To each his own. I know that there is 100s of scents for sale and some use from deer they have harvested. I was wondering what is your favorite scent to drag and why?
As others have said...the best scent is no scent. Don't get me wrong...as a learning hunter I bought Tinks 69, code blue, HS Scents...you name it. And I did have deer come into them...sometimes. But over time I learned more about whitetails, and specifically mature bucks, that made me change my feelings towards scents. Here's the thing...a whitetails nose is over 100x as sensitive as ours. Some studies have stated a whitetail's nose is up to 10x more sensitive than a bloodhound. Lets say you walk into a bakery and you smell apple pie. A deer walks into a bakery and it smells wheat, apples, sodium bicarbonate, the vegetables used to make the shortening, salt, the cow the butter came from, etc. What something smells like to us is not what it smells like to a deer. So many of the attractant scents out there have a propellant if an aerosol, a preservative, or some other additive. Maybe you can't smell that, but I promise a deer can. Even the scents that are "pure" I have an issue with using for 2 other reasons. #1, any time you use a Scent, in order for a deer to smell it, he must be downwind of it, meaning the scent must be placed upwind of where the deer are going to come from. If you hunt close to your scent wick/bomb, that means you must be upwind of the deer movement as well. Using a scent encourages deer to go downwind of you. Bucks especially will not usually come directly into a scent, but will circle downwind and check it form a distance. I don't want any deer to ever go downwind of me if I can help it. #2, we as hunters spend so much time and so much money trying to remain scent free with clothes wash, scent-tight bins for our clothes, sprays, carbon clothing, ozone generators, etc. We do that because we do not want to spook deer by introducing any type of foreign odor to our hunting area. Why then would we go to all that trouble, and then purposefully introduce a foreign smell by dumping out a bottle of "deer scent?" makes absolutely no sense to me. To me the whole purpose is to remain completely undetected.
I have tried them all with no success. I've used Evercalm for the past few seasons religiously on my boots and tree's i have been in. It has kept a few doe's at ease i've noticed. However, this season I am not using anything. After reading your post Boonerville, it confirms my beliefs, it makes a lot of sense!
Nothing until the rut begins. Then, I'll be using Mrs. Doe Pee's estrus urine. I respect the previously posted opinions, but I hunt hard on public land. It's a different application for an entirely different set of circumstances. I'll use it because deer can come from any direction, and I'll take every little advantage I can get. I'll give a couple drops on my way into my stand site and add a drop or two periodically to strengthen the scent, before hanging it about 3' off the ground, 15-20 yards upwind of my tree. I expect nothing from it, other than a little help in masking my own scent. Should a curious shooter pick up the trail and come into range, I'll be sure to give credit where it's due. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Makes a lot of sense. I just never thought of it like that. Thank you all for insight. On bright side it gives me more money to buy other stuff.
^^^^ This is me But I used to drag Tinks Fox urine because we had a ton of foxes on our property. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I only use fresh buck urine and estrous straight from the deer. We have a local deer farm and the guy takes care of us. I've had a handful of deer come straight to the scents since I started using them. I don't start to use them until pre rut though Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
