Secret Weapon - Whitetail Slam

Secret Weapon
Humans will never
out-do what God
has made.
Grunt calls are no
exception. BY CY WEICHERT
www.deeranddeerhunting.com
M
ost whitetail hunters use grunt calls, and many of us buy new
ones each season, seeking the next closest sound to that natural, guttural, masculine voice of a buck. Our camp drawers are
coffins full of old calls that didn’t quite meet the hype.
But what if I told you that I could offer you the greatest deer call ever
built — featuring perfect intonation; dynamic volume to make soft short
calls or bellowing deep grunts; and the ability to vary from slow doe clicks
to tending grunts and aggressive growls? What if it was completely hands
free with no plastic tubes or reeds? Oh, and best of all, it didn’t cost you a
penny. Interested?
The truth is, you already own the most versatile, most dynamic and
most effective grunt call ever made. It’s been stored in the back of your
throat all your life — you just didn’t know it.
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October 2012
| 101
Mouth-calling
deer is easy. In
fact, with practice you will be
able to do it just
like my 10-yearold daughter did
only 5 minutes
after I told her
how.
The Proof Is
On Film
In a recent
episode
of
“Whitetail Slam
TV,” Dr. James
Kroll
(“Dr.
Deer”)
talked
about a French
Cy “Gruntman” Weichert has been
explorer in the
using his own mouth to call whitetails
1700s making
for more than 30 years. He finally
a journal entry
explains his techniques this season on
“Whitetail Slam TV.”
about the Cahto
Indians.
The
explorer wrote “these people are remarkably skilled at killing
the Virginia deer. They call them in making noises with their
mouths.”
I knew nothing about deer calling or Cahto Indians as a
12-year-old in 1977, and neither did the hunting experts or
media. Back then, no one even talked about deer vocalizations. But that November, my dad and I had a forkhorn chase
a doe past us and stop nearby. In the split second before my
father fired his .270 Win., the buck lip curled and grunted.
Ears still ringing from the blast, I said “Did you hear that
goat noise he made?”
I was amazed, intently curious, and began trying to imitate
the noise. Within hours, I figured it out, and it has forever
changed the way I hunt.
I have now been “talking to” whitetails for 35 seasons and
have developed a full repertoire of grunts, tending calls, doe
clicks, bleats and fawn calls to go along with the omnipotent
buck growl. Mouth-calling has proven devastatingly effective. In fact, every buck I have killed has been called in or
stopped with my mouth call.
By the late 1980s, I was already certain there wasn’t a buck
alive that I couldn’t call in. I was video-taping a friend’s hunt
when a buck flickered through the hardwoods 150 yards out.
“Dang it, he isn’t coming”, my buddy hissed.
“Watch this,” I replied, and made a loud growl.
The buck froze, and I grunted softly. He flicked his tail,
then turned and came right to us for a shot.
“What was that?” my buddy said in amazement. “Talk
about a secret weapon! How did you do that?”
I just smiled. I never told him how, and have kept the
method a secret all these years.
Mouth-Calling 101
Recently, I was asked by Whitetail Slam to try and explain
how I do it. I agreed to explain the method in this article and
on video for “Whitetail Slam TV.”
First off, of all milestones in the deer-call industry, the best
innovation I have seen was Mark Drury’s advent of the buck
102 | O c t o b e r
growl. When my brother and I saw it on TV, he said, “Hey, you
have been doing that growl noise for years. I like yours better,
but that sounds really good.”
It’s hard to compete with a real throat, with a real ribcage
and the same force of air behind it, but I bought one of Drury’s
M.A.D. Buck Growl calls to see how it worked. The sound
was good, but the video was even better. I added several
tricks from that video, and I have since placed one of Drury’s
M.A.D. HyperGrowl calls in my pack at all times. I prefer my
mouth-calling, but the HyperGrowl is a good substitute when
I have a cold and my voice fails.
