I have never used any type of estrus scent while hunting. I was curious if it would help stop a cruising buck. I have had bucks on the move within range recently and wondered if it would help or hinder. I tried to stop a dandy with a couple mouth grunts and he could have cared less. They are on the real thing right now so I am also afraid of spooking other does that otherwise would bring a buck in on their own. I guess I have always thought the more natural the better. Any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated. God bless and safe hunting.
Years ago when I first started bowhunting I use to try them, and never had any luck at all with them. I have never killed a deer when using an estrus scent, and have killed plenty while not. I know some have had success, but personal experience is that they have little positive impact, and potentially larger negative impact in keeping deer away.
Thanks. That's been my thinking all along. I guess I will stick with what has worked. This buck I could not stop just had my wheels turning. Thanks again.
Stopping a rutting buck just doesn't work sometimes. Get a grunt call and hit it hard if he's really on a quick pace cruising. Good luck, hope you get him!
If someone sold a scent that smelled like a doe in season and you dragged it to your stand ...it would work on any buck that crossed that scent...probably 95% of the time. Show me a doe in season that doenst get bred..most do. That tells me commercial estrus scents doenst Smell like a doe in season. Because they rarely work. Burn you money in your wood stove, at least you will get the heat from it.
So I use to buy the store bought brands with no success. A couple years ago while working in Princeton MN I came across Whitcomb Whitetails. He breeds deer in MN and bottles the estrus every year fresh and does not mix the urine so each individual bottle has urine from one specific deer. Over the past two years I’ve seen more bucks then the previous 5 years combined. I never put it out before November first and take the scent wicks down when I leave my stand even for a short period of time. Just this evening I had two bucks come in directly to the scent wicks. Different areas have different results though, a friend of mine hunts in an area with more pressure and he does not have as much success with it.
If you check out his website you can buy it online and he will ship it to your door. It’s usually not available until mid to late October and in pretty limited quantities
I've never had a bad reaction from estrus scents but I've definitely had less success than I was hoping for while using them. I've tried the commercial scents and then switched to cold shipped fresh scents so fresh that they were almost clear. That made me realize the garbage I was buying that was hanging on the shelves and was dark brown as soon as you opened it. I don't remember what fresh cold shipped scent I tried for a couple seasons but it was interesting to see how quickly it changed from a very light yellow color to dark brown after opening it only a couple of times and storing it in the freezer. In any event, even with the fresh scent that I assumed must be much better than the stale garbage on the shelves I still had very little success and at some point I decided it wasn't worth the money I was poring into these scents. Even tried VS1 liquid estrus scent that was I think $45 a bottle at the time and never had a single buck come in. I'll take a good grunt tube over bottled scent any day. I did have some moderate luck with Deer Dander from Fitzgerald but it seemed to only peak the curiosity of does and small bucks. That and one year I dragged some tarsal glands from a buddies buck (poured some of the fresh buck urine I had on it) around my stand and I did have some deer very curious about that.
The reason why none of them work is the same reason why you can pee on a scrape and it works, as soon as the urine comes out it starts breaking down. The only doe pee that works is the fresh pee out of a doe. Whitcomb freezes the urine he sells that is as broke down as any other urine sold.
I find that it spooks does that would generally pull a rutting buck through my area so I stopped using estrus altogether. Just never had success with any mature bucks.
