer, all of a sudden, will bust off the field thinking it’s a coyote. As soon as I see those deer get off the field, that’s when we’ll pack up, get out of that tree, and start to have a walkthrough them and bust them out of there ourselves. Let them think that it’s a coyote or something coming into that field to bust them out. Get them off the field and get out of there as fast as you can. You can come back and hunt them. If they get you as a person coming through and busting them out, you’re going to get your one-shot deal or two-shot, and they’re going to be gone, especially the older deer. If you do that as a coyote or some type of animal like that to get them busted off of there, you’ve got a better shot at it more often.
We get into the fun phase. This is phase three and this is the pre-rut phase. Here in the Midwest, I’m looking at October 25th through November 10th. This is when you can cut loose because a lot of your deer are still on a pattern. They’re going to your food sources and they’re going to different areas. They’re susceptible to being called in at this point. You can get into your long, drawn-out buck fights. Get your heavier antlers out. You can get bigger and sound like a more mature deer. This is when your mature deer fight. This is when they’re getting territorial. They’re fighting over does. They’re doing their thing. You can do that long drawn buck fight. I always laugh when I hear people say, “How long should I rattle? What should I do?” I’ve listened to people say, “Rattle for 30 seconds and blow two grunts. Rattle for a minute and blow a grunt.” I’ve never heard deer in my life do that.
I’ve heard deer where they come up and they’ll walk by each other and all of a sudden, they’ll turn around and you’ll see him. They tickle a bit, maybe crack their antlers once, and that’s it. They’ll push once and they know who’s who already and they’re done. You’d get a couple of mature deer come in there. They’ll go at it for 45 minutes straight. I’ve watched them break over the little trees and saplings, and go at it. At the same time, however, I’m sitting there and I will usually take that grunt call and I’ll hold on to it with my mouth. When that deer stops and when they push off, they usually exhale and grunt. Make it sound realistic because they’re going to grunt at the same time they’re pushing with their antlers as they exhale. If you’re trying to rattle, put the antlers down and try to grunt and do those things, it doesn’t sound realistic.
You want to sound as realistic as you can. During this time, you can do these long drawn out chain of grunts. Usually, I’ve grunted a series at this time. I’ll start out and then I’ll either snort wheeze if I see that deer, know where he’s at what he’s doing. If I don’t see him, I’ll do that challenge grunt and then I’ll get into rattling because usually, that’s what they do. They don’t just walk by each other and crack their antlers. They usually see each other. They’ll grunt or snort wheeze, and do something with each other. At that time of year, you can do the aggressive tending grunts. This is when you want to take both of these with you.
You can start with your estrus bleat and as you’re doing that, you can turn and make that sound one way or another. That’s what calls this term for. That’s why they’re flexible. You sound like you’re physically chasing her instead of grunting. Don’t ever grunt right straight at an animal. They’ll pick you out like that. You always want to sound one way or another. Start one way and go the other. Sound like you’re following that doe back and forth. The nice thing with these is because they turn like that, you don’t have to sit in a tree and have all this movement. All you have to do is move your hand, and that’s it, back and forth.
Try to get the youth and other people involved in the outdoors. Share on XLet’s get a plug for that grunt tube. Who makes it?
Knight & Hale makes this. There are a couple of different ones out there that they have. They’ve got a new Bone Collector series out that is similar to this, but instead of changing, that one is pressed down on. Each one is different. One thing that you have to do is try them all out and get used to them. If you look at the bone, you hear the sound in that and it sounds completely different. You need to work with these so that when you get excited, you don’t sound like a wounded duck. That’s not a good deal. All of a sudden, you want to go and challenge grunt it. That’s not going to work, guys.
Each one breaks over differently. That’s why each manufacturer has many different ones. Knight & Hale have 4 or 5 different grunt tubes. Some are straight grunt tubes and some have a depth chamber they built right in for snort wheezes. One of my favorites is the natural. It sounds incredible and it’s got the tube on it. The tube is adjustable and it’s made out of wood. That one blows over a little different than this does. Everyone changes a little bit. Get used to those, but use those aggressive tending grunts at this time. Get aggressive with those because this has been when those does are starting to come in and they’re starting to push them to see who’s in heat and who isn’t.
The thing is if you don’t have a lot of age structure and you have a lot of 1 and 2-year-olds on your farms or even on public land, don’t do a lot of the tending grunt. Use a lot of the easy bleats and do a lot of your estrus bleats at this time. The reason is that a lot of 3 and 4-year-olds are your breeder bucks. If they hear that tending grunt a lot, those younger bucks will end up getting scared away. There are a lot of guys who will shoot that 1 and 2-year-old. I don’t pay for your tag and I’m not paying the taxes on your land. You can shoot whatever you want to shoot. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you can’t. We look at 4, 5 and 6-year-olds on our place.
