I had an interesting experience with some young bucks this past Saturday morning. I was in my stand on a piece of public hunting ground that only my buddy and I hunt (seriously in 6 years we've never seen any sign of anyone else). At about 730 I hit the horns together for a moderate fight and gave a couple deep grunts with my buck roar call. About 5 minutes later I hear some crunching behind me and here comes a nice little 2.5 year old basket rack 8 pointer. He comes right in and is looking for the fight. Well he sticks around for about 10 minutes then heads off to the north and just for kicks I grunted at him again. He turned 180 in his tracks, pulled his tail over is back and let out a decent snort wheeze. I was geeked. I had never heard that before. He came right back under my stand and stood there for about 5 minutes. He then started looking back over his shoulder and we all know what that usually means. Sure enough another 2.5 year old 8 pointer was coming right in but he was a little bigger. The smaller buck walked right at him and they both began to posture and circle each other and then they went at it. It only lasted for about 5 seconds at the most and the bigger 8 won and chased the smaller one off. The bigger 8 then made a small scrape right below me. I was super geeked by now. They hung around for about 10 minutes and then they left. I waited about 30 minutes and got the horns together again and here comes another deer from the south (behind me. there was the faintest north breeze blowing). He came in a little more cautious and he was a tall racked 8 but was young also. He hung around for about 20 minutes then left the same way he came.



On Sunday evening my buddy and I were sitting in a ground blind on a different spot when a nice shooter 8 pointer walked out to our south and started milling around. He turned to walk away and I grunted at him and he stopped in his tracks and turned to look at us. He then turned to walk away and I snorted at him like the little bucks had done the previous day. Man he took off like a rocket. Weird how deer act differently in different scenarios. The little bucks wanted to fight and this bigger buck wanted no part of it. I turned to me buddy and we both said at the same time he was not be the boss.