“Battling Bucks” is one of few deer hunting books printed out of hundreds (thousands?) since Jack O’Connor’s time that is uniquely authentic. At the same time it has been thoroughly discredited since its publication due to the author’s conviction for his alleged fragile ethics.
The book defines whitetail behavior in language that almost automatically puts venison in the freezer if properly applied. It, potentially, could help produce the trophy of a deer hunter’s lifetime. Conversely, you’ll probably never find a copy to read. No politician ever went down in a scandal any quicker than when Feather disappeared from the professional outdoor scene.
The author’s first shot totally missed this buck standing in heavy brush. Afterwards, with it running through dense Ozark woods, he momentarily grunted it to a stop with his natural voice - just long enough for the fatal shot to thread its way through an opening in the brush. Feather’s book proves you really can, ” … talk to the animals.”
Author’s Update:
Noel Feather became the Pete Rose of the P&Y and B&C bastions - his records discredited, his name forever barred from whitetail trophy books and records.
He self-destructed when he videoed the killing of a Missouri pen-raised game-farm deer with bow and arrow to enhance a commercial production promoting his skills. When checking the kill at the game farm’s office later, it reportedly could not produce papers verifying the carcass “domestic” as distinguished from “feral” or a wild game animal controlled by the state. Federal agents, clandestinely watching the game farm due to alleged past misdeeds, trailed Feather home to Illinois. They confronted him after finding the suspect deer in his freezer. Reportedly, Feather allegedly complicated the situation further by affixing an Illinois deer tag to the carcass to make it appear legally taken from the wild.
His reputation was, virtually, instant toast. Professional hunting teams from various national sponsors that formerly competed aggressively for his presence in their catalogs and mention of their products in his articles, books and videos hawking their employer’s camouflage items, bows, arrows, scents, tree-stands, ad-infinitum - dropped him from star-driven professional hunting rosters without benefit of a decent funeral. Officially, his public persona turned as cold and dead as the barn-lot deer in his freezer the instant his arrest became public.
However, the fact remains he was the first published modern archer to develop a process of total (emphasis on total) scent control accompanied with judicious calling and rattling to penetrate the defenses of super-bucks that occupy the very top of the whitetail genetic pool. What he discovered about elite “superbuck” whitetail behavior enabled him to harvest three B&C trophy whitetails and has been copied since by legions of “wannabe” Pope & Young and B&C aspirants. Some of the latter now lecture Feather’s basic doctrine to the outdoor masses - in his stead. Not that they haven’t earned their distinction because this process is as demanding and as ritualistic as certain original Native Americans practiced starting with the plains tribes’ sweat lodge preparations.
But Feather was the first modern archer to suspect that mature super-bucks altered sexual behavior during the rut. Additionally, he was the first to consistently penetrate these trophy bucks’ unique isolationist-behavioral rutting traits.
In an interview, he stated, “Originally, I just tried to emulate past Native American’s historic fforts at controlling human scent. I applied modern techniques to attempt achieving the same results they did in their sweat lodges. Using certain scents, vocalizations and rattling were just normal progressions as my technique evolved. When the third B&C candidate went down, I thought ‘Whoa! We’re onto something here’!”
Even though formal recognition of the B&C and P&Y trophies (that he probably honestly earned in the true spirit of fair chase at the time they were taken) were erased from their respective record books due to his alleged unethical and illegal conduct involving the P&Y class trophy from the game farm, this singular fact remains: Feather significantly contributed to a new awareness of the top of the gene pool of one of the most mysterious and magnificent North American big game animals while birthing a process that literally refocused modern archery whitetail trophy hunting and a scientific study regarding conflicting sexual habits of reclusive mature whitetails.
The odds of collecting a whitetail trophy meeting Boone and Crocket Club minimums probably soar higher than those necessary to win your state’s lottery. However, Noel Feather took three - two within three weeks of each other. One with a shotgun. The second one with archery tackle. The third one also was taken with bow and arrow.
Most incredible of all: All three were taken within 12-miles of his rural Illinois home at the time.
