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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance.
Welcome back everyone. It is November and for most places the deer rut is starting to kick off pretty good. I've been out pretty much every day doing a lot of elk guiding but during it I've been seeing lots of mule deer cruising, lots of white tails popping out. Seems like the deer rut, at least where I'm at, is kind of kicking off early. A lot actually, a lot of rut activity this year.
Just seems like one of those years where the deer are out and about and been seeing a lot of, a lot of animal movement this year. Been actually in my little cabin here, my guide cabin, got the fire going, been a long day. So if I seem like I'm nodding off, just kidding. I'm fully focused on this podcast. But when you're guiding every day, day in, day out, and then you sit down to do a podcast, you're like, man, I'm tired. I'm going to be getting up here in a few hours and,
It's 9.30 p.m. I will be getting up at 3.30 a.m. and I'll probably have this done and uploaded by about midnight. So tomorrow's going to be a grind, but wouldn't have it any other way. When I think about grinding out the season, you know, generally I think about
Some of my favorite topics, mule deer, elk, the stuff that I'm doing. But one thing that also comes to mind is big country white tails and rattling them in. This time of year, it's a really, really fun thing to do. Chase white tail bucks, especially if you don't have a mule deer tag or you're in an area where there's both white tails and mule deer, maybe more white tails. I know a lot of the people listening to this podcast live in different places. So this week, we're going to be talking about some white tail calling tactics. Everything from setting up...
how to set up, choosing that location, the calls to make, and what you need to do to bring a whitetail buck into your setup. But before we do that, I want to share the story of my best mountain whitetail and some of the other action that we encountered last season. I actually think I'm at the point in the podcast where I can't remember what stories I've told. So it might be like that, your grandpa that's like, Hey, remember that buck that I shot up there on Lone Tree Ridge?
And you're like, yeah, grandpa, you told me that story 400 times. Be like, yeah, but it was a good story. Maybe that's this. But I was like thinking about whitetails. And then I remembered last season, last year, about this time, did a podcast. That was probably episodes in the 60s somewhere, if you missed it, about big country whitetails. And I told the story of a buck that was like a really big buck. And then he got away. And then about...
Now let's see, that was probably like mid-October. And then about, it was November 13th last year, I shot that buck or what I'm pretty sure was that buck, which ended up being my biggest like public land mountain white tail. Now the story behind that buck is kind of funny because I was actually not trying to shoot that buck. I was trying to get my wife to shoot that buck. So you see where this story is going. Now,
So anyways, we go out, we had some clients, we were elk guiding for elk and we tagged out like one, two, three. We had three elk hunters in camp and a couple of guys couldn't show up because last year, a little bit of COVID action and they caught the bug. So we only have three guys show up out of the five.
And we tagged him out pretty quick. It was like we split up and tagged out pretty quick. So we're like, all right, sweet. That means more time to hunt for ourselves. My wife and I both had deer tags. So we're like, well, let's go. Normally this time of year, we don't get a chance to go hunt for ourselves. So let's go look for a buck. So we went out, actually same spot that I was on that buck, one of the biggest deer that I didn't get.
and we're set up and we, we go up and there's like this little, uh, this one little spot where I like to glass from and call from. And so we're glassing and we saw a really good buck. And it's just, the trouble is like these, it's really thick and there's a few openings. And we, I just happened to spot this the first year of the day. Like we were walking up this, um, river bottom and I look over on the hill and there's this like nice buck in the opening, you know, maybe like a one 20. Let's see. We'll call it a Eastern count, uh,
nine point, something like that. And, uh, so it's over there. I'm like trying to get my wife set up, but it just, it moved off and then just didn't give us a shot. And then just disappeared forever. So I'm like, all right, sweet. We'll go around and start calling from my, my, my favorite little Canyon here. See if we can find, I mean, it's like pretty much the same, the same week ish that I encountered that deer before. So we go around, um,
And I get set up. I've got like this, we hike up this little hill and we're overlooking kind of like this river bottom, little short, little gut. It's a little bit more open on the other side and then a little bit of timber in there too. And like a lot of regen, like regenerated pines. So maybe it was logged or burned, you know, just whatever.
