When Rattling, Have You Ever...

[AF Hunter]

My brother's stepson said that when rattling if you put a styrofoam cup on one of the tines facing outwards, the cup acts as a megaphone and will carry the sound of rattling a lot farther. Has anyone tried this? and If you have, does it really work?

[davidmil]

I would think it would be a waste of energy and would just create a white blob waving around in the tree to attract attention. Styrofom probably absorbs as much sound as it would hope to direct outwardly. Usually you don't want to create a BIG noise.... just enough for them to hear and get curious about. I'd say bull hockey... not worth the effort.Besides that, we don't need all those lost styrofom cups polluting the woods. Keep them at home.

[mofireman]

ORIGINAL: davidmil

I would think it would be a waste of energy and would just create a white blob waving around in the tree to attract attention. Styrofom probably absorbs as much sound as it would hope to direct outwardly. Usually you don't want to create a BIG noise.... just enough for them to hear and get curious about. I'd say bull hockey... not worth the effort.Besides that, we don't need all those lost styrofom cups polluting the woods. Keep them at home.

'Nuff said! My thoughts exactly. My goal when rattling is to just rattle loud enough for a deer within 150-200 yards to hear me. When you really get to banging those horns together to draw in more distant deer, you have a good chance of spooking away anything within the near vicinity.

If you think about it, with a bow, 150-200 yards is a pretty good distance. If no response, just repeat it in about 30 minutes or so. Maybe a distant deer is slowly headed your way but being cautious. Not all bucks come barreling in as we see so many times on the hunting videos. A lot of the big, mature bucks will really take their time to locate the source of the ruckus before busting through the woods. Not all, but many!