An Experiment
This is an experiment. I’ve had this idea rolling around in my head for 25 years or more. Back in the 90’s I started playing with the idea of simulating acorns dropping from trees as an attractant to deer. Deer hear acorns falling, and the go to investigate, right? My first experiments were with acorns and rocks shot from a slingshot from my treestand. Nothing. I suspect the problem was two-fold. First, the sound of the slingshot probably a put-off, and secondly there was the extra motion of shooting it.
Let’s fast-forward about 10 years. When the kids were small I’d have them up in the treestand with me, and invariably they’d have to pee. Rather than send them down the ladder, I’d just have them whizz off the stand. Invariably we’d end up seeing deer. That gave me the idea that it was okay to pee off the stand myself, and I became a major whizz and a major pro-whizz. You might have called me a revolutionary. At the time, folks were promoting pee bottles and ziplock bags. Here I was letting fly.
A few years ago, it dawned on me: Why was it I seemed to see deer shortly after doing a #1 off the stand? It finally hit me, when I remembered my experiments with acorns. I have an hypothesis: deer are attracted to the sound, because it is similar to the sound of acorns falling out of trees.
So here’s the idea I’d like y’all to test: Get a bottle. It can be a squirt bottle, a sports bottle, anything that can put out a stream of water. Fill it with plain water. Some time over the season, give it a squirt and see what happens. Practice with it to make it sound like acorns falling on the leaves. I find a short squirt with a little loft gives the best sound kind of like . . . well, you know. Anyhow, give it a try and let me know how it works. Just remember that you heard it from me first.
This post has already been read 320 times!
I was in the woods hunting yesterday and was thinking of your article. When I heard a acorn fall it was preceded by the sound of it glancing off branches and trunks of trees.
dl