whatever. And the trees are growing back up, but they're like small little Christmas trees, pretty thick. Can't really see them. So we're set up rattling and some deer start coming out across the hill. Sweet. But nothing, just like a couple of young bucks come through. I'm like, well, we've got time, got a little bit of time to hunt. Let's keep looking. So we go down the canyon, go up to the next spot, start calling. And on the way there,
I'm like, we, I see some does. I'm like, oh, keep an eye out. And sure enough, here comes this like big buck. I'm like, that's, that's our buck. That's our boy. And he, he starts pushing the does and like sees us and we kind of spook. So crap. So I lay out a couple of grunts and we, we hustle up the hill behind us and it's super steep, pretty cliffy. And I just start, I give it a few rattles.
And some grunts thinking like, I don't know if those deer, like, I think we spooked one doe maybe, but I don't know if the rest of the deer knew what was going on.
So they're like kind of doing their thing and they're shuffling around. And this was just on the way to my next call location. So I've got a few different places where I like to call from, where I know that that sound travels real well and it's a good setup. And just getting into that calling spot, spotted some deer, bumped them. But the trouble is it's pretty thick in there. So we climb up the other hillside. I'm like, okay, maybe we can glass across and see them. And there's a little opening, bunch of timber,
little opening. There's probably half a dozen deer in there. And so we, we climb up and like, don't see him. So we just keep climbing up the mountain and see, and try to get a new view. And sure enough, I spot a deer and I'm like out of the, however many deer were in there, the one deer I spot happens to be the big deer. That doesn't happen very often. Normally it's like you spot a doe and you're like, Oh, I see a doe, but nothing else. So the big buck was still in there. So I'm like, all right, sweet. So my wife's with me and we've just got the one rifle. And I'm,
I'm like, okay, it's just really thick. And I'm like, okay, here's the buck. You see him. Yep. She's on him. She's sitting there waiting and like being pretty patient. And the bucks just like, does not give her a shot. He's behind the trees, uh,
No shots. They're like, okay, waiting, waiting. And then the buck beds down. I'm like, perfect. He's bedded. We can move over. I think if we move over a little bit, we'll be able to get the trees lined up and you'll have a perfect broadside shot on this deer. It's like sweet. So we start coming across the mountain and it's like shale and sleep steep. I mean, you're, if you're thinking of whitetail country, this is not whitetail country. This is like mountain goat country. And we just happened to find whitetails here. Um,
And so we're like going through and rocks are rolling down. It's like hard to stay on. And oh, mind you, she's also like three months pregnant. And so we're like, all right, so we're moving across the hillside and there's this one like log, like a downed tree and we got to climb over this thing. And I'm like, okay. So I crawl over and we're trying to be slow because he could see across. He's probably 280, 300 yards, something like that.
close enough that if he sees us, he's not going to stay there. So I crawl over the log and I get set up and I'm like, okay, now, now crawl over and the buck's just bedded there. Perfect. And his head's behind a tree. I'm like, okay. And so as she's crawling over, she crawls over and I'm like, okay, get set up. She gets set up.
And just as she gets set up, I'm like, we've got, I was like, just take your time. We've got all the time in the world. This buck's bedded. And as soon as I say that the buck gets up and just, just goes, I'm like, no, is he going to start chasing does what's he doing? So he goes and goes into the trees. She's following him with a scope. And then he goes into like this little patch. She's like, I can't find it. And I'm like, he's, he's just, you know, I'm trying to guide her into it. And she's like, you see him. Why don't you shoot him? And I'm like, no, you shoot him. And she's like,
You shoot him. And I say, and I see him like take one more step. And I know that he's just going to be gone forever. There's like one last little opening and she can't find him in the trees. Cause it's like, it's pretty difficult now. It's like, I just see a little piece and I'm like, he's going to this opening and
You're going to have a split second. And she's like, you shoot him. And I said, okay, I will shoot him because I've encountered this buck before and I just didn't want him to get away this time. So I take the rifle. I line up. He's in the timber. I, you know, pick my spot. He takes one more step. Boom. I shoot.
