Can you Call Sika Deer in

[Camdig]

Yes it does, I've called in quite a few and been able to shoot the majority, the big educated old boys are bit harder to get out of cover.
Sceery elk call has proved to be more reliable than the Nordic for me anyway.
The problem in the area I am (borders area) is they only seem to get really vocal on the mornings i have other commitments.

 

[sh1kar]

ed sceery elk call bushwear - Google Shopping

 

[Dorsettaff]

Get the Sceery elk call.....both the long "special" and the shorter "seducer"

Practice the 3 whistle stag call with a rising and falling note with the special and the gentle mewing hind call with the "Seducer". Often find the hind mewing call is more effective

 

[JH83]

Thanks gents. I have a buttalo, or just try and whistle like a Sika?

I have used sceery and nordik

I prefer nordik, I am jinxing myself here but I have never failed to get a reaction with one.

That’s possibly owing to a decent population and only using it in the heat of the rut…but still!

It is very loud, so spikers tend to come into 100 yards and mill around. Big stags often come at break neck speed. It’s the very finest sport in my book.

 

[Bowland blades]

It seems like it depends on the area. Where I have stalked a lot by Inverness it’s very effective. If you wait until the calling starts I’d almost say a guarantee, either a sceery or Nordic stag call-the latter superior to my ear.

However I speak to Bowland FC rangers regularly and the stag calls don’t seem to do much, more success with hind mews and buttalo. Strange.

Hinds are right suckers for the buttalo call or an old school home made fawn in distress made with old cassette tape. The Master stag calls to move a lesser rival back away from the hinds. Spent many hours watching them here. The Sika on the FC ground will behave quite differently because of the amount of pressure on them and the huge amount of human disturbance

 

[patrickt]

@Heym SR20 in all the years of dishing out advice on here, can you honestly say that you've never seen a post on SD about calling sika?

That's what the man was asking, no harm in asking a sensible question, which deserves a sensible answer. Let thee not judge, lest thee be judged springs to mind


Patrick

 

[takbok]

That's what the man was asking, no harm in asking a sensible question, which deserves a sensible answer. Let thee not judge, lest thee be judged springs to mind


Patrick

Don't you worry, I'm far from perfect myself...

I'm still in awe though.

 

[rem284]

Called and shot 8 so far this season. Ive also called a few hinds and calves.

 

[HonestJohn]

I sense a good post response upcoming by the OP,,,VERY shortly.

 

[Heym SR20]

Well the answer is “Yes you can”

I had had dialogue with a good friend - should I use a buttalo or just stay quiet. His response - just stay quiet.

Same place as yesterday. Now’t moving, no sight of anything. Then at about ten past seven a strong whistle from the wood 150 yards away.

Clouds darkened started to rain. Loosing light.

Gave it a few moments then a long slow squeeze on the buttalo - nothing to loose.

A few moments later a stocky looking stag comes trotting out from the goat willows on my left heading towards the wood. He looked just like the bulldog in Tom and Jerry.

Crosshair of my old trusty combination in centre of shoulder, whistled. He stopped. 140 Grain RWS HIT from the 7x65r went straight in. He dropped on the spot. Tried to kick head rearing up then still. Gave it few moments.

Range was 100m across rough grazing / braken. No sign of him.

Then the noble hound found him in the ditch in the midst of the bracken very dead. Clambered down with the dog leash - got it around his neck and tried to drag him out. Nay chance.

Trudged off back to the shed and got the quad bike. All sorted and he is hanging up and will fill friends freezer in the morning.

 

[NickJ]

Well the answer is “Yes you can”

I had had dialogue with a good friend - should I use a buttalo or just stay quiet. His response - just stay quiet.

Same place as yesterday. Now’t moving, no sight of anything. Then at about ten past seven a strong whistle from the wood 150 yards away.

Clouds darkened started to rain. Loosing light.

Gave it a few moments then a long slow squeeze on the buttalo - nothing to loose.

A few moments later a stocky looking stag comes trotting out from the goat willows on my left heading towards the wood. He looked just like the bulldog in Tom and Jerry.

Crosshair of my old trusty combination in centre of shoulder, whistled. He stopped. 140 Grain RWS HIT from the 7x65r went straight in. He dropped on the spot. Tried to kick head rearing up then still. Gave it few moments.

Range was 100m across rough grazing / braken. No sign of him.

Then the noble hound found him in the ditch in the midst of the bracken very dead. Clambered down with the dog leash - got it around his neck and tried to drag him out. Nay chance.

