I've been hunting for 44 years now and have taken my share of decent whitetails.

I'm just now trying to learn how to call the sneaky bast**ds... as I haven't had any of the wall hangers on our leased land come by. I've seen them but not able to get a shot. So I have been experimenting with grunt, bleat and rattle calls the last two years.

This year I managed to call in a doe by rattling a Knight & Hale rattle bag. She came running in looking all over for the fighting bucks. Came right up to me and slowly walked back still looking for those bucks. She acted almost depressed that she didn't find them.

It was the highlight of my gun season as I let a small buck go and again got no chance at the monsters that roam the land we hunt. This was the last day of the one week long rifle season and at the very end of the rut. I don't think rattling is supposed to work then but one guy rattled in and got a nice buck the first day of this season. And we heard bucks fighting on the land the first couple of days. None of the rattling sounds were made by any of us (leased land and only 4-6 hunting it at any time). No one is within 300 yards (usually much more) of each other.

I just got a Knight & Hale Pack Rack system which sounds way better then the bag of plastic sticks. I'm not gonna haul around a big pair of antlers if I can make decent sounds with something easy to carry. Maybe not a good idea but don't care. I also just ordered the Extinquisher deer call which everyone seems to be raving about.

So now, I need all you experts to tell me how and when to use all this good stuff so...

#1 I don't look like a complete idiot out there...
(partial idiot is okay as that is my norm)...

#2 I actually have a chance at bringing in a buck.

#3 I'm not scaring the deer away instead of bringing them in.

So far on this land no one has used calls during rifle season (they do use grunt and bleat calls during bow hunting). The private land bordering it is lightly hunted similar to this land. No crowds walking around. We have a solemn agreement among ourselves to stay in our stands all day so we do not have anyone roaming around screwing up the natural deer movement. We go in the woods in one group and come out in one group. I'm trying to set the picture for you guys to advise. I have watched two bucks really fighting hard on a whitetail hunt near Devil's Tower in Wyoming and pretty sure I know how to make accurate sounds. Grunt call comes with DVD on how to make the calls and use it. So I'll be working hard on making the sounds correctly. I'm mostly interested in the duration of calling, when and when not to call etc. The real details that makes it work. And thanks ahead of time for any insight you can give.