Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the Distance. This podcast is presented by
Speaker 1: Yetti Built for the Wild. If I say rattling and calling,
Speaker 1: what comes to mind? For most of you probably think
Speaker 1: tree stand rut, white tails, and rightfully so. But what
Speaker 1: if I told you it's also possible to use those
Speaker 1: same white tail tactics to call in mule deer. Right now,
Speaker 1: It's that time of year, the magical time many deer
Speaker 1: hunters have been waiting for, when big bucks start to
Speaker 1: come out of the woodwork to chase hot does states
Speaker 1: like Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, eras own in New Mexico, Utah,
Speaker 1: just to name a few, I'll have a few seasons
Speaker 1: that dip into the rut. So this week I want
Speaker 1: to share a success story of calling mule deer. While
Speaker 1: it's often overlooked, calling can be a great tactic to consider.
Speaker 1: I want to go over the best setups to call
Speaker 1: and rattle run it up Muley's. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: a deer that just taunts you? I have now. A
Speaker 1: few years back, my buddy Art had a special deer
Speaker 1: tag in Montana. He was looking for a certain size
Speaker 1: buck and they were starting to pre run. The bucks
Speaker 1: were cruising, but there's one buck hanging out down on
Speaker 1: this piece of private that was pretty close to where
Speaker 1: we could hunt, right on the border. Every day we
Speaker 1: drive up looking for a deer and see nothing as
Speaker 1: good as this buck that was just hanging out in
Speaker 1: this one spot. Now does would keep cruising around, but
Speaker 1: this buck just owned this block of turf is pretty open,
Speaker 1: and we would watch him. Is big four by four.
Speaker 1: Every time a dough would walk in, He's just like,
Speaker 1: this is my zone. These are my does. Little bucks
Speaker 1: would go over try to take a dough, he would
Speaker 1: run him off. There's one pine tree that he would
Speaker 1: sit next to. He would rake it up. All the
Speaker 1: brush around was tore up. It was just like he
Speaker 1: was living there. This was his domain and he was
Speaker 1: never going to leave, even though he was pretty close
Speaker 1: to a place that we could hunt. We kept hoping, man,
Speaker 1: maybe that buck will make a mistake and move, and
Speaker 1: just never did. Day in day out that buck was safe,
Speaker 1: or at least he thought he was safe. A few
Speaker 1: years earlier, I was guiding a guy in Montana. He
Speaker 1: actually drew the super tag, which is just like you
Speaker 1: put in for a lottery. Draw a tag and you
Speaker 1: can hunt anywhere in the state. Now, the week that
Speaker 1: he happened to be hunting was just fogged out, And
Speaker 1: when there's no visibility, hunting for mule deer is nearly impossible,
Speaker 1: especially when you're looking for a big, mature buck. We
Speaker 1: had gotten into a place and I could hear buck
Speaker 1: grunting as he was walking through the fog. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even see it. Well. I always carry a grunt tube.
Speaker 1: Later in the season, I gave him a few grunts,
Speaker 1: and that buck came in to point blank range, and
Speaker 1: that hunter shot that buck. Having that knowledge, I thought,
Speaker 1: it's open here. But what if we create a scenario
Speaker 1: where this buck can't resist where he here's the action
Speaker 1: but can't quite see it. I think we'll be able
Speaker 1: to call him off and call him to us. We
Speaker 1: go around, we get the wind right or where we're
Speaker 1: allowed to hunt, and I started throwing out a few grunts.
Speaker 1: Now he's a good distance away from us, and there's
Speaker 1: a fence in between. So for this to actually work,
Speaker 1: we have to get that buck fired up. We have
Speaker 1: to make him believe that there's some action that he
Speaker 1: absolutely cannot miss out on. But he's a long ways
Speaker 1: away too, and I'm not even sure he'll hear a grunt.
Speaker 1: I had two big meal their sheds in the back
Speaker 1: of my truck, so he said, well, I'm gonna rattle
Speaker 1: with these. Clack them together as loud as I can.
