September 25, 2025 • 21 mins
Jeff Scott Shares the secrets behind calling deer into your stand. Jeff shows us, explains how and when to call, to give you more success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm excited for today's episode because we're gonna talk deer hunting.
We're also going to talk about when you want to
and do let's be calling for deer something a lot
of people are really apprehensive about trying because it does
take a certain level of skill, not necessarily how to
blow the call that certain film, but knowing when to.
Boy called Jeff Scott Woodhaven Custom Game Calls. He's going
(00:29):
to jump in with me and we're going to talk
everything to your hunting. This is one of my favorite
times of the year. I love deer hunting, I love
turkey hunting, I love duck hunting. But the fall, when
you kick off with dove season in those states and
then you get into deer season in lightful season, it
signifies more than just going out and trying to hunt
a buck or a doe would do for me. It's
(00:52):
really everything that has to do with the fall, college football,
the NFL hunting. Those brisk mornings, wake up and you
can hear that or feel that cold air hitcher lungs.
These are the times that we all live for. Jeff
Scott from wood Haven has jumped in with me on
lines and times and we've talked about different calls, because
(01:15):
that's probably one of the most intimidating things for somebody
to go out into the woods to realize what calls
exist and how they can use them in different situations.
Woodhaven started making a grunk call. How many years ago?
I think we're seven years deep now, Okay, so it's
still relatively new to the product line, because you guys
have been known for turkey calls for years.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, twenty five years now.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Most people may not know this, but deer are pretty vocal.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
They are.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
They're not as vocal as some other big species that
people know about, like elker obviously really vocal, but people
don't really associate vocal tendencies with deer.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, they typically you know, during the ruts when they
think they hear most vocalizations. But deer use these, like
I said, with those and phones, they use their low
vocalizations all the time, the bleeds and stuff like that.
So it's not something that just typically happened during those
magical two weeks in November December.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I always laugh because the first time I sat in
a deer stand, it was when they weren't really talking,
you know, I wasn't hearing a lot of bucks grunt.
I wasn't hearing a doe bleed or anything like that.
But I'll never forget sitting in the woods and hearing
a fawn let out a big old scream and I
had to sit there and try to figure out, like,
what the hell was that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Absolutely, it's kind of like the first time I heard
a bobcat in the woods. I was almost scared. At
the point I was want to go home because.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I thought, what does a bobcast sound like?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
There's noise, it's not like a woman's screaming.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right, Yeah, it's scary. It's it's kind of freaky when
you're in the wood, especially when the sun's getting ready
to come up, or if you're doing an afternoon set
and the sun's starting to go down.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Absolutely, you hear.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
These noises in the woods. Like I don't know why
I think this, but I always go back to like
Native Americans, what did they think when they were sitting
in the woods, and they were like, what the heck
is that?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It's like fight or flight. I'm not sure what hunter.
Do we go after it or away from it? Or
what do we do?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So we're going to get into some calling techniques and
different things that you should do. And really it gives
you an opportunity to save this episode of the podcast
and go back and listen to it because you can
actually learn a lot from it. So we're gonna start
out with deer season. For sure, this is a big time.
But you can misused calls. You can call too much,
(03:24):
you can call too little, and you could be doing
it at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean you're one hundred percent correct on that.
And you know, we try to educate people on the
times of when to use it. It's just back like
turkey elk duck. It's when to call and not how
to call. Because the grunk calls are pretty much fuel
proof far as you just straight air into those and
they get the sound out that you're looking for. So
you got really got to understand and be a steward
(03:48):
of the game and understand what what are these animals
thinking and what are they doing at this time.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We've talked about this before, but reading the body language
of an animal. Yes, if you don't see the buck
and you hear a buck off in the distance, how
aggressive should you be? What should you do to introduce
yourself to that animal to let him know that there's
a potential other buck over here that he's going to
try to keep his territory good.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
First thing I'll automatically is pause and kind of figure
out what's going on. Why did he make that noise?
Did I hear a lot of rustling footsteps and stuff
like he may be chasing a doe? Or did I
hear antler's crashing like he just got into a fight
with another deer. You know, all that different approaches to
how what sounds you're going to make next. So if
I heard horns clashing and stuff like he just got
(04:36):
in a fight and ran the buck off, he now
feels like he's king of the hill. So I'm going
to challenge him a little bit more aggressively to see
if I can get him to come over there for
a Now, so.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You're trying to go after the one that just got
into a fight and won the fight, Yeah, are you
less concerned about the one that lost the fight that
might be running kind of towards you?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, if he is, he's not going to be He's
not going to come in for another fight, not that day.
I don't think he's going to going to scurry on,
And you know, go to the gold Lake Royal corner
and assess the situation.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
All right, So once a fight breaks out between two bucks, yeah,
the one that wins typically becomes the dominant buck of
that area. He's already itching for a fight because it's like, Oh,
if I got through one, I got to get through too.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, because at that time of year, their testosteroneus through
the roof, just like turkeys, and that's what makes them
change their whole whole game plan. He probably was friends
with this deer all year long, up until weeks before this,
and now they're ready to kill each other.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So let's talk about this grunt tube that you have.