He runs and goes down and I'm like, sweet. So we both walk up there. She was pretty excited that I got it. I was pretty stoked that we ended up getting that buck and didn't let him slip away into the timber one last time. That buck had evaded me once. Shame on me. That buck didn't evade us twice. So that was the story of my biggest buck. Then the next week we went back into that same place or actually a similar place.
And I had, I actually did a backcountry hunters and anglers kind of like giveaway. The winner of that hunt shot a nice or shot his first elk on the, I think it was the first day of the hunt. Climbed up the mountain. We actually hiked a long ways that day and then shot a bull elk and
So, and he actually had a combo tag. So I was like, oh, let's go shoot him. Well, obviously my deer was sitting there on the, uh, right by the cabin. I was like, had the skull out. I was like, yeah, there's some big bucks around, you know, that's what, uh, as a guide now for you shouldn't show everybody what you shoot on your days off. I think you're, I think you're, uh, saving all the big ones for yourself. But,
But it's generally not the case. It's just the fact that we can walk further normally than most people. So we can hunt a little bit harder. But that aside. So anyways, backcountry hunter and angler hunt. And the hunter had tagged out. So we go back in there. And I actually had some – I couldn't find my good rattling antlers. So I just had a little set.
rattle in a couple deer the first day and passed on them and the next day we're like all right maybe we'll go back and see if we can just shoot some meat get a whatever buck comes in comes in so rattling and his deer ran in like i mean just hauled in and it was so close it's like you couldn't even throw the gun up you'd have to shoot from the hip and the sound of the safety clicking off spooked the buck and he ran off like well so he just gave it a dope leap
waited, probably waited about 30 minutes. And there's some does on the other side. And then it's like, almost like the buck forgot what happened. So you give it another rattle. And sure enough, that buck comes straight at us, beeline and, uh, Chris pulls up and makes a good shot. And, uh,
rest is history two bucks within the same general area on uh you actually calling in that one that time figure might as well throw in some calling stories but one of my best bucks ever and then calling in a buck a few days later it was a pretty awesome last season action on the white tails when it comes
to calling whitetails, I guess, especially Western whitetails, you first have to ask yourself why? Well, there's a couple of reasons. For me, I just really enjoy the experience of calling in animals. It's extremely fun. If you haven't done it, you really need to give it a try because there's nothing like it.
Doesn't really matter what it is, whether you're calling elk, mule deer, I like to call mule deer as well, ducks, turkeys, whatever it is, you get this interaction with an animal and get to witness behavior, oftentimes up pretty close, that you might not get to see otherwise. You get to kind of be a part of this animal behavior. And so calling animals, tricking animals by calling is extremely exciting, extremely fun. The other side to that is,
If you're used to Western whitetail hunting where you're like, okay, well, I'm just going to spot and stalk them. And if you're in open country, that works really well, but it doesn't work everywhere. One of the main reasons that I use calls for whitetail hunting wherever I'm at is because one, I like to be kind of active in the calling and two, I guess this would be number three,
I like to be able to pull out deer that I can't see. You can only glass what you can see, but there's a lot of country in the Whitetail Woods or in the mountains or wherever they live where they're going to be timbered up, where they're going to be in those brushier areas. They're going to be traveling certain areas and you aren't going to be able to see them. So by using those calls, you can often draw in animals that are going to be, maybe you would have missed. And I find that
But there's areas that I'll glass and then I'll start calling and I'll start pulling out deer's like, where the heck did that buck come from? Where the heck did these deer come from?
