I have experimented with using scents over the years. I am going to tell a story that changed the way I use scents. Specifically, attractants that stimulate the deers sexual behavior!! [:-]
Way back in 1992, I was hunting the big ends of a particularly great funnel that connected two wood lots. This funnel was about 100 yards long and about 50-60 yards wide. It was the first week of Nov. and I was noticing a sudden lack of deer movement through this funnel. On Saturday morning I went to the north end of the funnel to one of my stands. I had been hunting the other end for the last couple of hunts without any sightings. From first light, 6:30 AM until 9:30 AM, I had seen 9 deer.4 of them were bucks with 2 of them being shooters. The problem was that the deer were coming through the woods about 80 yards west of the funnel and crossing an open field to get to the other wood lot. I was wondering what caused the deer to change their pattern. When the movement stopped, I got down and slowly made my way through the funnel. Usually, I approached either end of the funnel from the east through a plowed crop field. That way I had little impact on this small travel corridor. I got half way through the funnel and I found the cause of the problem. Another hunter had set up a ladder stand, 8 feet high, in the wide open and had thrown out several cabbage heads in the middle of the trail! [:@]Baiting was legal at the time and this guy had permission to be there.
That afternoon, early, I went back and moved my stand to their new trail and hunted until dark with no sightings. [&o]That night, my GF was pleading with me to take her out. I said "no way! I've got a date with a buck tomorrow and I have to be there real early in the morning". She tried everything, please, don't you love me?, all you do is hunt and you can hunt the next day. I wouldn't budge. Timing is everything and I knew the deer were using that trail NOW! Now for the scent part!
That night, I got this brain storm that I would use my doe in heat film cannisters along with something that I had been meaning to try...... the tarsal glands from last years buck. This guy.
I planned it so that I would place a scent bomb and a tarsal gland about 15 yards out from my stand and in 2 different places. The idea was to have a cruising buck come by and get a whiff of a doe in heat and smell another buck at the same time. I thought that would surely get some results!
On Sunday morning, Nov 8th, I got there real early and set up my scent trap. I climbed into my stand with time to spare. As it got light, I saw a squirrel messing around at the base of my tree. I reached into my pocket and retrieved a piece of bark (somehow I always end up with a lot of bark in my pockets) and it was Bombs Away!
That thing didn't know where the heck the bark was coming from and kept running around the tree trying to figure it out. The squirrel ran to the left side of my tree and stopped. Alas, I was out of bark. As I reached to peel a piece from the tree I was sitting in, I glanced out and saw a nice buck with his nose in the air scent checking! He was 30 yards away! He looked good enough to me and I cursed myself for not being ready. When he turned to look behind him, I stood and got my bow ready. He proceeded down the trail until he got next to one of the scent traps. At 15 yards, he turned broadside and stretched his neck out and turned his head away from me while taking a sniff at the scent. I was a bit nervous and hit him in the spine. After 2 more finishing shots he was dead. [&:]This guy.
He is a nice looking buck and very symmetrical, only 1" in deductions and netted 125 4/8", my second P&Y.
Maybe you have guessed by now what I learned about scents.......
I still use scents during certain times of the year but instead of using them as attractants, I use them as distractants. I try to place them where they will make thebuck stop and turn his head away from me so I can get off a good shot. I have since worked on the nervousness thing and seem to have a grip on it now!
Thanks for listening!
Hunting with scent
