Rattle, grunt or bleat where bucks are most apt to hear you--near feeding areas in the evenings, downwind of bedding thickets in the mornings, in hollows, strips of woods, creek bottoms and similar funnels anytime of the day the rut is on.

Call in secluded thickets laced with doe trails, pocked with tracks and blazed with fresh rubs and scrapes.

A good place to rattle or grunt is along an edge where pines meet hardwoods, where second growth sapplings rim a cutover or where a linear thicket borders an open creek bottom. Deer naturally travel these routes, so a little calling in the area can speed up their walk into shooting range.

A rut-crazed buck is apt to do anything, including charging across an open field in response to your rattling, bleating or grunting. But most of the time it's best to set up in broken cover (ie. an oak flat interspered with thickets, or a prairie dotted with scrub trees and brush). Coming to calls, a big deer likes to pick his way through habitat where he can see well while feeling hidden.

Sneak quietly into an area with the wind in your favor. But set up to rattle where you can best left, right and downwind. Most bucks circle in below and try to wind the fighting "deer". It's a good idea to set tarsal scent-posts downwind and off to either side of your setup. One of them might attract a buck before he gets dead downwind and busts you.

Call with the sun at your back, which makes it easy to spot the flash of incoming hide and antlers. A buck that looks into a rising or setting sun is less apt to see your rattling horns or raising a grunt tube.

In big country, covering hundreds or even thousands of acres ups your odds of striking deer. Rattle and grunt from a ground blind, and wait 15 to 20 minutes for a buck to show. In none does, stillhunt deeper and deeper into the cover, calling in funnels, along edges, etc.

In small woodlots and thickets, try rattling, grunting and bleating from a treestand sporadically throughout the day. You're immobile,but then that's a good thing. You're not moving around and pushing deer off the property.