Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Am I crazy? weird deer noise

B

Ben Long

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
Messages
1,399
Location
Kalispell, MT
So last night I had a mature whitetail buck tending a rub about 10 feet from my bedroom window. My wife and I could hear him grunt. Unlike anything I've heard before. The bass was so low it sounded like the woofers in one of those cars parked a few blocks away. Little grunts that you could almost feel more than hear. Which reminds me of another phenomenon. Sometimes I think I can feel elk bugles before I hear them, or before my ear/brain nerves connect. It's like you can feel the bugle coming in your sternum. This is when they are close. I'm deaf in one ear so I can't trust anything I hear. Has anyone else had a phenomenon like that? Or am I losing my marbles.
 
No Ben,your not nuts.
I hear some weird stuff coming from the weirdest sources here at night. And I have relatively good hearing for an old guy.
Felt the sternum vibration from bulls. The ones you feel on your 6 are the hard ones to take...like from a bear.
Porcipines & foxes makes some of the strangest noises at night. Badger fights will wake you for sure.
I have watched several cow elk bugle and that is a weird sound.
 
Last edited:
I get a good laugh out of how people use deer grunt calls. I would gander to say a lot of them haven't heard one grunt before. IMO they sound nothing like a call and exactly like you described it. Very deep, guttural, reverberating sound.
 
Yeah some mature bucks have such deep sounding grunts it's impossible to imitate. A lot of guys never hear that sound because it takes a mature 5+ year old deer to make it.
 
Those deep low frequency grunts can travel a long ways too.
 
dcopas78 said:
I get a good laugh out of how people use deer grunt calls. I would gander to say a lot of them haven't heard one grunt before. IMO they sound nothing like a call and exactly like you described it. Very deep, guttural, reverberating sound.
Click to expand...

OK, I'll bite. As a person who has hunted whitetails for close to 40 years (averaging 30 days in the tree per year) I may NOT be the best person with a grunt call. Then again maybe I am :) The point is do you think that a "mature" whitetail will "ONLY" respond to another mature whitetail? I have heard some young bucks that sound like teenagers. I actually believe that if the "mature" buck feels his area is being intruded... then any "intruder" whether mature or young will be challenged. I don't believe that you must sound like a "mature" buck to get a response. I am I right or am I wrong. Always willing to learn even after 40+ years.

Thanks, and good luck to all
the dog
 
Last edited:
pointingdogsrule said:
OK, I'll bite. As a person who has hunted whitetails for close to 40 years (averaging 30 days in the tree per year) I may NOT be the best person with a grunt call. Then again maybe I am :) The point is do you think that a "mature" whitetail will "ONLY" respond to another mature whitetail? I have heard some young bucks that sound like teenagers. I actually believe that if the "mature" buck feels his area is being intruded... then any "intruder" whether mature or young will be challenged. I don't believe that you must sound like a "mature" buck to get a response. I am I right or am I wrong. Always willing to learn even after 40+ years.

Thanks, and good luck to all
the dog
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood my post. I don't think you have to sound exactly like a mature buck to get it to respond. In fact, I said "they sound nothing like a call." I'm not excluding myself on this. I don't think there is a call out there I have heard that can mimic a mature buck. I may be wrong, but I haven't heard it yet. As far as getting a good laugh out of how people use calls, I'm talking about the ones that call incessantly...the TV guys style of calling...with all the motion and commotion they dramatize out. You do that around here with the pressure the deer get and your aren't filling your tag. Just my experience from 30+ years and a few deer later.
 
dcopas78 said:
I think you misunderstood my post. I don't think you have to sound exactly like a mature buck to get it to respond. In fact, I said "they sound nothing like a call." I'm not excluding myself on this. I don't think there is a call out there I have heard that can mimic a mature buck. I may be wrong, but I haven't heard it yet. As far as getting a good laugh out of how people use calls, I'm talking about the ones that call incessantly...the TV guys style of calling...with all the motion and commotion they dramatize out. You do that around here with the pressure the deer get and your aren't filling your tag. Just my experience from 30+ years and a few deer later.
Click to expand...

Agree with 100%. Don't over call. Just grunted a 9 point tonight and he just looked at me. Too small to shoot.
 
pointingdogsrule said:
Agree with 100%. Don't over call. Just grunted a 9 point tonight and he just looked at me. Too small to shoot.
Click to expand...

Nice! I screwed up on the biggest deer I ever shot at a few years back. Grunted him right in and hit a branch with my arrow I never saw. Still haunts me. Right across the top of his back, but at least a clean miss. He was the only legitimate "droptine" buck I ever shot at. Had about a 9" corkscrew drop right in front of his right ear. Very big buck. Good luck to you and yours this year dog.
 
dcopas78 said:
Nice! I screwed up on the biggest deer I ever shot at a few years back. Grunted him right in and hit a branch with my arrow I never saw. Still haunts me. Right across the top of his back, but at least a clean miss. He was the only legitimate "droptine" buck I ever shot at. Had about a 9" corkscrew drop right in front of his right ear. Very big buck. Good luck to you and yours this year dog.
Click to expand...

So... since you've been hunting almost as long as me.... Do you get the idea, as I have, that a buck will respond to a grunt only if he is in the mood and ready? I personally think that a grunt call is a 50/50 chance. I never know when they will respond... I try just in case it does work that one time. That's kind of why I tried it tonight.

good luck to all
the dog
 
Yeah it definitely seems like that to me. I've had several bucks over the years just totally ignore the call and not even acknowledge it. The big one I saw the day before I called him in. It was right by a plant I work on that I had permission to hunt. I knew he wasn't from the area. Never saw him before or had pictures. I hunted the next evening. Got in the stand at 1230, decided to hit the grunt call a few times to cover any noise I made getting in the stand, looked up and he came running directly across an open field from a couple hundred yards away. His hair was up and he was looking for a fight.
 
Stopped carrying a grunt tube a few years ago. If I want to call a buck in i snort weeze with my mouth. I have far better results.
 
Every buck is different. Some will come to any grunt, some come to a particular frequency or cadence and some won't come to anything. I agree with grunting being a 50/50 proposition which is why I don't blind grunt anymore. I pretty much have to see the buck before I make any noise so I can somewhat gauge the reaction.
 
I hunted a property for years with heavy cover and a tight buck to die ratio. The bucks were very vocal. I had one in an 8 year old regrowth chasing a doe. He grunted for over an hour with what I can only describe as a deep, guttorial, roar. He never broke cover, but I assumed he was a mature buck.
The call closest to that was the original Woods Wise that had you drag a striker across a ribbed tube. MAD makes some that are close.
Ben, at times a whitetail will make more of a tic-tic that grunt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
I need a turkey gun
2 3
Replies
48
Views
1K
bmg2506
B
Irrelevant
The coolest thing I saw on this deer hunt was a ruffed grouse.
2
Replies
28
Views
2K
FREAK
FREAK
Adamhuntingstuff
2023 Deer hunting Recap (MT, KY, IN)
Replies
9
Views
465
SFC B
SFC B
Yooper906
Wyoming Elk Hunt
Replies
7
Views
2K
tjp
T
wolfpup
A Season for the Ladies
Replies
11
Views
920
elkduds
elkduds

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
111,103
Messages
1,947,129
Members
35,028
Latest member
Sea Rover

Share this page

Back
Top