Always sucks to miss the big ones but you still ended up with a great buck! Who knows, that 10 just might show up again next year and be even better!!
I'm envious of everyone who gets responses from rattling, grunting or doe bleats. We have never had any luck with any of them. At most a grunt or bleat will get a buck to stop and look our direction, we've never gotten one to come our way, most stop for a minute before continuing on and probably 10% pick up the pace to get out of there. I don't know if our buck to doe ratio is such that there is little competition so no need to worry about other bucks or does in the area or what. We've not tried decoys extensively but haven't had a buck or doe come in to investigate close enough where we could have gotten a shot on them.
I'm envious of everyone who gets responses from rattling, grunting or doe bleats. We have never had any luck with any of them. At most a grunt or bleat will get a buck to stop and look our direction, we've never gotten one to come our way, most stop for a minute before continuing on and probably 10% pick up the pace to get out of there. I don't know if our buck to doe ratio is such that there is little competition so no need to worry about other bucks or does in the area or what. We've not tried decoys extensively but haven't had a buck or doe come in to investigate close enough where we could have gotten a shot on them.