I have been testing this the past 4 hunts with no success. Grunting sparingly, maybe once every 30 minutes. Only 3-4 low contact grunts. Idk if they hear me or not but I saw zilch doing it. Rut here isn't til late january. Next few hunts i will not attempt any grunting to see if i have any activity.

To be fair, I suck. I've killed one doe this year with about 17 sits. All on public tho. some private guys may have better success.

Grunt call is hit or miss but I rattle up some bucks every year. Sometimes they are good but most of the time they are just young and dumb

You do that pre rut or just during?

I take a Johnny broadway grunt call and use it. I’ve used one for most of the 40 years I’ve hunted deer. Never had a single deer come to it to my knowledge. I’m like Charlie Brown and the football tho. I’ll keep on trying thinking maybe one day I’ll have a different outcome.

I keep one on me. If I see one heading away I'll try to get him to turn around.

I’ve killed several good bucks using a grunt call. Sometimes, it was well after using the call that a deer came in… but if you hunt near bedding cover, that’s not untypical.

Calling has never worked for me in Alabama. It does work in Kentucky though. I don’t know why it won’t work here, but it just doesn’t.

I think the notion of terrain was spot on. I think we don’t see many bucks that come in down wind.

I did finally give that up. 20+ years of trying at all different times of year and never saw one come in. Maybe they did and I never saw him but just something else to carry that was pointless in my experience.