Trudged off back to the shed and got the quad bike. All sorted and he is hanging up and will fill friends freezer in the morning.

Good to have a very positive story of the benefits of this site!

 

[NickJ]

A good video of calling with a Sceery in Scotland, I couldn't find it the other day:

 

[tattie]

As Nigel M and NickJ have said, not too loud as that can have the effect of having smaller beasts and bigger beasts also to stay away.

Don't overdo it either and be sure and wait for a decent time between whistling, relatively simple to see sika in open slightly scrubby birchy ground but the thick Sitka plantations with very few deer lawns and rides are a different game altogether.

I have watched a whistling stag from a knoll vantage point ( wind in my favour for the best part of the ground I'm looking on) with a thermal and he would be half a dozen trees in from the edge of the plantation. You give a whistle and he is on the move working along in the cover, slowly working around and around until he either gets your scent or is at the edge of the trees and will not come further.

Other times you can see them on open ground standing about hundreds of yards distant and you give a call and he is turned in to a frenzied beast with heather, moss and scrub flying up in the air as he swishes about with his antlers (not a happy chappy) and he will more often than not come in, sometimes slowly with a head down swinging from left to right swaying like one I had last year and then again he might cover 100s of yards in quick time so always be ready and if you think he is going to run over you, you had better get him shot quick, or it may be close quarters stuff.

A good friend who taught me a fair bit about them was like the pied piper, we would slowly walk in to a bit amongst or beside some right thickety and windblown Sh!te and he would call quietly and finish with a few hind mews and just like magic a staggie would appear. You just have to be brave and give it a go.

There will be days when you get no reaction at all, as they will go at it hammer and tongs for a few days and then switch off for a few days.

Either way they are ghost like at times and I have the utmost respect for them and pound for pound the sika come out tops. They are very hard on each other as you will see with broken, splintered tines and antlers snapped off when you get a mature beast it very often has damaged tines.


Cheers

 

[NickJ]

As Nigel M and NickJ have said, not too loud as that can have the effect of having smaller beasts and bigger beasts also to stay away.

Don't overdo it either and be sure and wait for a decent time between whistling, relatively simple to see sika in open slightly scrubby birchy ground but the thick Sitka plantations with very few deer lawns and rides are a different game altogether.

I have watched a whistling stag from a knoll vantage point ( wind in my favour for the best part of the ground I'm looking on) with a thermal and he would be half a dozen trees in from the edge of the plantation. You give a whistle and he is on the move working along in the cover, slowly working around and around until he either gets your scent or is at the edge of the trees and will not come further.

Other times you can see them on open ground standing about hundreds of yards distant and you give a call and he is turned in to a frenzied beast with heather, moss and scrub flying up in the air as he swishes about with his antlers (not a happy chappy) and he will more often than not come in, sometimes slowly with a head down swinging from left to right swaying like one I had last year and then again he might cover 100s of yards in quick time so always be ready and if you think he is going to run over you, you had better get him shot quick, or it may be close quarters stuff.

A good friend who taught me a fair bit about them was like the pied piper, we would slowly walk in to a bit amongst or beside some right thickety and windblown Sh!te and he would call quietly and finish with a few hind mews and just like magic a staggie would appear. You just have to be brave and give it a go.

There will be days when you get no reaction at all, as they will go at it hammer and tongs for a few days and then switch off for a few days.

Either way they are ghost like at times and I have the utmost respect for them and pound for pound the sika come out tops. They are very hard on each other as you will see with broken, splintered tines and antlers snapped off when you get a mature beast it very often has damaged tines.


Cheers

I'd certainly agree they are aggressive (I've seen them take on red stags nearly twice their size) and that they have the highest incidence of broken antlers of any species but I remember Jan Andrews (the Dorset based Guide) saying she took some sika antlers to a cutlery maker to use them for handles and they told them they were much more porous than other species so I guess that's a contributing factor

 

[Ranger22]

Yep, you can call them in. Some days they come in like trains other days they just stroll in very casually and of course other days they don’t show at all. Great fun regardless

 

[NickJ]

Yep, you can call them in. Some days they come in like trains other days they just stroll in very casually and of course other days they don’t show at all. Great fun regardless

Yep, the best sport in the UK with a rifle to my mind

 

[Deermanagement]

