early season bucks

[sbertram87]

Hi i plan to hit bow hunting hard from day one until it gets to cold out there. I would like to know if anyone has called bucks in early season (early season is mid September, to mid October)? I have done some online reading and have not found a whole lot. Please offer advice.
Thanks

[Goose]

Throughout the year deer will make social or contact grunts. Just a short uurrrppp, alot of times they will come over out of curiosity and see who the new guy is.
Taking antlers and lightly tickling them will also draw in some bucks. It is imitating sparring and again curiosity gets the best of them. Some people will even tie their antlers to a long rope and while in a tree stand just play with the rope to get some sparring sounds, with the antlers touching the ground you also get the leaves rustling that accompanies the sparring of 2 or more bucks.
 
Its a touchy game, often times you will be better off just leaving them go natural and see what they do....maybe move your stand to them instead.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
 

[PrairieShadow]

Antlers can be a good tactic in the early season, I have watched 140" plus bucks spar in september before. Nothing real agressive but certainly testing the waters.

[ranwin33]

I've had better success with bucks than does.  Deer tend to be curious creatures, so make some calls.  Most deer calls come with directions on the package, just follow those and you should be good to go. 
 
My philosophy is that a deer won't come to a call it doesn't hear, so I call frequently.  Plus if you've ever been in the woods and tried to speak to someone a little ways away, you come to realize that sound doesn't travel all that far so a deer may not even hear you even if it is in view.  Another reason to call frequently.

[DeanoZ]

Glad this topic came up.  I've heard and read many different opinions from little to no calling in the early season to full on and it can be quite confusing as to what the right approach is.  Some seem to think that calling in the early season might actually scare off deer and others as PrairieShadow indicated, experienced success with it.  I'm of the opinion that if your not seeing deer and you know they are in the area, some light calling as Goose suggested could not hurt.  The question I have is at what point do you start the more aggressive calling...before the pre-rut, during the pre-rut?

[drdaven]

I apply this rule to all days afield.

IMITATION

What I mean is, when in Rome.....

If the bucks are starting to get aggressive, you will notice it.  At least we do up here in Michigan.  I have witnessed a small six point snort wheeze at a spiker as early as the first week of archery season (starts Oct. 1st). 
Can I say that this is the same year in - year out, heck no.  But when I see this type of activity going on, you can bet I am going to start bringing the hardware to the woods to imitate them.

I seem to have good success bringing in early October bucks with a few ticks of the antlers mixed with a few tending type grunts.  When the activity starts to rev up, then so to does my aggressiveness with the calls.  Might just be for a night or two (guessing weather related),  or may just be the very beginning of the pre rut.  I don't really know, much less care.  I just see it, and try to imitate it.

[69Viking]

Great post! This will be my first year hunting the early bow season so anything I can learn is a plus. I have to agree with others from what I have observed is that deer are curious. We had a bulldozer clearing some dead trees so we could plant some pines in that area and less than 15 minutes after that bulldozer was turned off I saw 3-4 deer in the area that had just been cleared with the bulldozer in site of the deer. They took off of course when they saw me on the 4 wheeler. Based on what I have observed in my 5 years of hunting I think calling about every 15-30 minutes is about right. If you call and nothing appears in 30 minutes it's most likely that nothing hear you or you didn't peak their interest enough so call again. I can't see how it can hurt after my bulldozer experience!

[sbertram87]

Hi every one thanks for the info. ranwin33 you said "Deer tend to be curious creatures, so make some calls". What kind of calls do you mean?
Thanks

[DeanoZ]

D&DH Mag had a recent article on this, so if your talking early season, just as goose and draven suggested a few ticks of the antlers and short soft grunts...specifically the article's author recommended like 1 soft short grunt and then wait a minute between them.

[OHhunter]

I have had no luck calling to deer in the early season, it's been my expirience that they tend to be somewhat patternable the first couple weeks of archery season and your better off to hold off on the calling.  If you must call a little bit will go a long way. If your hunting the same area all fall I like to wait til the bucks are more aggressive and receptable to calling, usually towards the end of October before doing any calling. JMO but if you start out calling early and do it throughout the season the bucks, especially the mature bucks will become call shy.  For the same reason I do not call to bucks I can see that I do no intend to shoot, why take the chance of educating them, making them harder to kill in a couple years when they are shooters.