The first, by shotgun, scored 176-5/8 Boone and Crocket points. The second, taken with bow, scored 172-0/8 three weeks after the first. The third is a magnificent 220-1/8 non-typical, inside spread 21 inches plus, 17 points and also taken with a bow. The last two also made the Pope And Young Registry - the archery equivalent of The Boone and Crocket Club.
Feather co-authored a book outlining his deer rattling techniques. If seeking a literary gem - it “ain’t.” However, it is one of the most truly informative books on whitetail habits and patterns I have read since Jack O’Connor’s “Hunting Big Game” was published some 50-years ago.
Feather helped pioneer antler rattling in conjunction with deer scents and vocalizations for trophy bucks. The process simulates two bucks fighting and the objective is to attract a buck, or bucks, to the hunter’s weapon. A major part of this process is total control of the hunter’s body scents - much the same as the plains Indians used the sweat lodge for.
Lest Feather’s procedure conjure images in the mind of wild eyed beasts shot in self defense while charging madly at the hunter, mayhem seething behind red-rimmed eyes and a foam beard, take my word for it - it doesn’t work that way. The following article demonstrates further how it can work - sometimes.
“Battling Bucks Revisited”
I’ve hung my share of venison in a much too rapidly lengthening life-span. Several of the larger memories grace my walls. Yet, taking bucks, let alone trophy bucks, was never a top priority. I was one of those lowly meat hunters. Back when managing a family on $60 a week in the ’50s and ’60s, the bag from hunting and fishing helped subsidize a growing family. And, antlers did not a good stew make. A mature doe made just as significant a contribution to the family pantry.
As time passed and income improved, hunting trophies gradually gained higher priority. I experimented with newly touted “rattlin’” techniques. Byron Dalrymple first wrote about rattling up bucks in Texas more years back than it is polite for you to remind me. Then Noel Feather’s book “Battling Bucks” eventually fell into my eager hands. After securing a fresh set of rattling antlers, I furtively tried them out. No sense embarrassing yourself in front of all your friends with some new crackpot scheme for talking to the animals.
I confess to never knowingly rattling up a buck during that trial period. I quickly lost confidence in the process - at that time. What was unknown to me at first is that rattling also requires the right combination of deer scents and deer calls to make the rattling process more productive. Also, I expected bucks to come roaring in with red eyes, dripping a foam mustache, with a belligerent charge right to the foot of my tree stand ready for war. When it works, it doesn’t work that way either.
Feather writes candidly about his complete rattling procedure including incorporating the use of various deer-scents. He readily admits to not calling bucks up every time he hauls rattling-horns to the woods. However, his three B&C record book bucks graphically punctuated what he advocated about the process. His book became must reading for all serious, dedicated, trophy buck-hunters of that era. If you can find it, the information in it is just as relevant today.
I now suspect my efforts in the past probably attracted a few bucks. I just didn’t know how to finish bringing them into view by combining scent and a proper calling effort to accompany the rattling effort. I have since used this technique successfully. When you realize it works, it is a “WOW” statement!
Feather used grunting techniques often projected with his natural voice as well as using manufactured calls. He called bucks with his natural voice when he needed them to come closer for a bow shot so not to risk hand movements reaching for his selection of artificial calls.
Recently, I had cause to try this technique from a photography blind while photographing deer. A basket-racked buck in velvet meandered slowly towards my blind. When he first arrived in front of the camera lens, light was failing fast. Flash was mandatory for proper exposure. The buck (a good 8 point basket rack) instantly wheeled and fled when the flash fired.
Remembering Feather’s tips on using the natural voice to call whitetails, I dropped chin to chest and grunted several times. Then, I settled back in the blind to wait. Thirty minutes later mosquitoes had almost convinced me it was too dark to shoot more film anyway. Suddenly, ghostlike, in fading light, the spooked buck materialized at the same spot he vacated a half hour before - not 50 feet away.
That made the fifth deer I called in with Feather’s coached vocalizations - all scattered over several years. Three of those took up residence in our freezer. After a lifetime of hanging venison on meat poles without benefit of calls, rattling horns or exotic scents, Feather helped me discover a new world “out there.”
Noel Feather definitely proved that you can communicate with these living relics from the last ice age. In doing so, he rediscovered a former Native American procedure that, with discipline and patience, can penetrate the security of whitetail “superbucks” occupying the top of their gene pool.