It's a little different than one some of the ones
that I've seen. This kind of looks like it's almost
like a It kind of looks like it has a
scope on it.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It does. Our two best selling grunt calls, the Intimidator,
which I have here in our Midwest, have the snort
wheel on top, and that's one of the deadliest calls
in the deer would especially during the rut, because that
is the ultimate challenging sound to a dominant buck.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Give everybody a taste of what a snort wheeze is.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
It's just kind of like a like a three burst
of air that you push through and just kind of
he blows it through his nose and it's just like
his ultimate aggression towards everything. And it took us a
while to design this snort weeds which will fix to
the tough our grunt called and we got like a
rectangular tube in here and even to the dimensions of
the hole coming out. So you just take a deep
breath and just go, and you really want to concentricate
(06:19):
that last push hold it out, yeah, because that's that's
the sound he's like saying that this is my final
warning before I'm coming. And usually if you do that
to him, I've washed them and their hair on their
back will stand straight up and you know then that
you've got his attention.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If you do that twice, is it okay? If you
do it three times, four times, five times, it's probably
way too many.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I typically just do it once until I get some
sort of reaction or hear him walking or something like that. Now,
if he's going away from you, you know, keep hitting
him because it could be though the wind's going whatnot,
he may not heard you. Because this this is a frequency.
It doesn't carry very far.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, volume actually matters a lot, right.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, and in this close range this is this is
hand to hand combat type stuff, you know, And then
you can hit him with the grunt on the outside.
And our intimidator here has an lexture tube on it
which is rubber and it's not plastic like you know
some other models and everything, and it doesn't make that
noise when you stretch it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Out, the accordion noise.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, absolutely, and you know you want to you know,
you can actually stretch this and and sound like a
deer running a lot of times when the grunt they're
they're trotting, and you know, it's it's an odd sound,
but people think like that comes out of a deer, Like, yeah,
all right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So because that tube can move, you can make it longer,
you can make it somewhat shorter, you can bend it up,
bend it down, whatever it is that gives you different inflection.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Absolutely, and you can kind of throw it away from
you and everything and make it make him sound like
that you're moving around too, because he's not here in
the footsteps. That's what he's listening for a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Now, how important is it with your hand on the
bottom because that's where the sound actually comes out. You
don't want to block that. Like with some duck calls,
you can block it, and that's how you move your
fingers and get all the calls going.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, what do you do with the grunt? I just
kind of hold that the rubber inflection tube halfway in
my hand and just kind of make.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
A c okay, So similar to a duck call, you
just don't squeeze at the.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
End, yeah, just for control, but you also have a
squeeze so if the deer's close, you can just lightly
hit him. Because a lot of times the deer's grunt
is so minute. That's why people say they've never heard it.
I mean, it's just very minut But a deer can
hear way better than we.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Can because they're just trying to grunt like every couple
of seconds just to alert like doze or other bucks whatever,
like I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Around, unless he's in a chase for one, and then
he's then he's pretty aggressive.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
He's just screaming, and.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That's that's a lot of times you want to intimidate
that sound. He wants to warner. He's like I got
to get in this game over here, because he's either
got one of my girls or there's one ready.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So let's say that a buck is just kind of
cruising through the woods. You're just trying to get his attention.
You've seen him, he probably hasn't seen you. You just
go really light, really short, yeah, quick bursts.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I just kind of hold it, Like I said, I'm
not trying to manipulate the inflection tube or anything like that.
I just kind of just hit him just a little
bit goo. And then if I got a visual on him,
that's that's your your way ahead of the game already.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Okay, So once you do that, you got a visual
on him, he stops and immediately looks to where that
sounds coming. Because we know how good their ears are.
You sit still, You don't do anything else.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Absolutely that his curiosity kill him from that way.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And then if he starts walking towards you.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yes, you don't do a thing, no, because it's kind
of yours to mess up from that point on, because
he's already now he's committed, and he's looking and his
eyes are going crazy. Now he's trying to look and
his nose is going up and he's trying to smell
and everything. That's when you hope you got the wind
the right direction, so he's gonna Typically he'll loop around.
He won't come straight in, just like a lot of animals,
(09:33):
deer or elk, turkey, the whole nine, they'll he'll loop
around to get the wind in his favor.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I've had some people say to me before, though, if
you do a grunk call and you're sitting in a tree,
you're fifteen twenty foot up whatever your tree stand is,
if they look right at you, obviously, don't move, don't call.
But if they look right at you, a lot of
guys think that you're dead.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
In the water. That's where you've got to be able
to be still, you know, because he doesn't realize there's
not a deer up in that tree, but something's just
abnormal because that's his living room. You know, he's he's
from there, he knows everything, and you just want to
be dead still. And a lot of times that'll that'll
if you're not moving, you're not a threat, and that's
when you can leave them. Let him turn his head.
Maybe that's that's the good thing about being a flexus tube.
(10:16):
You can turn and kind of call behind you. And
make him look past you, and that'll get him to
come on and give you the get your shooting window.
