Haha it's funny this should come up today.. I had been sitting in my stand all yesterday and two days previous last week wondering about the actual validity of calling and/or rattling. I am in the woods on crown land, so just about the most frustrating and difficult place to hunt, however I know that there are four bucks roaming the immediate area. I am a fairly novice hunter only having started about 4 years ago with just a few animals to my name, so always there's some doubt as to how much my "inexperience" could play into my "ineffective" grunting or rattling.
Determined to do better this year I spent a lot of time watching youtube instructionals and trying to learn some other people's opinion, or at the very least some do's & don'ts. Unfortunately, as like with my fishing tackle box, it's very easy to accumulate all sorts of different calls, thinking 'that one didn't work so I'll try another...' or 'these hunters say it's the best call so I'll try it'... so needless to say sometimes I feel like those duck hunter folk who have about a dozen calls on a lanyard around their neck lol!
I use: THE CAN (estrous doe bleat), Primos Bottleneck grunt, some other grunt tube, some other doe bleat (looks more like a duck call), Ruttin' Buck rattling sticks, and I'm seriously considering getting a Extinguisher.
Anyways so yeah, I don't profess whatsoever to "know what I'm doing" or even enough to suggest what I "think you should do", because truth be told I don't even know that what I'm doing works. I have spent a fair amount of time proper-hunting (i.e. not sitting in a truck) and scouting in the woods, so I've experienced the snort-wheeze quite a few times, but never actually hear bleats or grunts.
BUT
The whole point to this story is yesterday I sat in my stand since 1hr before sunup. And at 1 o'clock one of the bigger 4x4 WT's that I knew lived in the area finally came to investigate me/my noises. I shot at him but very VERY unfortunately missed... no blood, no sign of injury, and I don't feel that I actually hit him. Very sad for me I was really bummed out yesterday.
Anyhow,
From all my Youtube'ing, reading, listening, questioning, and observing/common sense this is kinda what I've put together:
-You're trying to paint a picture to the animals, so the calling needs to reflect this. I sometimes mix estrous calling with buck grunting and soft rattles... no idea if this is smart or dumb, ymmv
-Call every 20min for BLIND calling, the theory here is you're hoping something hears you as it travels by (if nothing else this schedule just helps to pass the time
)
-If/when something shows up the calling strategy changes completely
-Make a few groups of same noise in each 20min set
-A longer grunt (2-3seconds) is more a intimidating/dominent thing... but can definitely be used to entice a buck to come investigate
-Short blips of grunt noise are just "normal" and should be included in the sequence
-Only soft rattling and not necessary to bash the sticks together like a car accident. You need to think more of a scrubbing type noise
-I am going to experiment with using scent tactics next year
-mid-to-high pitched buck tones don't work IMHO... they need to be at least mid-semi low tone, if not for certain lower tone.. and obviously very low for a mature noise
Even though Youtube can be kinda hokey, there does seem to be some good guidance on it. I would suggest you search topics you wish to learn about and just watch lots, there are also videos of actual deer sounds on there too sometimes that could be the most insightful.
All in All I still think calling is a bit of craps shoot...but if you do it even somewhat correctly I don't think it hurts to do. Like I said above for all I know I called in that buck yesterday, even though I was sitting on a traveled game trail and I was in & around the bedding area and I was more set-up to just catch them as they went from A to B.
Good luck, try not to get discouraged, I think this hobby takes a lot of time, effort, trial & error, and a certain amount of practice to get better at. I envy the people who have had the opportunity to communicate back & forth with a game animal and maybe even trick it into doing what they want.
