Rattling no guarantee for blacktail deer

Scott Haugen rattled his first blacktail deer 31 years ago using a pair of old, bleached antlers found at his grandmother’s house.

The Oregon hunter and author of “Trophy Blacktails” says three decades later he’s still learning about rattling “the hardest animal in North America to hunt, bar none.”

Rattling involves ticking, banging and grinding antlers together, with maybe some breaking of branches and thumping on the ground added.

A mix of myth, theory and reality, the premise is when a buck hears the sound of other bucks fighting, he’ll come to try to find a doe ready to breed. A big buck presumably will come to whip lesser bucks trying to breed in his territory.

It’s a hit-or-miss technique,” Haugen said at the Western Washington Sportsmen’s Show earlier this year.

“Does it work all the time? No, it doesn’t,” he said. “That’s one of the frustrations, one of the challenges of blacktails. It’s tough because you can’t pattern them consistently.”

Blacktail behavior varies by geography, Haugen said.

“Your coastal deer act very different from your valley floor deer than your higher-elevation deer.”

The blacktail rut — the breeding period when the bucks lose some of their wariness — varies by year and by terrain, Haugen said.

“When is the blacktail rut? I think it is the most misunderstood rut of all North American big game…When does the peak of the rut begin?…I don’t know. I don’t have the answer.”

Haugen said he knows a spot in southern Oregon where the rut is on heavy in the first week of November, yet two miles away does not peak until Thanksgiving.

“There’s so much to learn, that’s why they are so much fun,” he said.

Haugen offered these general blacktail deer-hunting guidelines:

FIND THE DOES: “A lot of does are very much home bodies that live and die in a very small area. I find where they are moving, where they are bedding, where their trails are. Bucks will rarely follow the same trail as a doe, but the bucks will check these trails.”

START HIGH: “If I can, I try to work in from above. If I can hike to the ridgeline I know there is nobody down in the bottom.”

RATTLING SEQUENCE: Rattling style varies by area and date.

Haugen said he will start by tickling the antlers on the ends, creating a soft, high pitch. He will do this for 30 seconds, then sit for a few minutes and see what happens.

The next sequence might be slightly louder, and perhaps include raking the antler on the bark of a tree.

Rattling early in the season need not be long or very aggressive. Haugen said he might only be in an area 10 to 20 minutes.

“If I’m seeing does, I might stay a little longer,” he said.

Later in the season, he wants bigger sounds and will use a water bottle, chips bag or even a beer can to make sound.

“I think a lot of it is not so much the authencity of the sound you are trying to create as the emotion. That’s what I try to key on.”

By late season, the bucks are not moving as much and he might use a plastic rattle bag.

“The reason I like a rattle bag is it’s loud, it creates a crisp, clear popping sound,” he said. “I like the ones that are all plastic.”

He will start by rattling the bag to simulate a fight.

“I’ll do that for 30 to 45 seconds, then I’ll take sticks and start breaking them over my knee or start snapping them, then start raking a tree like a buck rubbing. My thinking is in the late season this is your best time to get a big buck and if I scare off a little buck I don’t really care.”

He might use a club to thump the ground.

“If you’ve ever seen a blacktail fight, a lot of time the deer will come in and watch a fight, like a schoolyard fight. And a lot of times, when a fight breaks out, other deer will stand around the periphery. The other deer will stand around and pump a front foot, pound the ground. I’ve seen that a lot.”

“I don’t know why they do that. Maybe it’s an alarm sound saying there’s a fight, come check it out, or hey there’s a fight get out of here, They seem to congregate to the sound, but I have a lot more to learn.”

Expect to botch some rattling attempts, he said.

“I make way more mistakes than good moves out there,” said Haugen.

ADAPT: A willingness to learn and adapt different hunting techniques is a key to blacktails, he said.

“Try not to pigeonhole yourself. I don’t think there’s one answer. They’re not like whitetails. Blacktail are very secretive, they live in very brushy country, they’re not near as vocal as a whitetail deer.

“You just have to learn about these critters.”