smelling deer
 

I was out walking around the other day scouting some new grounds that I may hunt this year and I could smell deer. I stopped for a while and the wind seemed to be shifting. I pulled a thread out of my shirt and started watching it and trying my best to smell the air. I picked a direction (face in the wind) and walked over to a grassy hill and spooked what looked like a doe and two fawns, but they were gone in a flash. I know there are a few ways to open up your sinuses, some as easy as eating something spicy. I may give this a try this year while hunting on the ground. Using their game against them if you will.
Any of you ever try to use your sense of smell to locate them while hunting? Any tips to increase your sense of smell?

RE: smelling deer
 

You can smell elk very easily, but I can't say I have ever smelled a deer. Well, a rutting buck can be smelly, but you must have a better sniffer than me.

RE: smelling deer
 

Get in the right area with the right wind and you'll smell deer, especially around rut time.

RE: smelling deer
 

I think I'll stick with looking instead of smelling

Good luck to ya this season... Oh and buy the way, CVA came out with a new muzzleloader... It's called electra... You may want to go get one before muzzleloader comes in;)

RE: smelling deer
 

I've got what I need, thanks.

Good luck to you as well.

RE: smelling deer
 

I have smelled deer while sitting in a treestand . I smelled them before I ever saw them .

RE: smelling deer
 

The first deer I ever killed was one I smelled behind me.

Well,the smell made me turn around,I don't think I smelled the one I shot.I shot a doe during the rut and she was turned facing the way she came.I think I smelled a buck that hadn't shown itself yet but I definately smelled deer.

RE: smelling deer
 

If you drive around with your windows down, you can smell some really good crossing spots. Deer put off a real musky odor. Coyotes do too. It's a really good tool to try and "develop", usually if you can smell them they aren't to far off.

RE: smelling deer
 

I've smelled them before I saw them while walking a few times.

During the rut they stink even more.

A couple different times I was with someone else when walking when I'd stop. I'd comment that I smell a deer. We'd take a few steps and jump up a deer or two.

I kinda amazed the other person because they didn't smell anything. They were beginner hunters though.

One timewas with a buddy when we were small game hunting and the other time I was with a father and son teamscouting for deer.

You should have seen the funny looks that father and son gave me when that happened.

RE: smelling deer
 

Ive never smelt a whitetail(at least i dont think) but mulies and elk i find are the smelliest, especially elk since they like to wallow soo much[&:]

RE: smelling deer
 

This summer I went out to a foodplot in the woods to recharge a mineral lick, you could pretty
easily smell the deer odor or at least that it what it seemed like (bovine) and we don't have cows
or elk and there was plenty of deer sign.

So when its hot and they've been bedded down or hanging around in an area a while, I'm sure that
there is plenty of scent. But on the move I don't see them leaving much of a scent trail for a human.

I don't know that it would be much of a hunting tool, but you are pretty extreme KP.

RE: smelling deer
 

I have smelled deer but usually during warm weather scouting. i think it is near impossible to smell them on a cold fall or winter day.

RE: smelling deer
 

Deer have a distinctive smell and our brains are geared to remember things like that. I knew the other day there was a deer somewhere along a stretch of corn along a road I was driving. Happened to be in my daughters convertable. Sure enough and typically, when I came up to the cross roads and stopped a deer was right there, almost close enough to touch. I knew it a good 1/2 mile before. Something was right. My brain was talking and since it's almost always on hunting...:D

Of all the places to be this big doe decided to hang out where it could be clocked by vehicals from both directions. Go figure.:D

RE: smelling deer
 

As far as “hunting tools” go, I really can’t think of a better one. My thoughts are; suppose you’re hunting a square piece of property, some swamp some field and some hardwoods. The wind is coming out of the north at a steady 5mph. If you walked the southern boundary slowly, paying close attention to smell and there was a group of deer bedded down in there, you may get a sniff of them. And the wind will tell you where they are. Now you just need to figure out how to get there quietly with out getting up wind of them. Seems to me like a great plan, if you can get your sniffer to cooperate, which is why I mentioned spicy food. Maybe a small amount of cayenne pepper on the tongue every thirty minutes or so would do the trick. I just know that during the scouting I smelled them played the wind and found them. I’ve smelled them in the woods many of times but usually after I’ve bumped them before I’ve seen them I imagine. I’d just like to reverse the scenario. I have two new properties to hunt this season and I’m going to be on the ground. I’m going to give the sniffer thing a try.

RE: smelling deer
 

KP,

Are you pulling our legs here? I'm skeptical it can be done successfully.

But I don't do much of any stalking, so I have no frame of reference.

RE: smelling deer
 

They smell the best when they're on the grill. ;)

RE: smelling deer
 

You took the words right off the tip of my fingers!!!:)

RE: smelling deer
 

when you can smell mountian lion..then you know you have a good sniffer.. ;)

I smell whitetails sometimes..and elk all the time.. elk like Jim said are really easy, even for the poorly equipped human nose to pick up.

RE: smelling deer
 

Shed,

My question is; do you use that as a tool?

If so, any tips that might help out?

Thanks,

KP