I find it pretty funny when people say scent products don't work, or you can't fool a deer's nose. Scent products do work and you can fool a deer's nose, but it all has to be done right and at the right time. I have had many time where I have been able to bring a buck into range with a combination of scent and visual stimulus. As for Evercalm, this was the first year I have used it. My results were phenomenal. I did not have a single deer blow at me the entire year. I had a few that picked up my movement in the tree, but they never blew at me. First year for that. I've had several 3.5 year old bucks and a 5.5 year old buck that were within 25 yards of me on different occasions. On several occasions they either came from or took the trails that went down wind of me. I used it mostly on my boots and branches of the trees I was sitting in. I make it a habit not to walk into my shooting lanes unless I have to. There's no doubt in my mind that it works for me.
Scent products is like a new religion. We want to believe it works so bad. But, in the end I have to say that it's all hocus pocus and faith. I did not use one single scent related product this year. Not a special soap. Not a spray. Not an attractant. Nothing. I had one deer blow at me this year. One. Deer down wind. Deer under my stand. Deer cutting my trail. Deer trailing me to the tree. All the examples that scent control and scent product users give to bolster the scent product claims. I will guarantee that any person on this forum that will give up scent related products for a year -both elimination and attractants- will have the same exact experiences that they have when using them. Guarantee it.
I tend to be from the less is more school. Do scents work? Sometimes. Does scent killer work? Sometimes. Do calls work? Sometimes. I've watched deer come in on a string following a scent trail and I've watched deer hit the same scent trail, lock up and hightail it the other way. One of the best cover scents that I have ever used is just plain old smoke. I've watched deer hear a call and turn and head back into the woods and 1/2 an hour later in the same field had deer come running to the same call. What do all of these observations show................... hunting is so much fun!!!!!!!
Sky I think our tactics are a little different, I do not like to introduce any scent other than what is there. The only reaction I have seen to estrus scent is from other does and the reaction has been negative. I don't use cover scent just try to smell as little as possible.
I'm with the less crowd. It's absolutely impossible to "fool" a whitetail' nose. Now I think certain deer may be curious and investigate some smells and ignore others. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been visually busted by a doe, and yet she still circled around to come smell me. This just shows that a deer's curiosity can outweigh their caution. There's a little validity to scent control only because it may push the amount of scent below the threshold that a particular deer finds alarming. Unless you hunt so far away from human presence that no amount of human scent exists in the woods then the deer are used to smelling odors associated to humans. It's just a matter of HOW MUCH they're willing to tolerate. I hunted a spot last year that was a trail bordering a U-Stor It facility. I sat UPWIND and had deer walk so close to me I could have slapped them on the butt with an arrow. But they were used to smelling human odor on this trail because it was so close to human activity. I train dogs for a living, and one of the things we have to train is their odor threshold. A dog may indicate on .5lbs of cocaine, but not .3 lbs. they have to be trained to alert to even the smallest amounts of odor. Now some dogs will alert naturally on trace amounts. That's how I think of deer. One deer may tolerate X amount of human odor, another deer will only tolerate Y. With additional scents... I think they may work on the deer that tend to be more curious. Those are prob also the deer that may be called in. They tend to have higher curiosity than others. But, the additional scent may just as well cause alarm. Who knows?
No doubt deer have their own personalities. Some are more curious than others, but during the rut, every single buck will follow a doe in estrus trail if he believes it is truly a doe in estrus. They don't think with their brains for about 10 days or so out of the year. That leave roughly 355 days a year where you probably can't fool them, but for those 10 days or so, you can most certainly fool them. A decoy is no different that a scent as it is just a visual attractant that can either draw a deer in or push them away depending on that deer's personality. I'm not personally interested in bringing the subordinate bucks into range so if I spook some 2 1/2 year olds because they see my decoy, so be it, but when the time is right and that 5 1/2 year old steps out into that field and sees a new buck in his territory, you guarantee he's coming and is going to put on a show. Scents can work in a similar fashion, I've had bucks get so confused that they try and mount a buck decoy because I put doe estrus on it. I've seen them hit a scent drag line and follow it right down the trail nose down. A herd scent like Evercalm can make them feel more comfortable, more at home. I'm not really a huge scent proponent, I only use scent attractants a couple days out of the year. Evercalm is different though, I'm not trying to use it bring a deer in, I'm using it as a cover scent along with Final Step. Scents that deer are used to encountering in nature typically do not alarm them. From my experience, Evercalm has not alerted a single deer on my hunts this year. I have hunted seasons where I didn't use any type of cover scents as well and I can promise you, there was a huge difference.
The very best scent control out there today is the right wind and the right stand height. Neither cost a dime. I'm not trying to fool their noses, I'm trying to avoid them.
There are many places I hunt that there is never a "RIGHT" wind. My property is a bowl, it gets constant changing wind directions and swirls. There isn't a stand on my place that I can say for certain a deer won't come in down wind of me, I've pretty much seen them come from all directions from every stand I hunt. I play the wind to my best ability, but there's no way to know for certain it's not going to swirl. I know people throw out "Play the wind" like it's gospel, but it's as much a catch phrase as "Smoke'd em." There aren't really that many fool proof setups out there that someone can setup and know for certain they aren't going to get busted by a deer coming in down wind.
I do throw out the "play the wind" like it's gospel, I guess that's because it really is gospel in my hunting area, as it's fairly flat with fairly predictable wind currents. Note, I also mentioned stand height. This is probably more important than wind direction, because if the wind gets weird on you, the extra stand height can often make the difference.
The wind flows like water across the landscape. Terrain can swirl it, change it's direction, etc. "Hunt the wind" sounds simple enough, but it can take years to figure out how the wind actually behaves in a given stand location.
There's another issue I deal with. My stands range from 15 to 25 feet high on that piece of property, but there aren't that many trees that would even be suitable for a tree stand, let alone one I could get 30 plus feet in the air and still be within range. It takes a long time to really learn and understand any piece of land. I know what stands I can hunt in on certain winds for optimal hunting, but then I run into problems like access and exit routes to those particular stands. Some stands are great for evening sits that I couldn't even think about hunting for morning sits because I would blow deer right off my property if I tried(learned from plenty of experiences). I've got to hunt the stand that I think gives me the best possible chance to be successful and I do that by hunting where I think the deer will be. Sometimes even when I don't have the optimal wind, that's where a good cover scent can go a long ways.
I do not have to deal with the ag feed component at all blessing and a challenge at the same time. Best tactic is to keep the does close with little pressure and feed them until it is time and then open a mini ag field of clover and alfalfa and hope to connect in 14 days or less.