Or if you got a gun, you're a lot better
off than ham with a boat in your hand.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the general thumb, when you're calling in a buck,
you do some light grunts like that if you have
them right in your face. But on top of that,
if they look at you, stay dead still, don't move,
let him make the first decision absolutely, and then figure
out what your game plan is going to be from there. Yeah,
all right, we talked about bucks that are fighting, gotcha.
If you're trying to get the attention of a buck
(10:47):
that just want to fight, you don't want to call
in the middle of the fight.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
No, right, they're not going to hear you.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Okay, So all the clashing and all that kind of stuff.
Once they're done, when do you call?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I kind of give it like a good minute or two,
and a lot of times people don't realize how long
that is, you know, unless you're looking at the clock.
You just kind of give it a minute. Let him
calm down. He's getting his bearings back about him now,
he's looking around for the girl that he just won.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But sound also matters too, right, So if you hear
him clashing all that kind of stuff, and you hear
one start to scamper off, because usually the one that
loses isn't just gonna slowly walk off there get a bucket.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, and the main guy, the buck that just won,
is going to push that deer off. He's going to
run him for a little bit. A lot of times
he'll come right back to where he was at.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So you want the woods to kind of settle just
for a little bit, and then what kind of call
do you head on the grunt same thing that you
were doing before, or is it a little more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm geting a little more aggressive with him, and hopefully
I'm i kind of hear him walking because deer loud,
you know. And if it's if you're in the woods now,
if you're in the field, and you've obviously got a
visual on him, but if he's kind of like he's
he's feeling victorious and now he's feeling his oats, I'll
just wait and hold him just second and kind of
hit him with.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
A And you were flexing the tube out just a
little bit there, just to give kind.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Of guttural tone from that and to make him think,
all right, now there's somebody else over there that I'm
going to have to go take care of.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I've dealt with a lot of people who have been
out in tree stands and they get one of those
dope bleak cans. So it's got the hole on the
bottom and you just turn it over. I mean, it
makes a pretty fool proof but the problem with those
is really knowing when you need to bleed and what's
the reason behind the.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Bleat because typically that if it's during the ruts, she's
kind of getting away from him. It's kind of more
of a distress sound. In my opinion. You know, it's
not nothing proven factual, but every time I've seen it
there he's loving what's called a tending grunt, which just
kind of a tick, and she will bleat and kind
of run away from him.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
What's the tending grunt? Did we do that?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's just more of like the duck I feet called
the tick tick.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, let's hit that. Let's try.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Okay, it's just a little quick and as he's kind
of walking, try after and if he can't catch them
once st a stop here go and then you know,
typically they can outrun the dose that they eventually can
they just run them until they give up.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
It looks like you were kind of doing soft blows.
You weren't like really getting after it. You're not blowing
your cheeks out, You're just kind of using your chest. Yeah,
to bring the noise out with our calls, we can
built in. It's got all the volume you'll want along
with you know, get as quiet as you want. You know,
we want to make it as versatile as possible. So
that's why you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Know you're able to really lightly tap that tap that
call and get the same deep sound that you want
out of it and not have to overblow it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So when's the right time to do a dough bleed
then probably not many.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Not many. You know, if I think I'm in kind
of in the in their bedding air close to a
Bucks bedroom, I'm going to start right kind of a daylight.
Then wait fifteen to twenty minutes, you know, do it again,
kind of do a sequence, trying to paint a picture
that of what's going on there, when actually in fact
there's nothing going on. You know, and typically you've got
your sense out and all that stuff, and if you've
got a rattle bag or rattling system with you that
(14:04):
I can go into play as well.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
God, it just feels like there could be way too
much happening for especially hunters that are just getting into it,
that haven't really figured out their style yet. Because if
you have a rattle bag where you're simulating the sound
of two of them fighting, and then you have a
grunk call and you got all your sense going out,
and you can misuse your sense and have them overpowering
in too many places. And I didn't do my drag,
(14:27):
so I'm carrying the wrong way. I didn't go into
the wind the way that I should. Easiest way for
somebody to get out into the woods, in my opinion
is less is more. The first year that you go
out hunt, I wouldn't bring any calls. I wouldn't bring
anything with you. I would use your ears and just
try to really focus on what the woods is letting.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's kind of like when you fish, like, do what
the fish are telling you? Yeah, same thing in the woods.
Read the terrain, you know, read what's going on. Don't
bring excitement to a room that's not excited. Same way
with waterfowl, calling turkeys, elk and everything. You know, if
it's quiet, there's no sense in, you know, going out
there and just throwing the whole kitchen sink out of them.
