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Before I moved to South Texas in the 1960s, I had hunted deer in the Hill Country and some in the Pineywoods. The common belief among many was that deer could be attracted to the sound of antlers being clacked together in the Brush Country, but nowhere else.
I didn’t understand that. Maybe it had to do with the difference in populations between South Texas and the rest of the state. Nobody I knew or read about rattled north of Highway 90 or I-10.
It might have been because deer populations in South Texas were smaller then, and a doe in heat was worth fighting for. Buck deer elsewhere didn’t have to fight for affection, so the sound of antlers colliding was rare. If one doe was occupied, there would soon be another ready to breed just over the hill.
Doe hunt ing wasn’t popular back then. The Hill Country was overrun with does and was one of the first regions legalizing doe hunting. Shooing does elsewhere was rare. Restocking hadn’t increased populations in other regions, and the first record bucks weren’t killed outside South Texas until the early 1990s.
When I arrived in South Texas, I heard hunters talking about rattling antlers to attract bucks. Hunters prided rattling antlers created from deer they’d shot.
An accomplished antler rattler took an outdoor writer in San Antonio and rattled up Hill Country bucks, then publicized it. That launched a major change in deer hunting tactics.
I learned from some of the best – men like Murray Burnham, Bob Ramsey, Horace Gore, and others. I even had Ramsey attend a photo workshop I was leading on the YO Ranch to demonstrate game calling. After he had called up a coyote at daylight, Bob suggested we move to another site to rattle antlers.
Ramsey, a retired game warden, chose a fairly open area. Five or six of us formed a semicircle around him. Our vehicles were parked behind us in a plain view. Bob grounded his rattling antlers together, softly. He paused and explained what he was doing. Then he clacked them together, slightly louder. In the early morning air, the sound carried across that part of the ranch. As he paused to speak again, a ten-point whitetail buck about three years old came charging between two of my students into our semicircle. It quickly halted about eight feet in front of Bob. It looked embarrassed, turned quickly, and beat it back to cover. Everyone there left believing rattling antlers worked in the Hill Country. Hunting tactics soon changed.
I had bought a pair of Burnham Brothers composition antlers. They have called up multiple exotics and whitetails. Gary Roberson, able owner of Burnham Brothers and outdoorsman extraordinaire, told me this week they had discontinued carrying the artificial antlers. Too bad. Mine still work well.
Gary uses antlers from a buck he shot. Many hunters do, too. And he prefers rattling just before the peak of the rut -- which is now, in most places.
Try that!
