Hunters Network offers a new and exciting web site designed for hunters of all kinds, especiall whitetail deer hunting and elk hunting.

You are invited to visit www.huntersnetwork.com soon and often.

T.R.'s Tips: Deer Calling

By T.R. Michels, Trinity Mountain Outdoors

Deer calls fall into five different categories; Alarm/Distress, Agonistic (aggressive), Maternal/Neonatal (doe/fawn), Mating and Contact. Alarm/Distress, Agonistic, and Maternal/Neonatal calls have limited use by their very nature. Contact calls are used by deer to let their presence be known and to locate other deer, they work well to attract deer at any time. Mating calls are used primarily during the rut and can be used successfully to attract deer.

Deer Lessons

By T.R. Michels, Trinity Mountain Outdoors

     I had left the house a quarter of a mile away an hour earlier and approached my stand from downwind. I climbed into the stand in the darkness, knowing the does and fawns used the brushy area next to the golden rod patch in front of me as a nighttime bedding area. I hoped I could get into the stand without the deer seeing or hearing me. With a mild west wind and my charcoal scent elimination suit on I was confident they would not smell me.

     I had been watching the buck that visited the area for several weeks, patterning his movements along the rub route I discovered in early October. I had seen him coming across the hayfield one evening but there was no place to set up for him. In early November I began to see him in the mornings on the rub route back to his bedding area. There were three different stands along the back route and I was confident I could get close to him once the rut was in full swing.

     A half hour after I got into my stand the does and fawns came out of the brush, stopping for a last bite before they returned to their daytime bedding areas. The doe with one fawn might have seen my leg shaking with the cold and stood twenty yards to my right, stamping her foot, trying to get me to give myself away. I held still and she eventually joined the other deer to feed.