When have you successfully called in a buck where you
(15:10):
were just like, damn, you didn't even know that was
going to work. It has to happen.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I'll never forget. Ten years ago, I was I was
back in Tennessee and I was bow hunting, and I
was everything was quiet. One morning and I was hunting
on the top of a ridge, and all of a sudden,
it was just like it was like a herd of
elephants running through the woods where here comes a deer
or a buck, chason, a doe, and next thing I know,
he's hauling her trail and she's running because she's not
her peak estra ship, but she's you know, omitting the pheromontent.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Is this in the middle of So this is right
at the beginning of the rider? Yeah, right, A couple
of days in.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, right at Thanksgiving for us, and you know it
probably was going on before that. Sure, they come blowing
past me, and that was the point where I'm like,
I've got to get his attention. So I let him
get past me about twenty yards and I have, I'll
keep my calls hanging close by. I used one of
the one of the tree hangers, but baying O's everything's
hanging there because when I bow, I don't want something
(16:01):
yeah in the string to hang on. So I just
reached over and this thing is hanging off one of
the hooks, and I just grab her quick and I
just go kind of like a growl.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
They do you shocked that that worked? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, he locked them down, bro, He locked them down
and just slid and turned and looked and all tension
was off her. And then his whole demeanor changed. He
come in head sideways, frank and turning it yeah, almost
like a moose. And he was looking and I didn't
say another word. Already had my bow in my hen
and he can walk and right at my stooting window
twenty six yards. Let there out of it.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
You know. I was hunting in Illinois at a buddy
of mine, Allen Brocks farm, and I was sitting in
a box blind middle of the field. I mean, this
is like the worst scenario you could possibly be in.
But this box blind is one of the old Amish blinds,
like it was built up on pilings. It's about twenty
five foot in the air, and I look out in
front of me. This is why it's so important to
(16:56):
really know your surroundings, like listen to the woods, look behind,
find you every once in a while, because you never know.
I saw a mature a point about one hundred yards
away and I'm bow hunting, and I hit him with
a little bit of a grunt, and I saw his
demeanor change. Just like he talked about. He immediately locked in.
He started walking in and had his head down Frankenstein,
(17:16):
and I'm like, I'm all pumped. I'm getting ready to
pull back. I'm six foot five, two seventy in a
box blind. It's not necessarily the most comfortable thing. But
I reach back like I'm getting ready to shoot, and
the bad thing is my elbow is about to hit
the back wall, so I can't get a full draw.
All of a sudden, I look out of my peripheral
to my right and a giant stud ten point was
(17:40):
getting ready to square up with them, and they just
started clashing, and like so I'm seeing everything right in
front of me, but I'm also trying to figure out
how am I going to get in position to get
a better draw, because I got a long draw and
I couldn't get in position, And by the time I
got into position, they heard me bump, and they stopped
the fight and looked right up at me, busted me,
(18:03):
never saw me again.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's how attentive they are this stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It's wild because you think, like in the middle of
the fight. We've seen videos, we're in the middle of
a fight, they don't care about anything that happen. No,
you could walk up to them like smack them on
the ass and they don't care. Yeah, but there are
moments where sometimes they're doing that play fight and a
lot of people don't realize that they're very much attentive
of what's happening and they're surrounding. Absolutely, you can still
have an opportunity. But the fact that he came in
(18:27):
on the grunt. Now I'm realizing he heard the grunt,
but then he looked and he saw that ten where
I didn't see the ten. So I finally I kind
of felt like I screwed myself up. But I feel
like if I didn't grunt, I don't know if that
would have happened.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I had a similar scenario that the books weren't fighting,
but you know, I go through my pre hunt checklist.
Make sure I've always drawn my bubble, make sure I've
got range of movement and all that. With turkeys, I
look around, make sure there's nothing, no blocks coming up,
like you know, creeks, fences, stuff like that. Well, my
safety harness, I did not pay attention and I had
(19:02):
done moved around and spun and stuff, and well it
got kind of turned on my shoulder. There comes in.
I go to draw, and I get locked out the
quarters of the way and the straps out of slack,
and now I'm looking like there's nowhere to go.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I mean, the checklist that I think everybody should have,
especially when you're bow hunting, it's probably the most vital
when you're bow hunting, is if you have a rangefinder.
I do this to Turkey season two. If you have
a range finder, sit down wherever you're going to be,
if you're in a stand, or if you're sitting on
the ground, and find your landmarks that you can shoot
(19:34):
with your rangefinder to know exactly where you're at. It
is that it's like the number one thing that I
see people forget to do.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I don't. I use mine in so many areas I
use mine duck and goose hunting people. That's crazy, Yes,
decoy place me that way, I know exactly where my
shots are. Great, idea forty yards and I'll start ranging
decoys or I'll put like if you're on a field
edge or something, then you've got the decoys out in
front of you. I want them started so I know
exactly how far it is because you go set it down.
(20:02):
How many times have you've been Turkey and you go
set a decoy up in the dark, like, oh, that's
thirty yards in daylight and the thing is twelve yards
in front of you.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
If people don't realize how far forty yards is, it's
only one.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Hundred and twenty feet exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And if you ask somebody to mark out one hundred
feet without going he'll to tell like, just look at something,
Just tell me where it is. We're always grossers.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
On builds to you far strange it looks. Will do
the same. If you're looking at the tree, thinking.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Enough, turn this thing is.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I did not shoot at thinking man, You then come
to find out I go to step it off, which
you're looking arrange and realize that or.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The worst you're sitting in your stand it's not even shooting.
Like here in the as you look up you see
a shadow. You locking on that shadow. Ye kin look
at that shadow.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And comes up and it comes up. It's the stump.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I've got.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You've got to be ready for that, expecting the rains
and leaks and raising objects, knowing that war. That's all
you don't you don't have time to do that.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
This pleasible. Hopefully you guys have a successful, dear season.
