Brantley: Rattling Pays Off for Kentucky Hunter
Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in...

Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in the Mid-South whitetail woods. Brantley shot his first deer at age 10 with a sidelock muzzleloader. States covered: KY, TN, WV, VA, NC.
Nov. 23: Harrodsburg, Kentucky hunter Chris Armstrong hunted from a ground blind near a clover plot last Saturday morning. Early on, all he saw was a spike. “He was cruising through, but other than him, I hadn’t seen anything else. Not even any does,” Armstrong says. “And the weekend before, I didn’t see a single deer. The hunting was pretty slow. But, after being in the blind a while, I decided to try a calling sequence. I did some rattling and mixed in some grunts and doe bleats. It was around 9 a.m.”

Shortly after Armstrong finishing calling, this monster buck stepped out of a cedar thicket near his blind. “Although he came to the calling, he actually caught me a little off guard,” Armstrong says. “I didn’t even have my gun in my hands. It was sitting about three feet away from me. But I managed to get it and take the shot. I hit the buck through both lungs at about 50 yards, and he didn’t go far before piling up.”