I've said it before, I'm not the most patient when it comes to sitting, but the calling allows me to be active. And so I think that the first thing we're going to do, I'm going to go through the stages that I go through when I set up and start calling for whitetails, whether it's Western whitetails or whatever. A lot of these tactics you can use anywhere. We've just used these in big countries, mostly public land. There's a lot of miles in between. So if you're a Western whitetail hunter, you kind of understand that
You might be hunting public land. There's a lot of space. There's a lot of places without whitetails. And so you need to cover a lot of country. So the first thing I do is I try to pinpoint a good calling location. What I'm looking for when I'm calling is I try, it doesn't really matter whether you're hunting the mountains, hunting more of a breaks type country. I mean, I've used these tactics everywhere from
I guess like the Dakotas all the way through Montana, Wyoming river bottoms into the mountains as well, like up at six, 7,000 feet, even late in the season. And what I'm looking for is kind of the same everywhere. It's, it's a calling location where it's got a good travel corridor. I often look for areas where, okay, maybe they're, they're traveling, um,
Oftentimes I try to find like some kind of ravine where it kind of chokes their movements down. And then I also look for something near heavy cover, something that I can't just look into very well. That's good deer habitat, good whitetail habitat. Whitetail habitat is fairly easily identifiable, especially if you're in somewhere that has like not great whitetail habitat. If you're in the big mountains, there's a lot of places in the panhandle of Idaho and other places where, you know, it's big mountains. There's whitetails around everywhere.
But you kind of look at it and you go, well, what part of this is whitetail country? And it's often that stuff that's a little bit brushier, a little bit more cover, a little bit thicker. Maybe it's that thick regen pine. Maybe it's those clear cuts and those edges where they've got that cover. They tend to be animals that like to be near that cover. They really value that privacy in the cover.
Now, if you're in an area that's wide open, more like plains, let's say it's like more breaks country, the same thing goes. It's those bottoms of those canyons, those creek bottoms where there's cover. Yeah, they'll be up out in the open feeding and doing other things and that stuff. But once you've got that thick cover, that's where all of those does are going to be feeling safe. They're going to feel in that security zone. And then the bucks will be cruising through there, finding those deer.
Another good calling location is something where, let's see, I mean, one thing you wouldn't want to overlook is looking near ag. I mean, out west, we kind of give the moniker of like land carp to whitetails or field carp because they end up being like around a lot of ag. You could go hunt the mountains all day and yet you go down in the bottom, the river bottoms where there's fields and ag and all that stuff and they're just loaded with whitetails.
So one thing I like to do is I like to pull out my, my go hunt maps. I'll look for the boundary lines of places that I can get close to and hunt some of those property edges where it's like,
I know that they're probably, maybe there's some agriculture, but here's some cover on the other side. Here's a good travel corridor that those deer might be going to. Maybe the does are flocking to that, but I can catch some when they come off and start to go to bed. You know, they'll move from that feeding area to that bedding area. Oh, here's a piece of public around some of that private. And that's a good place to call from. It might even be something where you might attract a deer that is on some private area.
off to where you can shoot. I don't like, I'm not like picking spots where it's like near people's houses or anything, but maybe some ag where it's like, okay, here's some public, a little bit of a ways away. It's a, it's a really good like travel corridor and I can hunt this area. It's legal for me to hunt. I've got access to it. And it's a good place to call because it draws those deer to my specific location.
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It's somewhere where I can let that sound travel. To do that, I like to get elevated. I kind of take the same approach as I would when I'm calling for elk.
when I'm calling whitetails. So if I find that river bottom, that goalie, that good travel kind of pinch point where they're going to be moving through, I like to get elevated. And I don't do that by using a tree stand. I just use the topography. That's what we're, we're very blessed with that out West. You've got some topography. So I like to get up higher and use my calling stands up higher. Even in like, if I'm in breaks country, I'll be up on the top of the ridge where I can look down. I've got a good view. If I'm in the mountains, I kind of climb up one side of the drainage and
whichever way the wind's going, I just get on that, you know, get the wind right, get up on that drainage and an area where my sound will travel into that area. Because if they can't hear you, they can't come to that call. Now you can draw in deer that are cruising by. So you could keep calling, keep calling and deer moving when they're cruising.