Let us know how it goes. You can find me
mister Spencer Graves on Instagram and Facebook
I'm excited for today's episode because we're gonna talk deer hunting.
We're also going to talk about when you want to
and do let's be calling for deer something a lot
of people are really apprehensive about trying because it does
take a certain level of skill, not necessarily how to
blow the call that certain film, but knowing when to.
Boy called Jeff Scott Woodhaven Custom Game Calls. He's going
(00:29):
to jump in with me and we're going to talk
everything to your hunting. This is one of my favorite
times of the year. I love deer hunting, I love
turkey hunting, I love duck hunting. But the fall, when
you kick off with dove season in those states and
then you get into deer season in lightful season, it
signifies more than just going out and trying to hunt
a buck or a doe would do for me. It's
(00:52):
really everything that has to do with the fall, college football,
the NFL hunting. Those brisk mornings, wake up and you
can hear that or feel that cold air hitcher lungs.
These are the times that we all live for. Jeff
Scott from wood Haven has jumped in with me on
lines and times and we've talked about different calls, because
(01:15):
that's probably one of the most intimidating things for somebody
to go out into the woods to realize what calls
exist and how they can use them in different situations.
Woodhaven started making a grunk call. How many years ago?
I think we're seven years deep now, Okay, so it's
still relatively new to the product line, because you guys
have been known for turkey calls for years.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, twenty five years now.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Most people may not know this, but deer are pretty vocal.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
They are.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
They're not as vocal as some other big species that
people know about, like elker obviously really vocal, but people
don't really associate vocal tendencies with deer.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, they typically you know, during the ruts when they
think they hear most vocalizations. But deer use these, like
I said, with those and phones, they use their low
vocalizations all the time, the bleeds and stuff like that.
So it's not something that just typically happened during those
magical two weeks in November December.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I always laugh because the first time I sat in
a deer stand, it was when they weren't really talking,
you know, I wasn't hearing a lot of bucks grunt.
I wasn't hearing a doe bleed or anything like that.
But I'll never forget sitting in the woods and hearing
a fawn let out a big old scream and I
had to sit there and try to figure out, like,
what the hell was that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Absolutely, it's kind of like the first time I heard
a bobcat in the woods. I was almost scared. At
the point I was want to go home because.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I thought, what does a bobcast sound like?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
There's noise, it's not like a woman's screaming.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right, Yeah, it's scary. It's it's kind of freaky when
you're in the wood, especially when the sun's getting ready
to come up, or if you're doing an afternoon set
and the sun's starting to go down.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Absolutely, you hear.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
These noises in the woods. Like I don't know why
I think this, but I always go back to like
Native Americans, what did they think when they were sitting
in the woods, and they were like, what the heck
is that?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It's like fight or flight. I'm not sure what hunter.
Do we go after it or away from it? Or
what do we do?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So we're going to get into some calling techniques and
different things that you should do. And really it gives
you an opportunity to save this episode of the podcast
and go back and listen to it because you can
actually learn a lot from it. So we're gonna start
out with deer season. For sure, this is a big time.
But you can misused calls. You can call too much,
(03:24):
you can call too little, and you could be doing
it at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean you're one hundred percent correct on that.
And you know, we try to educate people on the
times of when to use it. It's just back like
turkey elk duck. It's when to call and not how
to call. Because the grunk calls are pretty much fuel
proof far as you just straight air into those and
they get the sound out that you're looking for. So
you got really got to understand and be a steward
(03:48):
of the game and understand what what are these animals
thinking and what are they doing at this time.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We've talked about this before, but reading the body language
of an animal. Yes, if you don't see the buck
and you hear a buck off in the distance, how
aggressive should you be? What should you do to introduce
yourself to that animal to let him know that there's
a potential other buck over here that he's going to
try to keep his territory good.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
First thing I'll automatically is pause and kind of figure
out what's going on. Why did he make that noise?
Did I hear a lot of rustling footsteps and stuff
like he may be chasing a doe? Or did I
hear antler's crashing like he just got into a fight
with another deer. You know, all that different approaches to
how what sounds you're going to make next. So if
I heard horns clashing and stuff like he just got
(04:36):
in a fight and ran the buck off, he now
feels like he's king of the hill. So I'm going
to challenge him a little bit more aggressively to see
if I can get him to come over there for
a Now, so.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You're trying to go after the one that just got
into a fight and won the fight, Yeah, are you
less concerned about the one that lost the fight that
might be running kind of towards you?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, if he is, he's not going to be He's
not going to come in for another fight, not that day.
I don't think he's going to going to scurry on,
And you know, go to the gold Lake Royal corner
and assess the situation.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
All right, So once a fight breaks out between two bucks, yeah,
the one that wins typically becomes the dominant buck of
that area. He's already itching for a fight because it's like, Oh,
if I got through one, I got to get through too.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, because at that time of year, their testosteroneus through
the roof, just like turkeys, and that's what makes them
change their whole whole game plan. He probably was friends
with this deer all year long, up until weeks before this,
and now they're ready to kill each other.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So let's talk about this grunt tube that you have.
