Buck Growler call from M.A.D. Calls

For me and several other avid whitetail hunters I know, the 2005 season may well go down in history as being the year of the "buck growl." The sound -- a sort of growl-roar-bellow -- is hard to describe on paper (the closest I can come is to say that it sounds similar to the deep growl of a large dog with his head in a barrel), but its significance may be far-reaching.

Until December 2005, I had never witnessed (at least, not knowingly) a buck make a sound like that. However, on Dec. 7, I watched and listened in amazement as a 2 1/2-year-old 10-pointer made this very sound. In retrospect, I realized I had been approached several times in years past by old-time deer hunters who asked me if I had ever heard a buck "barking." Several other times while hunting during the rut, I had heard strange sounds in the woods that probably were in fact buck growls, but at the time I didn't know what those sounds were.

In November 2005, a month before I witnessed a buck making the sound for myself, I was having supper with two of my good friends, Larry and Jack Arms of Knoxville, Tennessee. Both brothers are avid whitetail hunters who were guiding for Hadley Creek Outfitters in Pike County, Illinois. That evening, Jack mentioned having heard an unusual sound that he assumed a buck had made. At the time, I thought he was referring to what I call a "dominant-buck bawl" -- that is, a loud, forceful, drawn-out grunt -- and we left it at that.

Two nights later, however, Jack told me he had again heard this strange sound while out hunting. He said he had been watching a couple of 1 1/2-year-old bucks chasing a doe when all at once he heard a very loud and forceful "growl" or roar coming from some thick cover near the chase scene. The sound was repeated every few minutes until dark.

Two days later I received a phone call from Jack telling me about some amazing video footage that another Hadley Creek guide and avid trophy hunter had taken. That gentleman, Rich Baugh, also happens to be a good friend of mine who lives in East Tennessee. Here is his account of what he captured on videotape on the morning of Nov. 14, 2005.

AN AMAZING DRAMA
"The night before I filmed the event, nine or 10 bowhunters were sitting around the lodge talking about our hunt that day," Rich begins. "Jack Arms and another hunter had both heard a strange sound in the woods that they described as somewhere between a deer grunting, a cow groaning, a lion roaring, and a deep-throated dog barking. Naturally, all of the other hunters, including me, were very skeptical. We thought they were crazy.

"The next morning (Nov. 14), I headed to my stand to try to shoot a doe or two because I had already filled my buck tag. At around 8 a.m., a mature doe came by my stand and I put a fatal arrow into her. She ran about 45 yards and expired in the edge of a field. Within a few minutes a 140-class 11-pointer walked up to the dead doe.

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