It was 1977 and I had given rattling a few unsuccessful tries – many close encounters that left me empty handed. I was perched in the crotch of an old oak tree – we didn’t use tree stands much in those days – when the biggest whitetail I had ever seen started to come to my rattling. I picked up my recurve when he was about forty yards out and, in the process, my antlers fell and landed about five feet off the ground tangled in a small sapling. The noise spooked the huge ten-pointer, and he stopped in an all-too-familiar foot stomp, flag-up, ready-to-bolt position. Getting desperate, I reached down with my foot and kicked the top of that sapling. The antlers tinkled together, and the buck put his nose to the ground and headed straight for my tree. He could see the antlers, but the brush was fairly thick, and the antlers were close to the ground where they belonged. I drew my bow and waited for him to take one more step. Just then a farmer’s wife started yelling, "Come boss!! Come boss!!" calling a cow from about 200 yards away.  That was it for the buck. It whirled and the last I saw, it was headed over the ridge into the big timber.

That buck was undoubtedly the largest I have ever seen in the wild and I dreamt of him many times over the next twenty-five years. It was during one of those many re-enactments that it hit me. I knew I had to develop a way to rattle from the tree with the antlers on the ground. That’s how I came up with the Treestand Rattl’r.

	MN Bucks Dan & Larry B Bucks rattled in on same stand one hour apart. 11/08/08 northern MN public land.
	MN Buck Larry B Rattled in on public land in northern MN on 11/08/08
	Montana buck Vinnie L Biggest of four bucks rattled during a four day hunt.
	WI Buck- Arnie M Rattled out of a clear cut in Northern Wisconsin on public land on November 24th.