It's a little different than one some of the ones
that I've seen. This kind of looks like it's almost
like a It kind of looks like it has a
scope on it.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It does. Our two best selling grunt calls, the Intimidator,
which I have here in our Midwest, have the snort
wheel on top, and that's one of the deadliest calls
in the deer would especially during the rut, because that
is the ultimate challenging sound to a dominant buck.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Give everybody a taste of what a snort wheeze is.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
It's just kind of like a like a three burst
of air that you push through and just kind of
he blows it through his nose and it's just like
his ultimate aggression towards everything. And it took us a
while to design this snort weeds which will fix to
the tough our grunt called and we got like a
rectangular tube in here and even to the dimensions of
the hole coming out. So you just take a deep
breath and just go, and you really want to concentricate
(06:19):
that last push hold it out, yeah, because that's that's
the sound he's like saying that this is my final
warning before I'm coming. And usually if you do that
to him, I've washed them and their hair on their
back will stand straight up and you know then that
you've got his attention.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If you do that twice, is it okay? If you
do it three times, four times, five times, it's probably
way too many.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I typically just do it once until I get some
sort of reaction or hear him walking or something like that. Now,
if he's going away from you, you know, keep hitting
him because it could be though the wind's going whatnot,
he may not heard you. Because this this is a frequency.
It doesn't carry very far.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, volume actually matters a lot, right.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, and in this close range this is this is
hand to hand combat type stuff, you know, And then
you can hit him with the grunt on the outside.
And our intimidator here has an lexture tube on it
which is rubber and it's not plastic like you know
some other models and everything, and it doesn't make that
noise when you stretch it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Out, the accordion noise.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, absolutely, and you know you want to you know,
you can actually stretch this and and sound like a
deer running a lot of times when the grunt they're
they're trotting, and you know, it's it's an odd sound,
but people think like that comes out of a deer, Like, yeah,
all right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So because that tube can move, you can make it longer,
you can make it somewhat shorter, you can bend it up,
bend it down, whatever it is that gives you different inflection.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Absolutely, and you can kind of throw it away from
you and everything and make it make him sound like
that you're moving around too, because he's not here in
the footsteps. That's what he's listening for a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Now, how important is it with your hand on the
bottom because that's where the sound actually comes out. You
don't want to block that. Like with some duck calls,
you can block it, and that's how you move your
fingers and get all the calls going.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, what do you do with the grunt? I just
kind of hold that the rubber inflection tube halfway in
my hand and just kind of make.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
A c okay, So similar to a duck call, you
just don't squeeze at the.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
End, yeah, just for control, but you also have a
squeeze so if the deer's close, you can just lightly
hit him. Because a lot of times the deer's grunt
is so minute. That's why people say they've never heard it.
I mean, it's just very minut But a deer can
hear way better than we.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Can because they're just trying to grunt like every couple
of seconds just to alert like doze or other bucks whatever,
like I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Around, unless he's in a chase for one, and then
he's then he's pretty aggressive.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
He's just screaming, and.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That's that's a lot of times you want to intimidate
that sound. He wants to warner. He's like I got
to get in this game over here, because he's either
got one of my girls or there's one ready.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So let's say that a buck is just kind of
cruising through the woods. You're just trying to get his attention.
You've seen him, he probably hasn't seen you. You just
go really light, really short, yeah, quick bursts.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I just kind of hold it, Like I said, I'm
not trying to manipulate the inflection tube or anything like that.
I just kind of just hit him just a little
bit goo. And then if I got a visual on him,
that's that's your your way ahead of the game already.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Okay, So once you do that, you got a visual
on him, he stops and immediately looks to where that
sounds coming. Because we know how good their ears are.
You sit still, You don't do anything else.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Absolutely that his curiosity kill him from that way.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And then if he starts walking towards you.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yes, you don't do a thing, no, because it's kind
of yours to mess up from that point on, because
he's already now he's committed, and he's looking and his
eyes are going crazy. Now he's trying to look and
his nose is going up and he's trying to smell
and everything. That's when you hope you got the wind
the right direction, so he's gonna Typically he'll loop around.
He won't come straight in, just like a lot of animals,
(09:33):
deer or elk, turkey, the whole nine, they'll he'll loop
around to get the wind in his favor.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I've had some people say to me before, though, if
you do a grunk call and you're sitting in a tree,
you're fifteen twenty foot up whatever your tree stand is,
if they look right at you, obviously, don't move, don't call.
But if they look right at you, a lot of
guys think that you're dead.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
In the water. That's where you've got to be able
to be still, you know, because he doesn't realize there's
not a deer up in that tree, but something's just
abnormal because that's his living room. You know, he's he's
from there, he knows everything, and you just want to
be dead still. And a lot of times that'll that'll
if you're not moving, you're not a threat, and that's
when you can leave them. Let him turn his head.
Maybe that's that's the good thing about being a flexus tube.
(10:16):
You can turn and kind of call behind you. And
make him look past you, and that'll get him to
come on and give you the get your shooting window.
Or if you got a gun, you're a lot better
off than ham with a boat in your hand.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the general thumb, when you're calling in a buck,
you do some light grunts like that if you have
them right in your face. But on top of that,
if they look at you, stay dead still, don't move,
let him make the first decision absolutely, and then figure
out what your game plan is going to be from there. Yeah,
all right, we talked about bucks that are fighting, gotcha.
