Ep. 119: Calling All Whitetails

of white tails popping out. Seems like the deer rud, at least where I'm at, it's kind of kicking off early. A lot actually a lot of red activity this year. It just seems like one of those years where the deer out and about, and I've been seeing a lot of a lot of animal movement this year. I've been actually in my little cabin here, my guide cabin, get the fire going. It's been a long day. So if i seem like I'm nodding off, just getting I'm fully

focused on this podcast. Um. But when you're guiding every day, day and day out, and then you sit down to do a podcast, You're like, Man, I'm tired. I'm gonna be getting up here in a few hours. It's PM. I will be getting up at three thirty AM, and I'll probably have this done and uploaded by about midnight. So tomorrow is going to be a grind, but I

wouldn't have it any other way. When I think about grinding out the season, you know, generally I think about because some of my favorite topics mule here, the stuff that I'm doing. But one thing that also comes to mind is big country white tails and rattling them in this time of year. It's a really really fun thing to do chase white tail box, especially if you don't have a mule your tag, or you're in an area where there's both white tails and a mule here maybe

more white tails. I know a lot of the people listening to this podcast live in different places, So this week we're gonna be talking about some white tail calling tactics, everything from setting up, how to set up, choosing that location, the calls to make, and what you need to do to bring a white tail buck into your setup. But before we do that, I want to share the story of my best mountain white tail and some of the

other action that we encountered last season. I actually think I'm at the point in the podcast where I can't remember what stories I've told. So it might be like that your grandpa that it's like, hey, remember that buck that I shot up there on Loan Tree Ridge, and you're like, yeah, Grandpa, you told me that story four times. Be like yeah, but it was a good story. Maybe that's this. But I was like thinking about white tails.

And then I remember last season last year about this time, did a podcast has probably episodes in the sixties somewhere if you missed it, about big country white tales, And I told the story of a buck that it was like a really big buck, and then he got away, and then about now, let's see, that was probably like mid October, and then about it was November thirteenth last year, I shot that buck or what I'm pretty sure was that buck, which ended up being my biggest like public

Land Mountain white tail. Um. Now, the story behind that buck is kind of funny because I was actually not trying to shoot that buck. I was trying to get my wife to shoot that buck. So you see where this story is going now. So anyways, we go, we go out and we had some clients. Uh we were elk guiding for elk, and we tagged out like one to three. We had three l hunters in camp and a couple of guys couldn't show up because uh, last year a little bit of COVID action and they caught

caught the bug. So um, we only have three guys show up out of the five, and we tagged him out pretty quick. It was like we we split up and tagged out pretty quick. So we're like, all right, sweet, that means more time to hunt for ourselves. My wife and I both had deer tags, so're like, well, let's go. Normally this time of year, we don't get a chance to go hunt for ourselves, so let's go. Let's go look for a buck. So we went out the same actually the same spot that I was on that buck,

one of the biggest deer that I didn't get. And we're set up and we we go up and there's like this little uh there's one little spot where I liked to glass room and call from. So we're glassing and we saw a really good buck and it's just the trouble is like these it's really thick and there's a few openings, and I just happened to spot this

the first year of the day. Like we're walking up this um river bottom and I look around the hill and there's this like nice buck in the opening, you know, maybe like a one twenty let's see, we'll call it eastern count nine point something like that. And uh so it's over there. I'm like trying to get my wife set up, but it just it moved off and then just didn't give us a shot and then just disappeared forever. So I'm like, all right, so we we'll go around.

