Deer scents
 

I'm curious to find out what you guys actually use for deer lures and also cover scents.

They aren't readily available in Australia, I have tried some of the gear from Cabelas, doe in heat type stuff, but it didn't work too well. Are there any other brands that you've found work well?

From my limited experience with scents this is what I can tell you specifically the area I hunt.

- Doe in heat works ok, but only when the seeking/chasing phase is on full steam. Bucks come across it, smell it for a bit and continue on many times. Tinks 69 worked well.
- Synthetic "Buck Scent" (Code Blue) worked well for getting a buck to hit a scrape over anything else I tried.
- Curiosity lures rarely worked. At most they would stop to sniff on their way by but I saw less deer (make sure it matches your area)
- Early season I tried a young WT buck natural urine drag and when any other deer came across this trail they bolted the other way.
- I like Synthetic better than natural since I found it goes rank on you pretty fast
- Experiment with different scent-killer sprays because I found some don't work at all. If my hands smell like salami and I spray them down I should definitely not be able to smell anything after since I have a inferior human sense of smell. Some sprays accomodate this and some do not.
- I tried scent-lok clothing and definitely saw more deer. I'm not sure if it was the clothing or I just got luckier. However carbon based clothing does not "elimate" human odor, but reduces it to be (hopefully) within a level that a deer will tolerate.

I have heard that cutting tarsal glands out of bucks and freezing them for the next year then using them as a drag works really well.
So in conclusion I don't like to use any scents because I feel the chances of screwing it up are high. Even cover scents worry me as a deer may associate your cover scent with hunting as it is usually an unaturally high concentration of something (skunk, pine, earth, etc). As well I have read that deer can decipher multiple scents simultaneously so they would smell cover scent and human scent equally at the same time. That's not to say it doesn't work at all, but it does raise some questions lol.:confused0024:

cover: get ahold of an animal in your area, like here we use squirrel, rabbit or raccoon piss..as there are a bunch in the woods here, and the deer probably know what piss belongs to who...i never talked to a deer before so i dont really know....i know puttin piss on aint what ya wanna do 1st thing in the mornin....so i'll use pine needles and dirt from the area to put in my scent control bag to help freshen up my gear.
every doe we kill, we save the bladder contents in the freezer tll next year...i feel when we put out extra, the bucks come in a lil closer.
never put deer piss or etrus on yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD5zjUbWpXY
this guy had a drag line on him in the mornin, and he thought he got sum on his hands.
gl