I look at 5 and 6-year-olds on my farm. It’s not my land. They can do what they want. You have to be able to play that a little bit and say, “If this all I have, the younger group or the younger population, I’m going to scare more away by using the tending grunt.” It’s strictly during this time frame. Do your long drawn out buck fights because your 1 or 2-year-olds will still fight. You’ll call in those 1 or 2-year-old, but the aggressive tending grunts and stuff don’t quite get carried away with those. If you have a good age structure, have at it because you’re going to call in a lot more of those mature bucks throughout that time frame.
This is that time frame from October 25th to November 10th, that’s snort wheeze and that’s money. You want to kill a big deer and call him big deer. When you see that deer walk across the field, most guys talk to you. The problem is they’ll say, “I grunt into that deer at this time frame.” They don’t want to do social grunt. You got to remember, we’re in an intimidation factor now. It’s all about intimidation during this time frame and that’s not intimidating. We have to figure out what is intimidating. Intimidating is a challenge grunt and a snort wheeze. If you challenge grunt him, he’s going to stop and get his attention. Let him get to that point and you snort wheeze. If you do that, more than likely that buck is not on a hot doe, he’s going to come inside out and he’s going to come hot, heavy, and fast because he doesn’t want you in his territory. He wants to know who the intruder is.
We’ve killed a lot of good bucks, 5 and 6-year-old deer. What I mean by 5 and 6-year-old deer, we take the teeth out of those deer and I send them to a place in Montana to have those teeth aged. We’re not looking at the jaw and guessing. We get the actual age of these deer so we know how old it is. I did read that there is a new place in Michigan. It’s a lot closer to me so I might be sending them to Michigan instead. That’s how we tell how old these deer are to break that down. At that time frame, that’s where snort wheeze is effective. Make sure you see where he’s at and have at it with him. What happens is after they get through that pre-rut, that real intimidation stage, they get into a big rut. This is the breeding season, lockdown, and everything else.
I don’t like this time of year, to be honest with you. What happens is that buck that I’ve had all year been looking for, he could be 3 or 5 miles away on a hot doe somewhere. I could have somebody else’s buck in there, but the one that I wanted to go after may not be there anymore or he may be almost impossible to call in because he’s locked down with a doe somewhere. This is the time frame, that 10th of November through the 20th to 25th. A lot of guys are using those social grunts or the rattling and it’s not working for them. Why? Because they’re using either a social grunt or intimidation factor and they don’t want to be intimidated. They’ve already been through that stage. Now, it’s all about jealousy. They’re like, “Who’s in our territory chasing that doe?”
What I focus on is I change things up and I want to do the estrus whines, the fawn bleats, and the tending grunts, and look at that. Especially if I see that buck chasing a doe and she won’t stop, that means she’s not ready. I got to hit that jealousy factor because they know the hours of daylight are getting short as it’s going to get and the days are numbered. Mother Nature says, “Your days are numbered. You need to get this done.” Why would I want to fight anymore? All of a sudden, Mother Nature says, “You got ten days left to make this happen.” Would I rather find the new hot doe or would I rather go over and fight somebody? I’m not going to fight somebody. I’m going to find that hot doe. That’s the way it’s going to work. That’s what these bucks and older deer are doing. If they’re chasing that doe and she’s not ready, hit him hard with those estrus whines and tending grunts. All of a sudden, he’s going to be like, “I’m jealous. Who’s the hot doe and who’s chasing her? We’ve already established dominance. I’m in this area. This is my home range. Who is that?” He wants to go kick that buck out of there.
I focus on that at this time. Try to get away from the dominance calls and from the rattling. Rattling sometimes will work if you’re physically watching buck breed a doe. When he dismounts her, sometimes rattling will work. I’ve asked a few biologists and I’ve never got a straight answer. I don’t know if it’s the shift in hormones after breeding or what’s in it that outrage again, but sometimes, that will work and that rattling works on them. I’ve had a lot better luck and more success by just going to jealousy calls than working with dominance calls throughout that whole time frame. We get into rifle season in a lot of different states. Most of does are through that jealousy factor, so they still work up until usually after the second or third day. They’ve been shot at enough to go underground and disappear for a little bit. All of a sudden, you get to the end of the year. You’ll start getting in that last phase. I call it the fifth phase. This phase is from December 5th until the end of the season, post-rut. Concentrate heavily on your food sources. As a land management guy that goes out and sets up a property, this is one thing that I like to concentrate on, having the best winter food sources available.
I’m watching these studies with the DNR and watching a lot of these deer coming into these food sources. Some of the biggest congregation of deer coming into some food sources that we had were between 5 and 7 miles from here, coming from that far in, plus keeping our deer there. This is a great time. You can shoot your neighbor’s buck and let your buck get through another year. I got some great neighbors. We always joke about that and I’m like, “Don’t worry about that. In December, I’ll shoot your deer.” We all get together and know all the deer stuff, but it might be a deer that you’ve never seen. An old mature deer from five miles away. You could shoot, let your deer get another year on it and get more mature.