Speaker 1: Start rattling, just like he would for a white tail,
Speaker 1: making it sound like fighting action, scraping up the dirt.
Speaker 1: Give it a few minutes. Peek up over the rise
Speaker 1: and I can see the bucks bedded. His ears are
Speaker 1: at attention and he's focused our direction. Well, I know
Speaker 1: he's listening. Now, what's the next play? So I used
Speaker 1: the grunt too, just grunting sequence of maybe ten grunts,
Speaker 1: like a buck tending a dough. Do that. Now he's
Speaker 1: standing up all right. Back to the rattling. At this point,
Speaker 1: he's starting to move our direction, but hits the fence.
Speaker 1: It's like, man, there's no way we're gonna calm across
Speaker 1: that fence. And then I pull a little trick out
Speaker 1: of the old white Tailhandbook. Many of you that are
Speaker 1: white tail hunters might know the sound the snort wease.
Speaker 1: That noise gets up buck. It's like the hair on
Speaker 1: his swollen neck stands up and he starts raking the
Speaker 1: fence posts that he's standing in front of, jumps the
Speaker 1: fence and starts coming in. I can now at this
Speaker 1: point hear him grunting. We're in the open, but we've
Speaker 1: got a rise. He disappears behind the rise. I give
Speaker 1: him a few more grunts. The buck pops up, Art
Speaker 1: gets the rifle ready, and boom that buck that had
Speaker 1: been taunting us all week, that wouldn't leave. We just
Speaker 1: called him in across the open almost half a mile
Speaker 1: to where we could shoot him. Now, well, you may
Speaker 1: have thought of calling for white tails, Neil, there are
Speaker 1: more of a spot and stock game. The reason is
Speaker 1: because they live in more open country, so you kind
Speaker 1: of have to understand the deer's behavior before you know
Speaker 1: whether the calling will work or not. So what I
Speaker 1: first wanted to talk about is the times where calling
Speaker 1: might be necessary for meal deer. I think the first
Speaker 1: one is if there's just not good visibility. It could
Speaker 1: be because of whether or even just an area where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of thick cover. Another option, like the
Speaker 1: one in that story, is just where that deer's living,
Speaker 1: somewhere I can't hunt, but I can possibly call him
Speaker 1: off of private to a place where I can hunt. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of checkerboarded places to hunt across the
Speaker 1: west where there's that one boundary and that deer happens
Speaker 1: to like that one side. But maybe calling him over
Speaker 1: might be a good option to try if he's not
Speaker 1: cruising and moving as much as you'd like. Before we
Speaker 1: talk about the tactics to calling meal, dear, I just
Speaker 1: want to go over the types of calls. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're a white tail hunter, these might be familiar. If
Speaker 1: you don't know much about white tail calling, this will
Speaker 1: work with either species. So I'm just gonna break down
Speaker 1: what the sounds mean before we go into the type
Speaker 1: of illusion that I want to create with the calls.
Speaker 1: So the first one, you have your grunt to what
Speaker 1: the grunt is that's the noise that a buck makes.
Speaker 1: But there's two types of communication. So there's just your
Speaker 1: standard grunt, and this is the way that bucks get
Speaker 1: other bucks attention. It's louder, it's stronger, and there might
Speaker 1: just be a couple in succession. It's not done a lot,
Speaker 1: It's maybe done every ten minutes or so. Now, I've
Speaker 1: been really fortunate to get to hunt areas with a
Speaker 1: lot of mule deer during the rut, and I hear
Speaker 1: a lot of vocalization coming from mule deer. One that
Speaker 1: I hear all the time is earlier pre rut or
Speaker 1: when they're circling each other, a lot of successive grunts.
Speaker 1: What that generally is there a little bit softer, and
Speaker 1: it happens a lot when bucks are tending goes or
Speaker 1: when they're squaring up with each other before where they fight.