All grunt calls are lacking in that they don’t have the mass
of the buck’s chest, or the flesh of his neck behind them. Some
sound great, and some lack more than others, but they all are
flawed compared to your mouth. Basically, if you blow hard to
get volume, it speeds the clicks to sound more like a duck than
a buck. Blow too soft and the call sounds weak.
This is why mastering the mouth-call will help you develop
an invaluable tool for your hunting experience and success.
How To Mouth Call
Everything starts with the basic grunt, and the instructions
are simple. There are two critical things to remember:
1. The sound is made through your nose, not your mouth
(you will use your mouth to affect tone and volume).
2. The sounds are made by drawing air in, not out.
I don’t care who you are, you cannot get enough volume, or
correct tone or depth by exporting air!
The Basic Grunt
Step 1: Close your mouth and breath naturally through
your nose (don’t open your mouth at all during this practice).
Step 2: Exhale completely. As you begin to inhale, stop
the flow of air with the back of your throat and keep sucking
against it.
Step 3: Slowly drag air in (don’t breathe) over the closed
throat and make any sort of clicking or croaking noise you
can.
Step 4: If you’ve made any sound, that’s the first victory.
Now just tweak it by changing your throat position, jaw position and pressure. Play around until you get it to sound like
a grunt.
Focus on getting a nice even grunt. From there, slow it
down to individual clicks or rolling tending grunts.
Adding Growls
Next, you can simply speed it up and hammer out great
growls.
Jaw position will deepen or soften the tone. A full chest of
air sounds weaker, while an empty chest sounds deeper.
Open your mouth to get louder. Close it to stay subdued.
There so many variations and it’s all so natural you won’t
believe it when you get rolling.
Keep a great backup call in your pocket like the M.A.D.
Hyper Growl for when you are sick and unable to use your
throat. Or, use it as a tuning instrument to find your pitch
and voice.
For video demonstrations of my mouth calling, tune in to
“Whitetail Slam TV,” or log on to www.WhitetailSlam.com
and look for web or TV episodes featuring the “GruntMan.”
I will be travelling throughout North America over the
next few seasons attempting to complete my Whitetail Slam
with a bow and nothing but my throat to call them into range!
2 0 1 2 www.deeranddeerhunting.com
OneTo Go
Perhaps the most elusive
deer has evaded even
“Mr. Whitetail.” BY LARRY WEISHUHN
“A
white-tailed deer is a white-tailed deer is a whitetailed deer!”
Regardless of where they live, all whitetails are
quite similar. They are all ruminants that can eat large
amounts of forage in a relatively short period of time, then lay
down in dense cover to chew their cud. Bucks tend to develop
antlers during the spring and summer months which harden
prior to the annual fall breeding season. During winter they
cast or shed their antlers and almost immediately start growing a new rack for the following fall. The whitetail antler cycle
is determined to a great extent by testosterone levels governed
by photoperiod. The size and shape of a whitetail’s antlers are
determined by age, nutrition and genetics.
Sound familiar?
Sure, but whitetails are also quite different in many ways as
you travel across North America to hunt them.
Regardless of where you hunt whitetails, they can be
challenging, fun and sometimes downright aggravating —
especially mature bucks. Whitetails are also majestic, aweinspiring and humbling. Of course, they are always delicious
to eat and good for you.
I dearly love whitetails and particularly hunting mature
bucks — those which have survived four or more hunting seasons. I enjoy hunting “America’s deer” in a variety of
terrain, weather conditions, vegetation and habitats. Perhaps
that’s why I find the Whitetail Slam so fascinating and interesting.
Up until the establishment of the Whitetail Slam, most of
us deer hunters looked primarily at whitetails as all being
www.deeranddeerhunting.com
Larry Weishuhn has killed seven of the eight recognized
Whitetail Slam deer. The final buck, has seemed to evade his
every attempt to even line up a hunt.
the same — even though these deer lived in different parts
of North America and survived with different behavioral and
physical traits. Finally, that perspective has changed with the
creation of the Whitetail Slam.
