Jon shares his experiences and success stories from a favored public ground, highlighting the importance of wind consistency and sight barriers for optimal calling results. Learn how to outsmart deer and increase your hunting success this fall with proven strategies and practical advice.
Transcription:
What's going on, everybody? Jake and I are out hunting one of my favorite spots here on a piece of public ground.
Here in the hills sometimes it is hard to find consistent winds. And when you do, sometimes you find these little gems that make just an awesome setup for calling and this is one of those spots.
I just wanted to take you through kind of the situation that makes it set up really nice for calling. We're basically on this point and off my right shoulder here, back to the west is a super steep drop-off. It turns into hemlocks. It drops down very steep and benches off.
Off to my left is a more gradual down into just a drainage and then goes back up. With a south wind we get a really good consistent wind that blows straight over that steep drop-off.
The nice thing with this is we can see down into this bottom so if we see a buck—I've actually called three different bucks up to this spot—they can't see what's up here. When you rattle or grunt to them, if they're in the mood, they have to come up to get to see what's making the sound, which is normal.
When you want to call, you want to try to have something in between you and the deer, so they can't just peck you and see that there's not a deer there.
But what makes this spot really special is if they want to try to get downwind with a south wind, it's pretty much physically impossible for them because of that big drop-off. Therefore, they come up the drop-off.
If they stay down there, they still can't see what's up here and it makes them come into range—and I've shot a few bucks doing that over the years. That's just something to think about during this time of the year, when calling can be really effective.
When picking a spot to call, look for these spots that the deer have to come look. You can have a consistent wind that makes it very difficult for them to get downwind of you, and if they can get downwind of you, try to position your call or picture where that deer is going to come up to where you can get a shot before he does get downwind from you.
So good luck this fall. Get those calls out, don't be afraid to use them and hopefully, it helps you kill a buck.