What happens then is because they congregate on these food sources, you have to go back to the socialization factors that you did early in the season. All of a sudden, these mature bucks are going to start laying close. They want to get close to those food sources. They don’t want to burn that energy and they need to put all that fat back on. If you’ve got great brassicas, beans or corn, and different things in there for them to eat, this is the time of year that I like to use a decoy. I’ll take a decoy and put that out there, and then I’ll start doing my social vocalizations, my doe bleats, my social buck grunts, and my light sparring again. If you ever go and you grab game cameras late in the season like this, you pick those up and you’re like, “Why are these bucks fighting all the time?”
You’ve got a lot of these little bucks that are fighting. That’s because a lot of deer that guys shot during deer season and during rifle season got pushed out of different territories and different areas. They’re there and they go, “Who are you?” They’re trying to figure out who was who again. It’s that game all over again because you’ve got all these new deer on these food sources. To get them out there early, I like to put the decoy out there and sound like either that doe or like that young buck that’s out there, get that big deer on his feet earlier in the day and make him feel calm and curious. If there’s already a deer out there, we’re good. I can get out there and if he’s not spooked and he’s talking, I’m going to go hang out with him and do what I got to do. That phase is a good phase to get back to the basics as you would early in the season.
Art, talk about the younger deer coming into estrus.
In the seminar, I have another slide that’s a deer that was shot during that because it’s such a short time frame. It’s a short period where you look at it anywhere from 28 to 35 days, usually after that first doe was bred. If you have a good relationship with your neighbors or if you’re paying attention out there, you see or hear that first doe being bred and mark your calendars because. Usually, if she’s not bred or if the other does and the young fawns aren’t bred, 28 to 35 days later, they’ll come back into heat again. It’s a short time frame. It’s a fast and furious rut because there’s not nearly as many of them coming into estrus. When that happens, a lot of those bucks show up out of the woodwork again and start pushing them.
This usually happens during this time frame when you’re in that phase five and when your buck goes out on those big food sources. That also affects that. Usually, when I get into that first part of phase five, I will carry all my estrus calls with me, too. If I see a doe that’s in heat or if I see a buck that comes out into that food source and starts checking does again, that is telling me that there’s probably a doe somewhere in the area that’s hot. The second rut or the second estrus period has started. I’ll go back to using those estrus calls or tending grunts and do that for a couple of days. It’s short-lived that it’s hard to monitor and figure out. You’re going to use a lot of that same pre-rut strategy during that. You have to be able to pinpoint it to know when that’s going to happen.
Let me pop up a couple of photos here quick that you were kind enough to share. Have you got that one in front of you?
Yes. That is one of those secondary ruts. That deer came out and I was checking a few does where I was at. I hit an estrus bleat with that and did a tending grunt. That deer turned and walked right to me. I was set up to hunt that in a strict phase five. Knowing when those dates were, that’s what helped me kill that deer.
We got this boy.
That was November 12th or 13th. That deer was a Kansas deer. In Kansas, they’re about a week later than us. That was a pre-rut and a fun stage. I snort wheeze that deer into me. I rattled and grunted him in. At first, things didn’t happen. He got away from me. I snort wheezed, he came back to me and I ended up getting lucky and having success on him, too.
I loved that buck. I loved that deer.
That deer was different. I heard that deer tending a doe, so I went right into tending a doe, too. The whole woods went completely quiet and he challenge grunted me, so I challenge grunted him back. When I finally saw that deer and saw what he was, I snort wheeze that deer and he came in and tried to cut close to me. I was in a ground blind and tried to cut close to me that I shot that deer 5 yards off the ground.
Was that a Kansas buck?
Yeah. At least they got some good deer out there. Know your best places, practice with your vocalization, CDs or YouTube, and Google them. Basic grunts, bleats, and whines. Practice at home so you don’t sound like a wounded duck when that comes in, you’ll know how that reed breaks over and stuff. I don’t have a lot more to add to it, but thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
I’m going to give a little shout out to Whitetail Rendezvous. Art’s going to be one of our summer guest hosts. We’re going to have a little Bruce and Art show sometime depending on our schedule. He’s going to be co-hosting Whitetail Rendezvous. You can find us any place in the digital world. Type in Whitetail Rendezvous and I’m out there.
It’s fun. I appreciate it. This has been a blast.
Art, thanks.
Thank you.
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In the next episode, we’re heading up to Calgary and Alberta, Canada and we’re going to meet up with a friend of mine, Frans Diepstraten. Frans is originally from the Netherlands. He came over to Canada because he wanted more opportunities for himself. He loves to hunt and he loves to chase wild sheep, elk, moose, and anything else on four feet. He headed this way with his wife and he works in the Calgary area. More important than that, he’s a full-time hunter. He hunts 365 days a year and he’s going to talk about that extensively. What does that mean? That means he stays in shape and he keeps his gears in shape. He keeps his shooting practices.
Important Links:
- Art Herlin Outdoors
- Art Helin Outdoors – Art Helin Outdoors’ Facebook page
- Wild Reflections Photo
- Twitter – Art Helin’s Twitter page
- Instagram – Art Helin’s Instagram page
- Knight & Hale