Deer Call Hunting – Fair Or Unfair?
Last Updated on July 14, 2021 by Bruce
Deer calls have become a vital part of many hunters’ kits, and are now widely accepted as a useful tool to attract deer. But in some purist circles of the hunting community, deer call (and hunting calls in general) are considered an unfair advantage for man over animal. According to the purists, mimicking the call sounds of an animal with tubes or electronic calls lessens the level of skill required for a successful hunt, and can cover up many of an inexperienced hunter’s mistakes of positioning, camouflage, and other basic foundations of the hunt. But deer call are not some magical summoner of bucks, does, and fawns, all irresistibly drawn to the entrancing siren’s call of the Buck Commander Rut Hunter or the Bone Collector Magnum Bone Box, moving closer and closer to oblivion. A hunter can not simply blow through a tube and expect to become the Pied Piper of ruminants. Deer calls require skill and experience to use effectively, and are not an instant panacea for the hunter’s woes.
The argument that deer call somehow represents the tipping point between a hunt being “fair” and “unfair” also needs refuting. By competitive standards, no hunt is truly fair. A deer hunter relies on one of two weapons— a ruthlessly efficient killing machine engineered and refined over hundreds of years of technological improvements from the global efforts of humanity, the modern rifle, or a bow. That’s not to mention the other conveniences and human comforts that a hunter relies on— ammunition, binoculars, camo, cool sunglasses, transportation, prepared food, clothes, and modern vaccination and immunization. For a hunt to be truly fair, the hunter should first abstain from vaccinations and medication for a year, then set off for the woods fully naked, relying on nothing but his bare hands to strangle deer to death. Then, and only then, will the odds be truly even. (Alternatively, you could give guns to the deer).
The point is that hunting, by itself, is an inherently “unfair” activity. Man already possesses dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and one rubber grunting tube is not going to be responsible for a sudden power shift in the eternal war between Cervidae and Hominidae (even a truly exceptional product like the Primos Shawty Hands Free Buck and Doe Call with 5-in-1 Grunt and Bleat Call).