Two types are available: attractant scents and masking scents. Attractants contain urine, usually from doe. Masking scents contain a wide variety of substances intended to cover human odor. The value of the scents is a controversial topic. There have been no scientific studies to prove or disprove the merit of scents, but many accomplished hunters will attest to their effectiveness.
Deer Smells and Scents
Honed by a constant struggle for survival, the whitetail's senses of smell, sight and hearing present a formidable challenge for hunters. In the day-to-day struggle to survive, the whitetail deer’s nose may be its best protection. Few animals have a better sense of smell than the whitetail. They can detect odors much better and from considerably longer distances than humans. A large portion of the whitetail's brain is devoted to odor reception and interpretation, and its nasal chamber can concentrate odors so they're more identifiable.
Scents in Nature
Weather conditions affect how well deer detect scents. Steady breezes carry odors long distances, especially in flat, open country. Gusty winds disperse odors, making it hard for deer to locate the source. Dead calm conditions limit the distance at which they can detect intruders. Warming and cooling air can move scents toward or away from deer. In the morning, warming air carries scent uphill; in the evening, cooling air carries it downhill. Humid conditions, including a light drizzle, greatly improve a deer's ability to smell, but heavy rain washes odors from the air. And it's usually harder for deer to detect the odor of a hunter above the ground than one at ground level.
How to Use Deer Scents?
When using deer scent, you don’t want to confuse it but give the nose what it expects. Whether you’re after a buck or a doe, the right scent at the right time can put more animals in your shooting lane. Many hunters don’t clearly understand how to use deer scent and often have disapointing experience when using scents. They must realize that using sexual-based scents too early will chase away does and smaller bucks. If the timing is not righ, such scent can also spook off mature bucks. The whole idea of using deer scents is to bring deer towards your stand. The use of scents should help you position a deer so to allow you to draw the bow, and make a good shot. Scents can really help, but you have to learn to use the right scent at the right time.
How to Choose the Right Deer Scent?
Doe-in-heat urine is most effective during the actual rut but can also actually hurt your chances of scoring if used too early. Why? For one thing, you want does to come your direction while you’re hunting. Bucks are often nearby, often slipping along secondary trails, paralleling the doe’s movements. If a herd of does picks up the scent of a doe in heat, it will vacate the area. Does that are not in heat learn to avoid the rutting bucks.
Buck-in-Rut Scents
Except for the brief period of the rutting season when whitetail bucks are actively seeking does big bucks are very reclusive animals. Things change quite a bit once testosterone starts to flow in them. However, bucks in your hunting area won’t magically go into rut just because you pour a few drops of doe-in-heat scent on the forest floor. Of course, you might get lucky, and a buck that’s not rutting might react positively to a scent. But more often than not, even the most dominant buck won’t get his buttons pushed by the scent of a doe in heat, until his instincts tell him the time is right. Again, influencing deer movement with scents is all about using the right scent at the right time.
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Scent For The Early Hunting Season During the early season (roughly from September through early October in most parts of America), hunters should play to the whitetail’s most basic instincts: Security, curiosity, and hunger. General deer attractants are what you want to use. |
Example About How to Use Scents Properly
General scent attractants can be used to not only bring a deer in close, but to
position it for the optimum shot! Here’s how to do it. We’ll use one example,
and you’ll see how to adapt it to any type of terrain. Let’s say you know of a
thick holding area (the classic in many areas is the wooded swamp) near a good
feeding area (like a corn or other crop field). You know the deer trade back
and forth between the two areas, but in scouting, you might find 5-8 different
trails they use at different times.
Obviously, you can’t be sitting on every trail at the same time. So you might
pick a stand location somewhere in the middle, and lay down a scent trail
that will help funnel deer right past you, no matter which trail they start
out on. You’ll use a food pad or drag (both available from sporting goods stores). First, slip quietly down toward the swamp from the open area. Notice which way the wind is blowing, so you can bring the deer to you on the upwind side. Begin at one end of the thick cover. Apply Trail-Bait to the pad, and lay down a scent trail that cuts across the various deer trails and angles up, out of the cover, to the upwind side of you stand. Add scent to the food pad or drag occasionally, increasing the amount as you get closer to your stand.
Go over to the other side of the thick cover and do the same thing.
Now, you have two scent trails, both of which cut across a number of deer
trails leading out of the swamp toward the food plot. Your scent trails
are set so that you will be sitting downwind of any deer that follows them.
You have increased your chances of steering deer in your direction.
To finish setting the trail, squirt a concentration of the scent onto a tree
or other brush that will serve to stop and position the deer for a shot.
Pick a spot that, should the deer pause to sniff this concentration of scent,
it will be in a clear shooting lane and facing away from you. This is a proven
tactic, it positions the deer so you can make a good shot.
Some Deer Scent Manufacturers
Buck Magic, Buck Stop Lure Company,
Doc's Deer Farm, Deer Quest
Deer Run Farm,
ELK Inc , Foggy Mountain, Fritz's Deer Lure,
Harmon's Trophy Hunting Products, Hawgs LTD, Hot Trails, Hoyes Outdoor Products, Hunter's Edge,
Johnson Labs, J.R. & Sons Animal Scents and Lures, James Valley Scents, James ROB Scent Company, JR and Sons ,
Kishel Scents, Kiss scents, Knight and Hale, Lowe's Whitetails,
Levy Bay Enterprises, Mrs Doe Pee's Buck lures, Nature's Essence Co. , Northern Whitetail Scents,
Outdoor Bill, Osborn's Scents ,
Pee Willie Wick, Pete Rickard,
TJ Deer Lures, The Buck Magnet, Tink's Scents, Trophy Advantage, Trophy Advantage,
Wellington , West Wind WhiteTails and Scents,
Whitetail Products,
Whitetails of Greenview,
Whitcomb's Whitetail’s Uncommon Scents ,
Wildlife Research Center, Xtreme Scents
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