If you hear this sound in the woods, get ready!
QUESTION: I was watching two yearling bucks sparring in my food plot, and I heard a noise that sounded like a deer blowing its nose or hissing. Out stepped a bigger buck, and the two yearlings stopped sparring and kind of moved away. Is this normal?
ANSWER: What you likely heard is referred to as a snort-wheeze. It’s a signal of both aggression and dominance.
When two evenly matched bucks encounter one another, they sometimes pull their ears back and assume an aggressive posture as they size each other up. When one buck is clearly dominant to a subordinate, it might issue a snort-wheeze as a warning.
Basically, he’s saying, “I’m in a bad mood and I’m about to kick your butt.” Imitating this sound can be an effective call, but you’re likely to scare off more deer than you attract.
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