Speaker 1: These are done in rapid succession and often while moving.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of times where I've been
Speaker 1: sitting there glassing for meldering here and it's like almost
Speaker 1: every few steps is his bucks moving through. He's more
Speaker 1: trying to talk to does at that point or just communicate.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's moving with a dough or he's following a
Speaker 1: buck before they square up, so you'll hear that one more.
Speaker 1: It's more successive, and it's while they're moving. Also, that
Speaker 1: sound when it's a lot of grunts in a row
Speaker 1: might trick another buck into thinking a buck in his
Speaker 1: area has a dough that he's tending at that moment.
Speaker 1: Like I said in the story, the one that happened
Speaker 1: to get him more piste off than anything was a
Speaker 1: snort whase. Now, I don't even know if I've heard
Speaker 1: a mule dear make that noise. I have heard white
Speaker 1: tails do it. I've used it while calling white tails.
Speaker 1: But that's essentially like a very aggressive challenge call. So
Speaker 1: it's different than a grunt. It's more of a sound
Speaker 1: like a sharp, fast exhale of air, and the noise
Speaker 1: is actually making a direct challenge to another buck, and
Speaker 1: that's something that really affects more dominant bucks. A smaller
Speaker 1: buck might run away at that challenge, whereas a real
Speaker 1: dominant buck that believes he owns the area that will
Speaker 1: get him to come in. I'll just do it with
Speaker 1: my voice. It's more of a that really pisces off
Speaker 1: dominant bucks. It's that direct challenge sound that they just
Speaker 1: don't like. Now, there's also other calls that the does make.
Speaker 1: One in particular is a higher pitched, drawn out bleat
Speaker 1: made by a doing heat. So this will be an
Speaker 1: estraus bleat. Now it's really rare to actually hear that sound.
Speaker 1: I've heard it a few times. But what it does
Speaker 1: is it informs a buck that there's a dough we're
Speaker 1: fighting for in that vicinity, and this can help build
Speaker 1: the illusion that there's dear that that buck that's around
Speaker 1: needs to investigate. Now, rattling, that's the sound you're creating,
Speaker 1: a fighting sound. Rat lin can travel along ways and
Speaker 1: also makes it sound like there's bucks there. There might
Speaker 1: be something else going on, there's a reason that those
Speaker 1: bucks are fighting. When I rattle for mule here, I
Speaker 1: prefer to use a heavy set of antlers. I've tried
Speaker 1: a lot of different antlers, but that big, heavy clacking
Speaker 1: sound seems to be the best one to draw them in. Now,
Speaker 1: carrying around a big set of mule their shed antlers
Speaker 1: is not ideal when you're packing in somewhere you know
Speaker 1: might not even find the right situation to call over
Speaker 1: the course of a week, so you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to carry a set of antlers around the entire time.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I found that works well for mule here,
Speaker 1: what I do is the front shoulder. I'll use two
Speaker 1: front shoulder blades. For some reason, that noise sounds a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper and tends to work really well for
Speaker 1: calling mule. Theres so dried out front shoulder blade bones,
Speaker 1: they're easier to keep in your pack. Man. You get
Speaker 1: a mule here this year, take that front shoulder and
Speaker 1: make a roast in the crock. Pop, pull that front
Speaker 1: shoulder out, Save those front shoulder blades or you might
Speaker 1: even find them on the ground whatever while they're hiking around.
Speaker 1: Those are great replacements for big heavy meal deer anilers.
Speaker 1: For some reason that sound I found, I've called in
Speaker 1: a lot of mule there using that as opposed to
Speaker 1: carrying around shed anilers. So let's go into the setup.
Speaker 1: When will this call work? Well, let's understand mule dear behavior,
Speaker 1: the type of terrain that they live in, and why
Speaker 1: they might be susceptible to being tricked. So the first
Speaker 1: thing is mule deer think about their design compared to
Speaker 1: a white tailed deer and the habitats that they live in.