Let's start calling from my my my favorite little canyon here and see if we can find I mean, it's like pretty much the same the same week ish that I encountered that year before. So we go around and I get set up. I've got like this, uh we kept this little hill and we're overlooking kind of like this river bottom, a little short, little gut. It's a

little bit more open on the other side. And then a little bit of timber in there too, and like a lot of region like regenerated pines, so maybe it was logged or burned, you know, just whatever, and the trees are growing back up, but there like small little Christmas trees, pretty thick, you can't really see them. Sort of set up rattling, and uh, some deer start coming out across the hill, but nothing, just like a couple of young bucks come through. I'm like, well, we've got time,

got a little bit time to hunt. Let's keep looking. So we go down the canyon, go up to the next spot, start calling, and on the way there, I'm like, we I see some doughs and like, okay, like keep an eye out, and sure enough, here comes as like big buck, Like that's that's our buck, that's our boy, and he he starts pushing the doughs and like sees

us and we kind of spooks. So I'm like, crap, So I lay out a couple of grunts and we hustle up the hill behind usn't super steep, pretty cliffy, and I just start I give it a few rattles and some grunts, thinking like, I don't know if those deer, Like I think we spooked one dough maybe, but I don't know if the rest of the deer knew what was going on. So they're like kind of doing their thing and they're shuffling around and this was just on

the way to my next call location. So I've got a few different places where I like to call from where I know that that sound travels real well and it's a good setup, and just getting into that calling spot spot is some deer bumped him. But the trouble is it's pretty thick in there. So we climb up the other hillside. I'm like, okay, maybe we can glass across and see him. And there's a little opening, bunch

of timber, another little opening. There's probably half a dozen deer in there, and so we climb up, like, don't see him, So you just keep climbing up the mountains see and try to get a new view, and sure enough I spot a deer and I'm like, out of the however many deer in there, the one deer I spot happens to be the big deer. That doesn't happen very often. Normally. It's like you spott a dough, you know, like I see a dough, but nothing else. So the

big buck was still in there. Sweet. So my wife's with me and we've just got the one rifle and I'm like, okay, it's it's just really thick and I'm like, okay, here's the buck. You see him. Yep, she's on him. She's sitting there waiting and like being pretty patient, and the bucks just like does not your shot. He's behind the trees. No shots are like okay, waiting, waiting, and then the buck beds down, like perfect, he's bedded. We

can move over. I think if we move over a little bit, we'll be able to get the trees lined up. And you have a perfect broadside shot on this deer. It's like sweet. So we start coming across the mountain and it's like shale and sleep steep. I mean, you're if you're thinking white tail country, this is not white tail country. This is like mountain goat country. And we just happened to find white tails here. And so we're like going through and rocks are rolling down. It's hard

to stay on and oh, mind you. She's also like three months pregnant, and so they're like all right. So we're moving across the hillside and there's this one like log like a down to tree, and we got to climb over this thing. And I'm like okay, so I crawl over and we're trying to be slow because he could see across. He's probably two hundred and eight three hundred yards something like that, close enough that if he

sees us, he's not going to stay there. So I crawled over the log and I get set up and I'm like okay, now, now crawl over and the bucks just bedded there perfect, and his head's behind a tree. I'm like okay. And so as she's crawling over, she crawls over and I'm like, okay, gets set up. She gets set up, and just as she gets set and I'm like, we've got I was like, just take your time. We've got all the time in the world. This buck's bedded.

And as soon as I say that, the buck gets up and just just goes and I'm like, no, is he gonna start chasing? Does? What's he doing? So he goes and goes into the trees. She's following him with a scope and then he goes into like this little patch and she's like I can't find it, and I'm like, he's he's just you know, I'm trying to guide her into it. And she's like, you see him, why don't

you shoot him? And I'm like, no, you shoot him, and she's like, you shoot him, and I say, and I see him, like, take one more step, and I know that he's just gonna be gone forever. There's like one last little opening and she can't find him in the trees because it's like it's pretty difficult now. It's like I just see a little piece and I'm like, he's going to this opening. You're gonna have a split second.