Back in 2012 whilst in the US I bought an Elk call but couldn’t get the right sort of note I thought would work. I put it down and picked it back up just before the 2013 season, modified this and that and eventually hit the right note.
So first try, had a pricket mooching about 15 yds in front of us, second attempt, a stag approached to within 30 yds staring at us in the gloom under a conifer stand. On it went for the first 5 attempts, all successful over 2 different days.
Used it to call stags to within touching distance over the years, a couple shot but many more filmed and photographed. My Avatar is a frame from Video of a young 9 pointer that approached to within 10 yds.
Did use it on 3 occasions last weekend but did not see the approach of anything, probably a week or 2 early so the last one I called with it was last year, an 8 pointer that I didn’t know was in residence until I gave a series of whistles on maybe 3 occasions one morning from a high seat away from woodland, mid morning in full sunshine. I didn’t expect anything but a glimpse on the woodland edge but this guy left the cover to get to my high seat some 130 yds distant, and came right to the bottom of the high seat with unerring accuracy. Both too big and too small to shoot, maybe I’ll meet him again this year?

 

[Deermanagement]

Just done 3 outings, first one, yesterday evening spent some time in a seat overlooking a wallow and found a number of stags just out of sight with a larger stag warning off younger animals. Went for some low volume calls with a screery which brought out 2 stags, the first of which came to within 10 yds of the seat. I filmed and didn’t shoot as I wanted view of the larger animal.

This morning I went to another area where a stag was whistling. Had a fleeting glimpse of a stag before getting into a seat. 10 mins later I went for 3 whistles from my modified bugle which had an instant response. A hind and calf came from cover and crossed the ride adjacent to me, whilst a stag came just into view looking for the source of the call. I considered the stag, a decent 8 pointer but not the big one or rubbish one I was looking for so waited a few minutes for a pricket to follow the line of the earlier deer and added it to my cull records.

This evening I had to do the same route to collect my knife I left at the gralloch site and managed to shoot an older but rubbish stag just before reaching the earlier gralloch site. A quick walk back to the quad revealed a beauty of a stag, one that was in residence last year. Me being me, I didn’t want to shoot it stood full broadside on a grassy ride at 70 yds, before getting it in film, which I failed to do. Anyway, I think I’ll look for this one in a couple of weeks.

I then headed for the downland where I could see a stag following hinds the previous evening. I stopped 300 yds short of the hanging woodland the stag emerged from last night. Rifle against a tree, I sat down and went for the 3 whistles on the bugle. After the 3rd set, a stag emerged and headed straight in my direction and didn’t stop until it got to 150 where it took stock, but always looking in my direction. Long story short, I decided not to shoot this one, already had one on the quad and it was getting late.

Can you call Sika? Right time, most definitely

Btw, screery not a fraction as good as the bugle but has its place.

 

[Mungo]

I’ve tried quite a few times, and had no success. I’d more or less given up, mainly because I had no idea what worked.

And then yesterday I watched a complete novice do it, very successfully. He’d had one lesson a week ago from an experienced pro, and watched that person call several in.

He then replicated what he’d seen, and it worked. Flawlessly.

The learning point for me was that it doesn’t seem to matter that your call sounds like a strangled duck. What seemed to make the difference was (1) calling in the right place (where you know there to be rutting stags); and (2) less is very much more. A few calls and wait. Wait far, far longer than you’d think - certainly more than I’ve ever waited with a roe buck.

 

[caorach]

I’ve tried quite a few times, and had no success. I’d more or less given up, mainly because I had no idea what worked.

And then yesterday I watched a complete novice do it, very successfully. He’d had one lesson a week ago from an experienced pro, and watched that person call several in.

He then replicated what he’d seen, and it worked. Flawlessly.

The learning point for me was that it doesn’t seem to matter that your call sounds like a strangled duck. What seemed to make the difference was (1) calling in the right place (where you know there to be rutting stags); and (2) less is very much more. A few calls and wait. Wait far, far longer than you’d think - certainly more than I’ve ever waited with a roe buck.

I've done it now and again and found that it seems to often attract the attention of a stag but I'm pretty certain that you don't always get to see that stag. I've had them come in fast and mad but even then they've always been very wary indeed. Once the stag came in to me up a ditch and pretty much all I ever saw was the tops of his antlers. On another occasion I was able to hear the stag creep around me to get wind of me - this was in forestry and I could hear him walking very slowly around me but I never saw him. I think this is why waiting can work - when you call the stag often comes in to you but mostly you can't see him. If he doesn't detect you then after some time he may break cover thinking that the game is over giving you a chance.