There's one number out of a rattling study that changed how I think about calling completely. I'm leading with it because it's the whole episode.

A three-year study out of South Texas rattled a hundred and seventy-one times and got a hundred and eleven buck responses. The guy doing the rattling never saw sixty-three of them. More than half the deer that came to the horns, the guy making the noise had no idea they were ever there. They came, they checked it out, and they left. That's why calling has almost no feedback loop, and why you can call for ten seasons and learn almost nothing from it.

Calling isn't a technique problem. It's a setup problem. About sixty percent of the bucks that responded were first spotted downwind. This week I go through what that study actually found, including volume, time of day, and what it doesn't tell you, because it was done on a South Texas refuge that's about as good as rattling ground gets. Your pressured Minnesota woods are a different country.

Then what to actually do up here: call at deer you can see, set up so you can see downwind, grunt before you rattle, keep your bow in your hand before you make a sound, and why less is more. Plus decoys, and why the window closes the second firearms season opens. Gun opener is the 7th, so this is the week.

HuntelligenceX: know more, hunt smarter. Free 7-day trial at huntelligencex.com

Explicit language.