And she's like, you shoot him, And I said, okay, I will shoot him because I've encountered this buck before and I just didn't want him to get away this time. So I take the rifle, I line up. He's in the timber, I you know, pick my spot. He takes one more step, boom, I shoot. He runs and goes down, and I'm like sweet. So we both walked up there. She was pretty excited that I got it. I was pretty stoked that we ended up getting that buck and

didn't let him slip away into the timber one last time. Uh, that bucket evade me once. Shame on me. That buck didn't evade us twice. So that was the story of my Biggest Buck. And then the next week we went back into that same place. We're actually a similar place, and uh, I had actually did a backcountry Hunters and Anglers kind of like giveaway. The winner of that hunt shot a nice or shot his first elk on the I think it was the first day of hunt, climbed

up the mountain. We actually hiked a long ways that day and then shot a bull elk. So and he actually had a combo tag, so I was like, oh, let's go shoot him. Obviously my deer was sitting there on the right by the cabin. I was like, I had the school up, like, yeah, there's some big bucks around. You know. That's what as a guide not for. You shouldn't show everybody what you shoot on your days off. I think you're I think you're saving all the big

ones for yourself, but it's generally not the case. It's just the fact that we can walk further normally than my people, so we can hunt a little bit harder. But that aside. So anyways, um back country hunter and angler hunt and the hunter had tagged out, so we go back in there and I actually had some I couldn't find my good rattling, so I just had a little set rattling a couple of deer the first day and passed on him and the next day were like, all right, maybe we'll go back and see if we

can just shoot some meat getting whatever. Buck comes in comes in so rattling, and his deer ran in, like I mean, just hauled in, and it was so close

it's like you couldn't even throw the gun up. You'd have to shoot from the hip, and the sound of the safety clicking off spooked the buck and he ran off, like well, so you just give it a dobleat waited, probably waited about thirty minutes, and there's some does on the other side, and then yeah, it's like almost like the forgot what happened, So you give it another rattle, and sure enough that buck comes straight at us bline and Chris bulls up, makes a good shot and the

rest is history. Two bucks within the same general area on you actually calling in that one at that time figure might as will throw in some calling stories, but one of my best bucks ever, and then calling in a buck a few days later, it was pretty awesome last season action on the white Tails. When it comes to calling white tails, I guess, especially Western white tails, you first have to ask yourself why, Well, there's a couple of reasons for me. I just really enjoyed the

experience of calling in animals. It's extremely fun. If you haven't done it, you really need to of it to try, because there's nothing like it. It doesn't really matter what it is, whether you're calling elk, meal, dear. I like to call meal there as well, ducks, turkeys, whatever it is.

You get this interaction with an animal and get to witness behavior, oftentimes up pretty close you might not get to see otherwise you can kind of be a part of this animal behavior, and so calling animals, tricking animals by calling is extremely exciting, extremely fun. The other side to that is, you know, if you're used to Western white tail hunting, where you're like, okay, well I'm just gonna spot in stock them, and if you're an open country,

that works really well, but it doesn't work everywhere. One of the main reasons that I use calls for white tail hunting wherever I'm at is because one, I like to be kind of active in the calling, and to I guess this would be number three. I like to be able to pull out dear that I can't see. You can only glass what you can see. But there's a lot of country in the white tails or the mountains or wherever they live, where they're gonna be timbered up,

where they're gonna be in those brusher areas. They're gonna be traveling certain areas and you aren't gonna be able to see them. So by using those calls, you can often draw an animals that are gonna be maybe would have missed. And I find that there's areas that all glass and then I'll start calling and I'll start pulling out yours, like where the heck did that buck come from? Where the heck did these deer come from? Um, I've

I've said it before. I'm not the most patient when it comes to sitting, but the calling allows me to be active, and so I think that the first thing we're gonna do, I'm gonna go through the stages that I go through when I set up and start calling for white tails, whether it's Western white tales or whatever. A lot of these tactics you can use anywhere. We've just used these in big countries, mostly public land. There's

a lot of miles in between. So if you're a Western white tail hunter, you kind of understand that, yeah, you might be hunting public land. There's a lot of space. There's a lot of places without white tails, and so you need to cover a lot of country. So the first thing I do is I try to pinpoint a good calling location. What I'm looking for when i'm calling is I try it doesn't really matter whether you're hunting

the mountains, hunting more of a breaks type country. I mean, I've used these tactics everywhere from um I guess, like the Dakotas all the way through Montana, Wyoming River bottoms into the mountains as well, like up at six seven thousand feet even late in the season. And what I'm looking for is kind of the same everywhere. It's it's a calling location where it's got a good travel corridor. I often look for areas where okay, maybe they're they're traveling.