If you're trying to get the attention of a buck
(10:47):
that just want to fight, you don't want to call
in the middle of the fight.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
No, right, they're not going to hear you.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Okay, So all the clashing and all that kind of stuff.
Once they're done, when do you call?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I kind of give it like a good minute or two,
and a lot of times people don't realize how long
that is, you know, unless you're looking at the clock.
You just kind of give it a minute. Let him
calm down. He's getting his bearings back about him now,
he's looking around for the girl that he just won.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But sound also matters too, right, So if you hear
him clashing all that kind of stuff, and you hear
one start to scamper off, because usually the one that
loses isn't just gonna slowly walk off there get a bucket.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, and the main guy, the buck that just won,
is going to push that deer off. He's going to
run him for a little bit. A lot of times
he'll come right back to where he was at.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So you want the woods to kind of settle just
for a little bit, and then what kind of call
do you head on the grunt same thing that you
were doing before, or is it a little more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm geting a little more aggressive with him, and hopefully
I'm i kind of hear him walking because deer loud,
you know. And if it's if you're in the woods now,
if you're in the field, and you've obviously got a
visual on him, but if he's kind of like he's
he's feeling victorious and now he's feeling his oats, I'll
just wait and hold him just second and kind of
hit him with.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
A And you were flexing the tube out just a
little bit there, just to give kind.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Of guttural tone from that and to make him think,
all right, now there's somebody else over there that I'm
going to have to go take care of.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I've dealt with a lot of people who have been
out in tree stands and they get one of those
dope bleak cans. So it's got the hole on the
bottom and you just turn it over. I mean, it
makes a pretty fool proof but the problem with those
is really knowing when you need to bleed and what's
the reason behind the.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Bleat because typically that if it's during the ruts, she's
kind of getting away from him. It's kind of more
of a distress sound. In my opinion. You know, it's
not nothing proven factual, but every time I've seen it
there he's loving what's called a tending grunt, which just
kind of a tick, and she will bleat and kind
of run away from him.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
What's the tending grunt? Did we do that?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's just more of like the duck I feet called
the tick tick.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, let's hit that. Let's try.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Okay, it's just a little quick and as he's kind
of walking, try after and if he can't catch them
once st a stop here go and then you know,
typically they can outrun the dose that they eventually can
they just run them until they give up.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
It looks like you were kind of doing soft blows.
You weren't like really getting after it. You're not blowing
your cheeks out, You're just kind of using your chest. Yeah,
to bring the noise out with our calls, we can
built in. It's got all the volume you'll want along
with you know, get as quiet as you want. You know,
we want to make it as versatile as possible. So
that's why you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Know you're able to really lightly tap that tap that
call and get the same deep sound that you want
out of it and not have to overblow it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So when's the right time to do a dough bleed
then probably not many.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Not many. You know, if I think I'm in kind
of in the in their bedding air close to a
Bucks bedroom, I'm going to start right kind of a daylight.
Then wait fifteen to twenty minutes, you know, do it again,
kind of do a sequence, trying to paint a picture
that of what's going on there, when actually in fact
there's nothing going on. You know, and typically you've got
your sense out and all that stuff, and if you've
got a rattle bag or rattling system with you that
(14:04):
I can go into play as well.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
God, it just feels like there could be way too
much happening for especially hunters that are just getting into it,
that haven't really figured out their style yet. Because if
you have a rattle bag where you're simulating the sound
of two of them fighting, and then you have a
grunk call and you got all your sense going out,
and you can misuse your sense and have them overpowering
in too many places. And I didn't do my drag,
(14:27):
so I'm carrying the wrong way. I didn't go into
the wind the way that I should. Easiest way for
somebody to get out into the woods, in my opinion
is less is more. The first year that you go
out hunt, I wouldn't bring any calls. I wouldn't bring
anything with you. I would use your ears and just
try to really focus on what the woods is letting.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's kind of like when you fish, like, do what
the fish are telling you? Yeah, same thing in the woods.
Read the terrain, you know, read what's going on. Don't
bring excitement to a room that's not excited. Same way
with waterfowl, calling turkeys, elk and everything. You know, if
it's quiet, there's no sense in, you know, going out
there and just throwing the whole kitchen sink out of them.