You know, you might get a new deer that now can hear you. I like to be able to project that sound, make it like I do when I bugle. When I bugle, I want that echo to travel. I want that sound to carry because then I can draw animals in from a further distance. If I get up above some of that brush line where I've got a good view and I can make that noise, I find that it's a lot more effective calling in.
more animals because they can hear it from a further distance, especially in really big country where you go. I mean, if you're hunting, you know, there's places where there's really high population densities of deer. I think if you're probably from like the Midwest or Eastern U S you're like, well,
You might be hunting small tracks of land, but they have lots of deer on them. It's not the same when you're hunting out West. Oftentimes you might be hunting a hundred thousand acres that has, you know, a very low density of, of a certain species. So those white tails will be okay. Here's a few, uh,
Even in areas where there's high populations of them, but they aren't the same densities that there are other places So you're gonna have to cover a lot more country and to cover a lot of country I like to let that sound cover that country for me, especially because I'm hunting that thicker cover I'm hunting those funnel areas and I'm trying to draw those animals out to where I can see them now the third step is essentially the rattling itself and
When it comes to picking antlers for rattling, I've tried a little bit of everything. I've got a little set of antlers. It's like tiny little three by three. Tickle those tines. Tend to call in small bucks. What I do now is like I use just like a bigger, heavier set of antlers. I think...
for the main reason that the sound travels a little bit better. It's all about that sound. And I found that I still call in those little bucks, but I tend to call in more mature deer when I've got bigger antlers making heavier sounds. I generally start out just kind of like rattle, rattle, rattle, crash, crash, crash. Don't get super aggressive. I just kind of gradually start getting into it or working into it. So if there's a deer, like, I mean, I've, I've done that like a couple of clicks and
And a deer runs in from probably 50, 60 yards away that you had no clue was even there just behind some brush that you thought, oh, I can see in this little opening. I can see here and there's a deer in the cover pretty close by. So I always start out a little bit lighter. I've used a little bit of everything. I mean, I have used rattling bags. I've used shoulder blades, like shoulders from a deer, um,
Just after I cook it up, just shoulder, but actually it makes a pretty solid sound. They work really good for moose paddles too. Like using a moose shoulder blade to rake or it sounds like a antler raking and I'll throw those. And so, um,
Use those antlers. But I found like real antlers seem to work the best. I talked about it on the Q and a, but plastic antlers, or I don't know if I talked about, but plastic antlers, I've used those and they tend to break when it's really cold. I've broke more of those than I know what to do with. So pick up a piece, a couple of sheds and give it the rattle. Start out light, start out easy, just tickling tines. And then as I, as it goes on, time goes on, I get more aggressive and,
making louder noises. I don't, I mean, I think that, I don't know, this is just what I do. And I found a lot of success, but I'm also hunting really big country and I need to cover a lot of country to find what those deer are. So I actually call quite frequently. I'll rattle probably for two or three minutes. I'll let it sit for three to five minutes and I'll rattle again.
If there's deer that hear it, they generally come in. The ones that aren't interested, I'm not interested in. So step four is find the bucks that want to play. When you're hunting big country whitetails, you have the opportunity to move around and you aren't just stuck on one particular stand, one particular area. Now you can do the same tactic by setting up a tree stand in an area where you're getting a lot of deer movements. Like, hey, maybe deer are moving all day. You've got the patience to sit, 100% go for it.
for me, I'm just looking for those bucks that are like real aggressive and want to come into that call, want to come into that rattling. Cause that's pretty much the tactic that I'm going to be using in the spots that I'm setting up.
I could sit and wait, but they probably won't have a good shot or they won't be. I'm not going to spend the time to figure out where their movements and patterns are. I'm just going to go out each day and try to find the deer that want to come into that rattle by picking the best locations for calling them in somewhere where I can get elevated, where they've got a good travel corridor, where I see that sign. And I know, Hey, there's deer in this area, but here I'm going to attract them to a place where I can get a shot or get eyes on them.