Oftentimes I try to find like some kind of ravine where it kind of it chokes their movements down. And then I also look for something near heavy cover, something that I can't just look into very well. That's that's good, dear habitat. Good white tail habitat. White tail habitat is fairly easily identifiable, especially if you're in somewhere that has like not great white until abbatide. If you're in the

big mountains. There's a lot of places in the Panhandle of Idaho and other places where you know it's big mountains that there's white tails around. Um, but you kind of look at and you go, well, what what part of this is white tail country? And it's often that stuff that's a little bit brushier, a little bit more cover, a little bit thicker. Maybe it's that thick region pine. Maybe it's those clear cuts and those edges where they've got that cover. They tend to be animals that like

to be near that cover. They really value that, that privacy and the cover. Now, if you're in an area that's wide open, more like planes, um, let's say it's like more breaks country, the same thing goes. It's those those bottoms of those canyons, those creek bottoms where there's cover. Yeah, they'll be up out in the open feeding and doing other things and that stuff. But once you've got that thick cover, that's where all of those doughs are gonna

be feeling safe. They're going to feel in that security zone, and then the bucks will be cruising through their finding those deer. Another another good calling location is something where let's see. I mean, one thing you wouldn't want to overlook is is looking near agg out west. We kind of give the moniker of like land carp to white tails or field carp because they end up being like

around a lot of agg there. You know, you could go hunt the mountains all day, and yet you go down in the bottom the river bottoms where there's fields an agg and all that stuff, and they're just loaded with white tails. So one thing I'd like to do is I like to pull out my my go hont maps.

I'll look for the boundary lines of places that I can get close to and hunt some of those property edges where it's like I know that they're probably maybe there's some agriculture, but here's some cover on the other side. Here's a good travel corridor that those deer might be going to. Maybe the does are flocking to that, but I can catch some when they come off and start to go to bed you know, they'll move from that

feeding area to that bedding area. Or here's a piece of public around some of that private and that's a good place to call from. It might even be something where you might attract a deer that is on some private um off to where you can shoot. I don't like, I'm not like picking spots where it's like near people's houses or anything. But maybe some agg where it's like, okay, here's some public a little bit of ways away. It's a it's a really good like travel corridor, and I

can hunt this area. It's legal for me to hunt. I've got access to it, and it's a good place to call because it draws those deer to my specific location. Now, the second thing I'm gonna look for is somewhere where I can let that sound travel. To do that, I like to get elevated. I kind of take the same approach as I would when I'm calling for ELK when

I'm calling whitetail. So if I find that river bottom, that goalie, that that good travel kind of pinch point where they're going to be moving through, I like to get elevated. And I don't do that by using a tree stand. I just use the topography. That's what we're very blessed with that out west, you've got some topography. So I like to get up higher and use my calling stands up higher, even in like if I'm in breaks country, I'll be up on top of the ridge

where I can look down. I've got a good view. If I'm in the mountains, I kind of climb up one side of the drainage whichever way the wind is going. I just get on that, you know, get the wind right, Get up on that drainage in an area where my sound will travel into that area, because if they can't hear you, they can't come to that call. Now you can drawing deer that are cruising by, So you could keep calling, keep calling, and deer moving when they're cruising.

