Have you ever called a buck back after a miss?

[CMF]

I was with my son crossbow hunting a ground blind yesterday. He has the tag. We're in the Midwest right now so rut is kicking off. We had a doe come through with two bucks on her, a shooter and small buck, but they're out of range. I try to call to them and they don't even look up.
About an hour later, he says "deer". Here comes a doe, then I see a healthy yearling with her and scan for a buck and don't see one. Due to the yearling and direction of approach, I think this is a different doe than earlier.
The doe closes the distance and gets to 20, I tell him to shoot. He smokes the doe a little back. I think he got one lung and liver, but I didn't autopsy. She slowly walks away while we try to get reloaded to get another in her. That's when I see the buck coming through the brush. The doe walks out to 40 and stops, looks like she'll go down any minute. The buck comes up to smell her. I tell him 40 yards and to shoot. He shoots, I see dust or something fly under the buck and I'm thinking he missed low. The doe walks off behind some brush before we can get another shot off. We check for blood at the buck and find the doe blood trail first. Then a wad of hair from the buck and a clean arrow.
We retreat to the blind and decide to hunt while giving the doe a couple of hours. About 30 minutes later he said "I wish that buck would just pop out". I hit the grunt call. I barely put the call down and he says "there he is". The buck is back at 30yds and staring right at us. Unfortunately, he misses again. I think a combination of alert deer ducking and my range was off from the brush.
Recovered the doe with a little blood tracking effort.
Hunting public in MS, I've rarely had luck with calling. I was pretty excited to see some call action.
I think the hot doe was the key here.

Anyone else had luck calling a buck back?

 

[Rich M]

You didnt call the buck back, he was looking for the hot doe.

Take this how its meant and not as an attack. Spend some time midday with your son shooting targets. I know buck fever and all but all this missing and halfway bad shots say kid needs more range time or just knowing ehere to shoot. Just 2-3 shots a day while hunting may make a diff. Or maybe check out deer anatomy and where to aim. You are in a good spot - help him get a buck.

 

[ILHunter2022]

I’ve had them circle back around before, so I’d imagine you could probably call. But like the poster above said, they were probably just after a hot doe. And if they didn’t know you were there still, they sometimes come back around.

 

[TopherDave]

I was in college, so 15+ years ago? It was mid-late October in Wisco. I was playing college football and literally only had Monday night to hunt and Sunday morning (but I wasn’t much of a Sunday morning guy due to Saturday’s post game party). I was in the stand and look to my left and see a really nice buck. Upper 140’s probably. He was perfect broadside and I guessed he was at 40 yards. So I sent it, and he was probably mid 40’s because he stood and I cut hair and no blood. I wish he woulda ducked!
He wheels outta there and he’s standing in the middle of the neighbors hay field behind me. So I grunted at him. He comes in, ears back. I go to full draw. And he spots me. He’s 25 yards and I was like, he’ll duck, so I held a little lower and sent it. That bugger flipped and did a complete 180 and was heading out before my arrow even got there. I missed 2 to 3 feet behind his butt. It was the fastest thing I’ve ever seen a deer do. And I always remember it, they can be lightening fast.

 

[CMF]

You didnt call the buck back, he was looking for the hot doe.

Yea, I definitely think he was close by already retracing the doe

 

[CMF]

Take this how its meant and not as an attack. Spend some time midday with your son shooting targets. I know buck fever and all but all this missing and halfway bad shots say kid needs more range time or just knowing ehere to shoot. Just 2-3 shots a day while hunting may make a diff. Or maybe check out deer anatomy and where to aim. You are in a good spot - help him get a buck.

He knows where to shoot. I think the doe stepped when he shot too. He could use more range time, but his practice is good.
He gets the buck fever, something terrible. He can't even recall what happens when he shoots.
I realized in the heat of the moment, I can't just give him the yardage and expect him to translate it to the right dot in the scope. I'll need to tell him the dot to aim with.
I'm working 6-12s right now, so I don't have a ton of time, but we practiced again Thursday afternoon and he's dead on.
He's hunting with his mom this morning, a few hundred yards from the other spot. They saw a buck, maybe the same one, come out at 80, saw the blind and turned around. She grunted, and he ran off, lol. I told my son we gave that buck a college education.

 

[Skerhunter]

Bucks that are 3 and under are very easy to call in when they are in the right mood. If I’m blind calling it’s pretty typical to call in the same buck multiple times in a day and multiple days throughout the season. If you get busted (they see you or wind you) that changes things. I don’t blind call in situations where it would be easy for a buck to get down wind.

Calling effectiveness varies by day and individual deer. Some days it seems like every time you grunt or rattle bucks will come in. Other days they are just going to ignore you or maybe even spook. Calling a buck off of doe isn’t really going to work, it works best when they are cruising by themselves looking for doe.

 

[CMF]

Calling effectiveness varies by day and individual deer. Some days it seems like every time you grunt or rattle bucks will come in. Other days they are just going to ignore you or maybe even spook. Calling a buck off of doe isn’t really going to work, it works best when they are cruising by themselves looking for doe.

Varies by state too, apparently, you Midwest guys are lucky.

Yeah, they paid no attention while following that doe. I actually think the doe might have come to our rattling. I've seen that once in MS, where I rattled and a doe came to investigate, the bucks just happened to be following her.