Speaker 1: So a mule there has big ears for listening, but
Speaker 1: he also uses his vision a lot, and the reason
Speaker 1: is because they tend to live in more open country,
Speaker 1: so unlike a white tailed deer that lives in thicker terrain,
Speaker 1: more timbered forests. They travel more trails consistently. A mule,
Speaker 1: there's more of a wanderer, so they use their ears
Speaker 1: and eyes for more location, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: the rut. They travel larger distances when they find other deer.
Speaker 1: A lot of times they're using their ears. They're using
Speaker 1: their eyes to locate females during the rut or during
Speaker 1: that pre rut phase. And it's that open country, so
Speaker 1: that's really good if you're calling, they can hear it
Speaker 1: from ways away, but it can also be problematic because
Speaker 1: they're going to use their eyes to try to investigate
Speaker 1: and see if what that sound that's being made while
Speaker 1: calling is actually real, or if it's a deer or
Speaker 1: other things being so visual. During archery seasons, I have
Speaker 1: successfully used mule deer decoys. Um I have Montana decoy
Speaker 1: that has worked really well in combination with the calling. However,
Speaker 1: if it's a rifle season, I strongly urge you not
Speaker 1: to be packing a decoy around. That hunt in Montana
Speaker 1: was a rifle season, was a late season November hunt.
Speaker 1: We definitely weren't gonna be popping out a mule dear
Speaker 1: dough decoy in that particular instance, But if you're in
Speaker 1: some open country, that decoy might work pretty well. I've
Speaker 1: used it down in Arizona on the over the counter
Speaker 1: archery tags late in combination with calling and decoying in
Speaker 1: and it's worked really well on desert mule deer. So
Speaker 1: that's just something to think about. But you gott under
Speaker 1: stand that that visual queue of mule deer, the calling
Speaker 1: is gonna work better in places where they can't see
Speaker 1: as far. Now, think about times you might need to
Speaker 1: use calling. Well, it's probably gonna be to draw the buck.
Speaker 1: If you're on an archery hunt, draw the buck in
Speaker 1: a little bit extra distance from wherever he's at so
Speaker 1: you can get within bow range, or draw him out
Speaker 1: of cover to somewhere that you can see him so
Speaker 1: you can shoot with a rifle. So you're gonna use
Speaker 1: it in those scenarios where it works and where the
Speaker 1: deer should be living. I rarely blind call to mule deer,
Speaker 1: but it can be done a lot of times. I'm
Speaker 1: using it to draw them in closer. So my strategy
Speaker 1: for calling mule deer just really comes from observations that
Speaker 1: I've made while watching real dear rut, and what I've
Speaker 1: noticed is there will be this what I call a
Speaker 1: buck magnet, a group of action where bucks are chasing
Speaker 1: each other, does are all intermixed, bucks are fighting, and
Speaker 1: then you'll see these other cruising deer coming in from
Speaker 1: all directions, taking the time to watch and observe that.
Speaker 1: I took mental notes and said, that's what I want
Speaker 1: to create, what I'm gonna call a buck magnet. That
Speaker 1: buck that we called off private property, we had created
Speaker 1: that exact illusion, the illusion that there's a group of
Speaker 1: deer having rutting interactions that another deer's missing out on.
Speaker 1: Now during the rut and especially the pre rut, this
Speaker 1: works because the deer cruising they're looking for does, they're
Speaker 1: moving around. More so, those audio cues of rattling antlers, grunts, estras,
Speaker 1: sounds are gonna possibly pique the interests of deer traveling
Speaker 1: and moving by. Now, if you're bow hunting, once you
Speaker 1: have the deer spotted, the key first before you start
Speaker 1: calling is to get the wind right, because you do
Speaker 1: not want to spook the deer. Once I set up
Speaker 1: my call, I want to get as close as possible
Speaker 1: but I want to be in a spot where they
Speaker 1: can't get visual idea of where I'm at until they're
Speaker 1: within range. So what I would do is call from
Speaker 1: just below a ridge to where you'd have to walk
Speaker 1: over the ridge and be in range to see what's
Speaker 1: going on, not where he can go to a ridge
Speaker 1: nearby and look into my direction. So the whole thing
Speaker 1: would be, especially if you're trying it with a bow
Speaker 1: to bring him in closer, would be to get to
Speaker 1: a point where you can call him to where he
Speaker 1: would come to look and you can get a shot.