You know, you might get a new deer that now can hear you. I like to be able to project that sound, make it like I do when I bugle. When I bugle, I want that echo to travel. I want that sound to carry because then I can draw animals in from a further distance. If I get up above some of that brush line where I've got a good view and I can make that noise, I find that it's a lot more effective calling in more animals because they can hear it from a further distance, especially

in really big country where you go. I mean, if you're hunting, you know there's places where there's really high population densities of deer. I think if you're probably from like the Midwest or eastern US, you're like, well, you might be hunting small tracts of land, but they have lots of deer on them. It's not the same when you're hunting out west. Oftentimes you might be hunting uh hundred thousand acres as you know, a very low density

of of a certain species. So those white tails will be okay, here's a few, even in areas where there's high populations of them, but they aren't the same densities that there are other places. So you're gonna have to cover a lot more country. And to cover a lot of country, I like to let that sound cover that country for me, especially because I'm hunting that thicker cover. I'm hunting those funnel areas, and I'm trying to draw those animals out to where I can see them. Now.

The third step is essentially the rattling itself. When it comes to picking antlers for rattling, I've tried a little bit everything. I've got a little set antlers. It's like it's tiny little three by three tickle. Those tickle those times tend to call in small bucks. Um, what I do now is like I use just like a bigger, heavier set of antlers. I think for the main reason

that the sound travels a little bit better. It's all about that sound, and I found that I still call in those little bucks, but I tend to call in more mature deer when I've got bigger antlers making heavier sounds. I generally start out just kind of like rattle, rattle, rattle, crash, crash, crash. Don't get super aggressive. I just kind of gradually start

getting into it or working into it. So if there's a deer, like I mean, I've I've done that, like a couple of clicks and a deer runs in from probably fifty sixty yards away that you had no clue was even there, just behind some brush that you thought, oh, I can see in this little opening. I can see here, and there's a deer in the cover pretty close by. So I always start out a little bit lighter. I've used a little bit of everything. I mean, I have

used rattling bags. I've used shoulder blades, like shoulders from de year just after I cook it up, just shoulder but actually it makes a pretty solid sound. They work really good for moose paddles to like using a moose shoulder blade to rake, or it sounds like a antler raking, and I'll throw those and so use those antlers. But I found like real antlers seem to work the best. I talked about it on the Q and A. But plastic antlers or I don't know if I talked about,

but plastic antlers. I've used those, and they tend to break when it's really cold. I've broke more of those than I know what to do with. So pick up a piece a couple of sheds and give it the rattle. Start out light, start out easy, just tickling times. And then as I as it goes on, time goes on, I get more aggressive, making louder noises. I don't I mean I think that I don't know. This is just what I do, and I found a lot of success.

But I'm also hunting really big country and I need to cover a lot of country to find what it is deer are, So I actually call quite frequently. I'll rattle probably for two or three minutes. I'll let sit for three to five minutes, and I'll rattle again. If there's deer that here. They generally come in the ones that aren't interested. I'm not interested in. So step four

is find the bucks that want to play. When you're hunting big country white tails, you have the opportunity to move around and you aren't just stuck on one particular stand one particular area. Now you can you can do the same tactic by setting up a tree standard area where getting a lot of deer movement. It's like, hey, maybe deer moving all day, You've got the patients to

sit for it. But for me, I'm just looking for those bucks that are like real aggressive and want to come into that call, want to come into that rattling, Because that's pretty much the tactic I'm gonna be using in the spots that I'm setting up. I could sit and wait, but they probably won't have a good shot or they won't be I'm not going to spend the time to figure out where their movements and patterns are.