When have you successfully called in a buck where you
(15:10):
were just like, damn, you didn't even know that was
going to work. It has to happen.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I'll never forget. Ten years ago, I was I was
back in Tennessee and I was bow hunting, and I
was everything was quiet. One morning and I was hunting
on the top of a ridge, and all of a sudden,
it was just like it was like a herd of
elephants running through the woods where here comes a deer
or a buck, chason, a doe, and next thing I know,
he's hauling her trail and she's running because she's not
her peak estra ship, but she's you know, omitting the pheromontent.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Is this in the middle of So this is right
at the beginning of the rider? Yeah, right, A couple
of days in.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, right at Thanksgiving for us, and you know it
probably was going on before that. Sure, they come blowing
past me, and that was the point where I'm like,
I've got to get his attention. So I let him
get past me about twenty yards and I have, I'll
keep my calls hanging close by. I used one of
the one of the tree hangers, but baying O's everything's
hanging there because when I bow, I don't want something
(16:01):
yeah in the string to hang on. So I just
reached over and this thing is hanging off one of
the hooks, and I just grab her quick and I
just go kind of like a growl.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
They do you shocked that that worked? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, he locked them down, bro, He locked them down
and just slid and turned and looked and all tension
was off her. And then his whole demeanor changed. He
come in head sideways, frank and turning it yeah, almost
like a moose. And he was looking and I didn't
say another word. Already had my bow in my hen
and he can walk and right at my stooting window
twenty six yards. Let there out of it.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
You know. I was hunting in Illinois at a buddy
of mine, Allen Brocks farm, and I was sitting in
a box blind middle of the field. I mean, this
is like the worst scenario you could possibly be in.
But this box blind is one of the old Amish blinds,
like it was built up on pilings. It's about twenty
five foot in the air, and I look out in
front of me. This is why it's so important to
(16:56):
really know your surroundings, like listen to the woods, look behind,
find you every once in a while, because you never know.
I saw a mature a point about one hundred yards
away and I'm bow hunting, and I hit him with
a little bit of a grunt, and I saw his
demeanor change. Just like he talked about. He immediately locked in.
He started walking in and had his head down Frankenstein,
(17:16):
and I'm like, I'm all pumped. I'm getting ready to
pull back. I'm six foot five, two seventy in a
box blind. It's not necessarily the most comfortable thing. But
I reach back like I'm getting ready to shoot, and
the bad thing is my elbow is about to hit
the back wall, so I can't get a full draw.
All of a sudden, I look out of my peripheral
to my right and a giant stud ten point was
(17:40):
getting ready to square up with them, and they just
started clashing, and like so I'm seeing everything right in
front of me, but I'm also trying to figure out
how am I going to get in position to get
a better draw, because I got a long draw and
I couldn't get in position, And by the time I
got into position, they heard me bump, and they stopped
the fight and looked right up at me, busted me,
(18:03):
never saw me again.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's how attentive they are this stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It's wild because you think, like in the middle of
the fight. We've seen videos, we're in the middle of
a fight, they don't care about anything that happen. No,
you could walk up to them like smack them on
the ass and they don't care. Yeah, but there are
moments where sometimes they're doing that play fight and a
lot of people don't realize that they're very much attentive
of what's happening and they're surrounding. Absolutely, you can still
have an opportunity. But the fact that he came in
(18:27):
on the grunt. Now I'm realizing he heard the grunt,
but then he looked and he saw that ten where
I didn't see the ten. So I finally I kind
of felt like I screwed myself up. But I feel
like if I didn't grunt, I don't know if that
would have happened.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I had a similar scenario that the books weren't fighting,
but you know, I go through my pre hunt checklist.
Make sure I've always drawn my bubble, make sure I've
got range of movement and all that. With turkeys, I
look around, make sure there's nothing, no blocks coming up,
like you know, creeks, fences, stuff like that. Well, my
safety harness, I did not pay attention and I had
(19:02):
done moved around and spun and stuff, and well it
got kind of turned on my shoulder. There comes in.
I go to draw, and I get locked out the
quarters of the way and the straps out of slack,
and now I'm looking like there's nowhere to go.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I mean, the checklist that I think everybody should have,
especially when you're bow hunting, it's probably the most vital
when you're bow hunting, is if you have a rangefinder.
I do this to Turkey season two. If you have
a range finder, sit down wherever you're going to be,
if you're in a stand, or if you're sitting on
the ground, and find your landmarks that you can shoot
(19:34):
with your rangefinder to know exactly where you're at. It
is that it's like the number one thing that I
see people forget to do.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I don't. I use mine in so many areas I
use mine duck and goose hunting people. That's crazy, Yes,
decoy place me that way, I know exactly where my
shots are. Great, idea forty yards and I'll start ranging
decoys or I'll put like if you're on a field
edge or something, then you've got the decoys out in
front of you. I want them started so I know
exactly how far it is because you go set it down.
(20:02):
How many times have you've been Turkey and you go
set a decoy up in the dark, like, oh, that's
thirty yards in daylight and the thing is twelve yards
in front of you.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
If people don't realize how far forty yards is, it's
only one.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Hundred and twenty feet exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And if you ask somebody to mark out one hundred
feet without going he'll to tell like, just look at something,
Just tell me where it is. We're always grossers.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
On builds to you far strange it looks. Will do
the same. If you're looking at the tree, thinking.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Enough, turn this thing is.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I did not shoot at thinking man, You then come
to find out I go to step it off, which
you're looking arrange and realize that or.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The worst you're sitting in your stand it's not even shooting.
Like here in the as you look up you see
a shadow. You locking on that shadow. Ye kin look
at that shadow.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And comes up and it comes up. It's the stump.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I've got.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You've got to be ready for that, expecting the rains
and leaks and raising objects, knowing that war. That's all
you don't you don't have time to do that.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
This pleasible. Hopefully you guys have a successful, dear season.
Let us know how it goes. You can find me
mister Spencer Graves on Instagram and Facebook
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