Speaker 1: So think of natural breaks and terrain heels or stalking
Speaker 1: to a bush that's close. I have tried calling to
Speaker 1: multiple deer. I feel like single bucks are the bucks
Speaker 1: that are most susceptible to this tactic. If you have
Speaker 1: a buck that's already tending does, I don't think that
Speaker 1: i've actually successfully called that buck off of dose. So
Speaker 1: the timing has to be right. The best time would
Speaker 1: be that pre rut or even post rut, when bucks
Speaker 1: might be still cruising or moving around checking different groups
Speaker 1: of does. So the timing has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with your success on calling in a buck. Now, if
Speaker 1: you've identified a single buck you're hunting open country is
Speaker 1: a great oppertun tunity to try those calling tactics because
Speaker 1: you can cut him off. He's already looking for a
Speaker 1: group of deer. He's using his ears. Two key into
Speaker 1: that sound of potential running action. Just make sure before
Speaker 1: you start calling you're in a position to where he
Speaker 1: can't go and try to site you before coming in.
Speaker 1: So the setup is really the crux of the operation.
Speaker 1: And then using all those sounds, the rattling, the grunting
Speaker 1: like a buck's tending a dough. And if it's a
Speaker 1: dominant buck you've seen the buck, try that snort wheeze
Speaker 1: as well, because that's a really aggressive call that should
Speaker 1: get him fired up to come in. Hopefully, if you've
Speaker 1: got a late season tag, you might think about bringing
Speaker 1: some calls trying to call a mule there. If you
Speaker 1: never even thought about it before, I hope that kind
Speaker 1: of changes your thought process a little bit. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: got a late season white tail tag. Great tactics. All
Speaker 1: those tactics work with white tails as well, especially if
Speaker 1: you're stationary, because it can draw some deer in that
Speaker 1: might be cruising further away out of sight or off
Speaker 1: a trail that you happen to be hunting, so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of applications for calling. I think people often
Speaker 1: believe that mule there aren't that vocal, but that's just
Speaker 1: not my experience hunting a lot of different places for
Speaker 1: him during the rut, I found that they can be
Speaker 1: as vocal, if not more vocal, than white tail deer.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely a cool tactic to try. If you
Speaker 1: end up getting out getting some calling in, let me
Speaker 1: know how it goes. Hopefully we'll see more people with
Speaker 1: grunt tubes walking around the mule deer woods this year.
Speaker 1: Sponstock is always a great option for mule deer, but
Speaker 1: in some scenarios calling might be more effective to get
Speaker 1: that buck within range. I know we're coming up on
Speaker 1: the beginning of December, a lot of seasons are closing,
Speaker 1: but some are opening. We start looking at the Southwest
Speaker 1: and other places. Great tactic to try down there. I've
Speaker 1: used it a lot on some of those late archery
Speaker 1: hunts in Arizona, and I've even used it in New
Speaker 1: Mexico and I drew a good late season tagged down there.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of places these tactics can still
Speaker 1: be used. We got some cool stuff coming up. I
Speaker 1: think we'll do like a little Christmas special in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. If you've got any success this past season,
Speaker 1: you know it's time to start thinking about sharing that
Speaker 1: sharing that success in the form of a wild game
Speaker 1: Christmas Party. So I'll be a couple of weeks and
Speaker 1: then I'm not even sure what I'm gonna talk about
Speaker 1: next week yet, but it will be something seasonal and
Speaker 1: something good. Until then, keep rattling h