I'm just gonna go out each day and try to find the deer that want to come into that rattle by picking the best locations for calling them in somewhere where I can get elevated, where they've got a good travel corridor, where I see that sign and I know, hey, there's deer in this area, but here I'm going to attract them to a place where I can get a

shot or get eyes on them. And so what I'm really focusing on is, you know, being essentially fairly aggressive with the calling um and using that rattling to draw those deer to my location. Now, I also mix in grunts and also a few like um dough bleats as well, so I'm mixing other deer sounds. I like to mix in that grunting. I'm pretty heavy on the grunting. I

think that that works pretty well. One thing I found, like compared to probably deer other places is mountaineer tend to be pretty vocal, uh because it's a lower density, so they're using their nose a lot. But they're also when they're getting together. When you're seeing these deer interacting with each other, they're they're grunting a lot. So I do the same thing I do the grunts. I make a lot of noise with big antlers, let that noise travel and try to find the bucks that want to

come in and want to be aggressive. So timing is a little bit of everything as well. You want it to be that time of the route where bucks are fighting for does and you can gauge that based on what you're seeing around you. And then the fifth thing is I move. If I'm not seeing what I want, then I moved to an area and keep doing stands. I kind of take that approach just like I do with l hunting. It's big country. I need to cover that country. So I'm picking the highest percentage place where

I could call in a deer. I give it some time, maybe an hour or two, and if it doesn't pan out, then I move and I moved to the next spot. And then my best spots I do at the highest productive time, so like mornings and evenings, and then I go and once I've got dear to come into an area, maybe I'll end up staying there, but until I find exactly wearing the majority of the deer moving and concentrating. Because it is such a big country, I move until

I find that. I sit down, I get up high, I do all the steps, do all the rattling, do everything, and then move. If it's not productive, I'll go to another spot. And once I find the spot where they tend to be that day, then I'm going to kind of focus in. Maybe I'll sit there all day. Maybe I'll focus in on these couple of drainages here and there. Maybe I'll space out my calling a little bit, use my eyes a little more, and be more patient. But until that point, I'm moving a lot, trying to figure

out where the animals are and try to kind of pinpoint. Okay, this is their movement pattern, this is kind of the time of day they're hitting these spots. And now that I found that spot, then I can kind of focus in and really hunt it and be super effective that way. I hope that inspires a few people to grab a couple of shed antlers and head out into the mountains. I think that you'll find a lot of success. If

you haven't called before, definitely give it a try. You know, western white tail hunting, I think it's overshadowed a lot by elk and mule deer, and and I obviously understand why sometimes when you've got these other species that you grow up hunting, and you're just like, that's why people head out west is to chase elk, to chase mule there to chase wronghorn, because there's white tails everywhere else. I think that because the white tail hunting gets overlooked

in in a lot of Western states. It's probably some of the best kept secret. There is some great white tail hunting around, especially when it comes to public land white tails. I mean, I would say that probably Western states have the best opportunity for some good public land bucks. That then probably a lot of places on the east eastern half of the US. So just something to think about.

I think next week we're gonna start diving back into some elk and some other you know, just more western, more western topics, but cannot disregard the white tail tactics. So I'm sure a lot of you will be headed out a lot of white tail tags because man wait, tail tags are fairly easy to come by, their general units for in a lot of states, there's leftover tags for some of that kind of stuff if you're traveling out of state, because it is the one species that

probably gets a little bit overlooked. So it's just something to think about. If you're coming out west, you know, maybe a western white tail hunt might be the first step in your journey because it's something that you're familiar with, but also you're you're hunting it in a completely new way. So there's something that are the same and a lot of things that are different. But it gets that kind

of big country experience under your belt. So when you do draw a meal of your tag or and elk tag or or have that opportunity, you've got a little bit of experience as well. So just something to think about. But I hope you enjoy it. Um, keep me posted, man, I've been getting a ton of great photos, so much success, some great stories of people, um, you know, listening to this podcast finding some value in it and being successful. A lot of people that have hunted elk for many

years and say, oh, check out this bowl. You know, this is this tactic or whatever. I've been enjoying checking that out. When I get a little bit of service throughout the day or I come back at night. I've got this sweet satellite internet now, so I can actually like kind of stay in touch when i'm not um, when it's like dark and I'm back at the cabin. So keep sending those photos and all that stuff. I really enjoy it. Until next week. I'm just gonna say, rat along, right along, man, Rat along,