Well after having a very wet, uneventful opening day, Sunday turned out a little bit better. My Dad & I got into the woods around 6:30. We talked on the radio at 7:00 and I told him that I had just got to the tree I wanted to be in and hooked up my climber, he was in his ladder stand. I proceeded to climb up my tree, hook my fanny pack around it, put in my screw in holder and hooked up my safety belt and reload my gun. I figured I had made an awful lot of noise getting in but oh well.
In the last North American Whitetail, there was an article about how deer vocalize during the rut, I had just read it Friday night. So I took out my grunt call, hit 4 grunts, 3 doe blats, and 3 more grunts just like the article said the guy has heard actual deer make while breeding. All of the sudden I hear the leaves behind me going crazy. As it was windy out Sunday I didn't think an awful lot about it but turned around anyway. About 120 yards below me in the bowl was a sapling getting thrashed !!!!! I looked down there and saw the deer. I picked up my rifle and instantly saw the horns. Because this was directly behind me, I was holding free hand and the tree was swaying a bit. I took out my grunt tube again and hit 3 more grunts. This buck picked his head up, looked my way and came on a dead run towards me. He stopped at 65 yards quartering to me. Well the '06 barked and he went in a pile!!!!! 1 well placed neck shot took out his heart. My Dad gets on the radio and asked me if everything was alright? I said yes, I have one down, why. He said because it was 7:13 and thought something went wrong reloading my rifle when I got into the tree. 13 minutes from having my stand at the base of the tree to having this deer down, I couldn't believe it.
Turns out to be a 145lb 7 pointer.
I've never had any success that I could say was directly related to a grunt call until this past weekend. Now I'm a believer.
