This Iowa hunt began on Nov. 3 and happened very quickly. The first day of the hunt was my son’s birthday, so it was a really special hunt. I’d hunted this property and this same area for several years. At first light, I saw plenty of deer.

On this hunt, I was using a buck decoy and had set the decoy up on the edge of a field so the deer could see it from a long way. I’d found that deer decoys could be deadly effective when used along field or pasture edges. I liked decoys because they could lure in bucks and take the deer’s attention off the hunter in the tree stand. I found that the buck decoy always seemed to work better than the doe decoy, especially during the rut.

One of the real secrets to hunting with a decoy is putting antlers on one. The antlers you place on your decoy may intimidate a big buck, so you don’t want to use a huge set of antlers. The antlers on the decoy I use are about 14-inches wide and make the decoy look like a 2-1/2-year old buck. If a big buck sees that decoy, he knows he can come in and run that buck out of his territory.

Another key ingredient in using the decoy successfully is to make sure your decoy is scent-free. After I set up my decoy, I spray it down thoroughly with Hunter’s Specialties’ Scent-A-Way spray. I put buck urine on the ground around the decoy, but not actually on the decoy.

Once I’m through hunting, I take my decoy, hide it in some bushes near my stand and make sure I spray it down wherever I’ve touched it. This way, you don’t have to take your decoy in and out every time you go to your stand. You can simply take your decoy out of the bushes on the morning or the afternoon you’re planning to hunt, set it up, spray it down with Hunter’s Specialties’ Scent-A-Way and put out buck urine behind it.

Let’s face it, dragging a deer decoy out of the woods each day you hunt is a real pain and leaving the decoy in the field after you’ve hunted is a mistake. Any deer that sees the decoy when you’re not hunting will quickly discover that decoy isn’t the real thing. The best way to use the decoy is to hide it near your stand where the deer can’t see it or smell it. Then set it up in front of your stand when you’re ready to hunt.

A decoy’s just one more element you can use to convince a buck to come within bow range. If a buck hears the sound of another buck grunting like the one you make with your Hunter’s Specialties’ True Talker grunt call, hears antlers rattling from your Hunter’s Specialties’ Heavy Horns Rattling Bag that sounds like two bucks fighting and sees the image of what appears to be a buck where the grunting and rattling are coming from, he’s got three good reasons to come toward your stand. If he smells the buck urine as he’s coming in, then there should be no doubt in his mind that the decoy is the real thing. He may wonder why the decoy’s not moving, but all the other cues he’s getting seems to override the fact that the decoy’s not moving.

When a deer comes in like the deer I took did, bristled-up and ready for a fight, you can get away with more movement and noise in the stand when you’re trying to get in position to take the shot or draw the bow. Anytime I can use a decoy, I like to use one. One of the primary factors that determines whether I can use a decoy or not is the openness of the terrain. The further away the buck can see the decoy, the better your odds are that the decoy will draw the buck into your tree stand.

At 9:45 am, on this November hunt, I spotted a doe with a buck following her. As the deer started coming toward me, the buck saw the decoy and left the doe he was trailing. He was all bristled-up and started walking stiff-legged to the decoy. I’d been rattling with the Heavy Horns Rattling Bag and grunting with the True Talker. As the deer came in, there were some bushes out in front of my stand and off to the side. When the doe came in close to my stand, she went around one of these multi-floral bushes. As the buck started approaching the bush, I grunted with the True Talker.

Instead of going around the bush like the doe, the buck turned off the trail and started coming toward my decoy. When the buck saw that decoy, he made a snort-wheeze and took on a very aggressive posture. The buck was only about 25-yards away. I let him come within 16 yards before I took the shot. I learned a real good lesson on this hunt. When I drew and aimed at the buck, my pinsight was right behind the front shoulder, but when I released the arrow, I heard a clamor. The arrow hit slightly further back on the buck than where I was aiming. When I looked down, I realized I had both my binoculars and my grunt call hanging around my neck.

After I grunted and laid my grunt call on my chest, the tube of the grunt call was laying up against the binoculars, right in front of my body. So, when I released the arrow, I hit my grunt call and altered the flight of my arrow. I learned from this experience that the next time I’m bowhunting, I’ll still carry my binoculars and grunt call, but I won’t leave both of them hanging around my neck when I finish using them. Instead, I’ll hang them on the limb close to me where they’re easily accessible and not in the way of my string.

Even though my arrow landed far back, the buck still only traveled about 70 yards before he piled-up. I’d been hunting this property for about 5 years, and every year I’d get my tree stand in a better spot to take a deer. If I go back to that same area next year, I’ll probably have my tree stand in that same tree because I believe a big buck will come down that same trail, the same way next year. One of the advantages of hunting in the same locations year after year is that once you pattern the bucks and know where they normally travel, often they’ll travel those same routes every year.