RE: deer scents
I have hunted most my life not being concerned w/ scents ...other than covering my own up (regular bathing w/ scentless soap, pine bows, the like) ...but over the last 3-4 years I have become quite a believer ...we have been using draglines w/ either doe or dominant buck urine (...no specific brand ...cheap) ...we drag the stuff across trails or do a clover-leaf walk around the area we plan to stand hunt ...in short, we have beenhaving alot of bucks come down drag linesright to us ...between me and my buddies we have taken some real nice bucks in PA and NJ (both in the mountains and farming country) that I don't think we would have seen if it were not for the scent lines
...I had a real nice non-typical get by me in NJ fall bow in Assunpink WMU...I attached a dragline to my boot on the walk inalong the edge of 2-3 fields...an hour later I saw thebuck about 80 yards out with his nose to the ground following the same paththru anover-grown field I walked to get to my stand ...I thought it was a slam dunk ...yeah right no such thing ...at 30 yards he hit a fresh scrape that changed his attitude completely ...he turned off the trail and walked away from me at an angle that provided no shot
so in that one little story are two examples of scent playing a big role ...the buck definitely followed the drag in and he definitely got freaked by whatever he smelled in that fresh scrape