As a wildlife biologist who has long worked with whitetails
(a fair amount in Texas, but also in other states as well as in
Canada and Mexico), I’ve had the opportunity to work with
most all the eight regionally-different whitetails delineated by
the Whitetail Slam.
I will openly admit I really enjoy and appreciate hunting
whitetails in my home state of Texas.
Here, we have two of the eight different
whitetails — the Gulf Coast and South
Central Plains varieties.
When bucks in the famed South
Texas Brush Country are coming to
rattling horns, there is no more fun
way to hunt whitetails. But, I will also
admit I dearly love hunting Coues
desert whitetails. It is to me true hunting. It’s mostly spot and stalk. The
desert habitat where the Coues whitetail lives intrigues me — as do their
habits. They are called the “Gray Ghost
of the Desert” for good reason.
I’ve hunted desert bucks in Sonora,
Mexico and also in southwestern New
Mexico in the Gila National Forest. I
plan to continue hunting Coues whitetails whenever possible.
October 2012
| 103
ONE TO GO!
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104 | O c t o b e r
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Three Strikes
As I reflect on all the
amazing opportunities
for whitetails presented
by the Whitetail Slam,
I realize that I have
hunted and taken all
but one of the eight
whitetails required to
complete the Ultimate
Whitetail Slam. The
one I have yet to take
is the Northwestern
whitetail.
So far, I’ve simply
missed hunting whitetails in the Whitetail
Slam’s described area.
That’s not to say I haven’t hunted where the Northwestern
whitetails lives, but at I was always hunting Columbian blacktail deer, elk, moose, goats or black bears. One buck I would
have loved to take I saw on the upper reaches of the Muskwa
River in northern British Columbia. I was hunting moose
when my guide, Tom Vince and I spotted an animal feeding
in the brush far away. I set up my Zeiss spotting scope, peered
through it and saw a whitetail buck. This was in a land where
the last thing I expected to see was a white-tailed deer!
As I focused on the whitetail, I saw it was a monstrous typical 10-point. If his body weight was only 200 pounds, there
was not a doubt in my mind we were looking at a buck that
would easily stretch the tape to 200 inches. If the buck was
closer to 300 pounds on the hoof — which it likely was — no
doubt we were looking at a buck with a typical rack that would
score near 225 to 230. He was likely a new world record typical if he were ever taken.
Yet, all we could do was simply watch the buck: British
Columbia’s deer season did not open for another two weeks!
Strike one.
That buck began serious desire within me to take a Northwestern whitetail. A few years ago, I had a hunt planned and
booked in Idaho. But, unfortunately, I had to cancel at the last
minute. My hunting partner did go and took a mature buck
that scored in the 150s. Strike two!
Right after hunts for Columbian whitetails were legalized
in Oregon, I attended the Dallas Safari Club Convention and
decided to again try to take what would have been a Northwestern whitetail. I really wanted to kill one of the smaller
varieties of Northwestern whitetails.
I spoke with three different outfitters who were offering this unique hunt. That’s when I realized I already had a
rather long hunt booked for the exact same dates of their rifle
season. It was strike three.
But I’m not out of the game when it comes to Northwestern
whitetails. I’lll get another at bat. In fact, I’m back to doing my
homework, looking for a hunt for this special deer.
I can hunt these whitetails in British Columbia, Canada or
Idaho. But, I’m really hoping to take a true Columbian whitetail
in Oregon. Because of my hunt schedule for the new show I’m
doing this fall, “Dallas Safari Club’s Trailing the Hunters Moon,”
I won’t be able to hunt Northwestern whitetails in 2012. What
I am doing is making plans for the 2013 season. That’s when I
hope to finally complete my Ultimate Whitetail Slam!
Log on to www.WhitetailSlam.com and register your bucks
to get started on your own Slam!
2 0 1 2 www.deeranddeerhunting.com