And so what I'm really focusing on is, you know, being essentially fairly aggressive with the calling and using that rattling to draw those deer to my location. Now I also mix in grunts and, uh, also a few like, um,
doe bleats as well. So I'll mix in other deer sounds. I like to mix in that grunting. I'm pretty heavy on the grunting. I think that that works pretty well. One thing I found like compared to probably deer other places is mountain deer tend to be pretty vocal because it's a lower density. So they're using their nose a lot, but they're also, when they're getting together, when you're seeing these deer interacting with each other, they're grunting a lot. So I do the same thing. I do the grunts
I make a lot of noise with big antlers, let that noise travel and try to find the bucks that want to come in and want to be aggressive. So timing is a little bit of everything as well. You want it to be that time of the route where bucks are fighting for does. And you can gauge that based on what you're seeing around you.
And then the fifth thing is I move. If I'm not seeing what I want, then I move to an area and keep doing stands. I kind of take that approach just like I do with elk hunting. It's a big country. I need to cover that country. So I'm picking the highest percentage place where I could call in a deer. I give it some time, maybe an hour or two. And if it doesn't pan out,
Then I move and I move to the next spot. And then my best spots I do at the highest productive time. So like mornings and evenings, and then I go and once I've got deer to come into an area, maybe I'll end up staying there. But until I find exactly where the majority of the deer moving and concentrating, because it is such big country, I move until I find that. I sit down, I get up high, I do all the steps, do all the rattling, do everything. And then
If it's not productive, I'll go to another spot. And once I find the spot where they tend to be that day, then I'm going to kind of focus in. Maybe I'll sit there all day. Maybe I'll focus in on these couple of drainages here and there. Maybe I'll space out my calling a little bit, use my eyes a little more, be more patient. But until that point, I'm moving a lot, trying to figure out where the animals are and try to kind of pinpoint, okay, this is their movement pattern. This is kind of the time of day they're hitting these spots. And now that I
that I found that spot, then I can kind of focus in and really hunt it and be super effective that way. I hope that inspires a few people to grab a couple of shed antlers and head out into the mountains. I think that you'll find a lot of success. If you haven't called before, definitely give it a try. You know, Western whitetail hunting, I think it's overshadowed a lot by elk and mule deer. And I obviously understand why sometimes when you've got these other species that you grow up hunting and
You're just like, that's why people head out West is to chase elk, to chase mule deer, to chase pronghorn because there's white tails everywhere else. I think that because the white tail hunting gets overlooked in a lot of Western States, it's probably some of the best kept secret. There is some great white tail hunting around, especially when it comes to public land white tails. I mean, I would say that probably Western States have the best opportunity for some good public land bucks than probably a lot of places, but
on the eastern half of the U.S. So just something to think about.
I think next week we're going to start diving back into some elk and some other, you know, just more Western, more Western topics, but cannot disregard the whitetail tactics. So I'm sure a lot of you will be headed out a lot of whitetail tags because man, whitetail tags are fairly easy to come by. They're general units for in a lot of States. There's leftover tags for some of that kind of stuff. If you're traveling out of state, because it is the one species that probably gets a little bit overlooked.
So it's just something to think about if you're coming out West, you know, maybe a Western whitetail hunt might be the first step in your journey because it's something that you're familiar with, but also you're, you're hunting it in a completely new way. So there's some things that are the same and a lot of things that are different, but it gets that kind of big country experience under your belt. So when you do draw a mule deer tag or an elk tag or, or have that opportunity, you've got a little bit of experience as well. So just something to think about, but I hope you enjoy it.
Keep me posted, man. I've been getting a ton of great photos, so much success, some great stories of people, uh,
You know, listening to this podcast, finding some value in it and being successful. A lot of people that have hunted elk for many years and say, oh, check out this bull. You know, this is this tactic or whatever. I've been enjoying checking that out. When I get a little bit of service throughout the day or I come back at night, I've got this sweet satellite internet now. So I can actually like kind of stay in touch when I'm not, when it's like dark and I'm back at the cabin.
So keep sending those photos and all that stuff. I really enjoy it. Until next week, I'm just going to say rattle on. Rattle on, man. Rattle on.
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