Deer Hunting Tips

[Plow Boy]

With deer season fast approaching, you see all these money making cover scents for sale.. Is there a good home made sent one can use??
I remember as a kid, I would use "Off" to keep the mosquitoes off during squirrel season and I had deer walk up just a few feet away and check the smell of the off and never spook. Thinking about trying that and see what happens.
Any other ideas out there you deer hunters can share with us??

Thanks...Bill

[Bearfootfarm]

The best scent is none at all.
You can't really fool a deer's nose.

Pay attention to wind direction and it won't matter anyway

[Wis Bang 2]

Always hunt into the wind. walk slow...

[braggscowboy]

It seems as though, the masks one sees on tv are built up like cars or and other product to sell it. It really don't make a difference that much as long as you are downwind, or no wind, and if it is too hard the swirl of the wind will confuse them. Being still and sitting for a long time or still hunt into the wind. Like fishing plugs, they are made for the purchaser, we buy it because it looks good, the fish may not, but we do. A little spinner bait or jig will catch about anything, but we still buy the 6.00 plugs and are afraid to use them in brush or productive wate, we might loose it.
Same with some of the deer attractants, I am sure some will work, but most are an "old spin" off of something else. I have tried some of the sure fire products here at the house where I see deer often and have placed it on runs and they will walk right by or through it and never indulge in the product. I am sure some will work, but it seems corn will work every time. I don't use a feeder this year, just scatter some out in the leaves and they get every bite of it. I know, I know, the product on the shelves look better and sound better, but on the hunting shows in Tex what are they using scattered out up and down the brush cuts? I would bet corn or pellets. Just because it looks good, it may not taste good.

[||Downhome||]

Be berry berry quite, wait thats wabbits.

I like vanilla, the real stuff. I suggest if you use cover scent, you get the deer use to it.

I will put it on rags and spread them around a good while ahead of season.

I have found deer are creatures of habit. they get use to stuff pretty quick.

by doing that they don't think twice. rather then walk out with a completely new and foreign scent and make them spooky.

[Oldcountryboy]

Originally Posted by Bearfootfarm

The best scent is none at all.
You can't really fool a deer's nose.

Pay attention to wind direction and it won't matter anyway

Ditto! Ditto! Ditto!

I always try to watch the evening news/weather forecast and listen for the next days wind direction. If they say the wind is going to be out of the south, then I set up on the north end of the hunting area. If they say west, I set up on the east side of a hunting area.

I try to have several areas to hunt on. Depending on the wind forecast will depend on which area I will hunt. Usually depending on which area has the easiest access. I never walk through the middle of the hunting area. If they predict the wind will be out of the north, then I pick a hunting area that I can enter on the southside without crossing any deer trails.

[bluetick]

My in-laws (long deceased) hung their hunting clothes in the dairy barn for a time before deer hunting season started. Don't know whether it helped or not, but venison was in their freezer every year.

[alleyyooper]

Well Ya can buy all the hyped up stuff ya want and it ain't going to work no how or way if ya are a running thru the woods. Taking some apples then blending them and spreading the results around in a cedar swamp ain't gonna work so awful well either. Blended cedar don't work in a apple orchard to good either.

Blend scents from stuff in the area where you hunt. Acorns in a oak filled woods cedar in a cedar a swamp and cow patties in a cow pasture.

The days of still hunting and stalking in Michigan are about all gone unless you have found a remote stop in the UPPER. Sitting still mindful of the wind near a funnel trumps all the store bought crap found in a bottle every time.

Al

[braggscowboy]

I forgot to mention, I throw my corn out with naked hand, pick up acorns and put with the corn and it is gone the next morning. Food has a way of working. Best things said, quiet and downwind. Deer don't pay too much attention to human smell, unless it is out of place. I see them and they watch me while I am working out in the yard. Come up to the yard fence sometimes. But way out in the woods where I hunt, it is a different story. I once used the different things that everyone does, but I find I see just as many deer as before and just as close.

[sevenmmm]

The more time I spend around my hunting area, the better it seems like the deer get used to me. One time I shot a well recognized doe that just stood and looked at me.

Felt bad about it too...

[Jolly]

Attractant scent? Peanut butter. One of the best deer hunters I know will put out a bit of peanut butter here and there in the woods before season. While hunting, he'll take a couple of plastic jars, place them where he wants them, and open them up before he climbs his tree.

Cover scents? Whatever works for you. Knew one lady that hunted an extremely high dollar lease in Mississippi, that had the keepers spray her box blinds weekly with Chanel No. 5, at least 6 weeks before the season opened. She killed as many deer as anybody else on the place. Moral of the story? Use a cover scent the deer are used to.

Lastly, keep yourself as odorless as possible. I don't own any high tech hunting wear, but I do own several boxes of baking soda. Works for me. I've had does come up a couple of times, close enough to spit on them...literally. Closest I ever got a buck was 20 feet.

[houndlover]

My husband swears by "buck goat in rut". I have noticed that the goats can go into our upper field, and the deer come right out and browse along side them, so there might be something to it,

[alleyyooper]

I've a friend who baits with marshmellows covered in blue berry syrup.

Al

[foxfiredidit]

Tip;

When it's really dry weather, hunt the closest food source to their favorite watering location. They will usually go to water before going out for their evening meal. This is not that great of a buck, but a good example of hunting a good natural behavior pattern. I would only hunt the watering location itself if there were no nearby food source or I wasn't set up on acorns. In this case it was a very small patch of winter wheat thrown out in a small sandy area 100 yards away from the water. His traveling partner came in first, and he just stood in the edge of the woods for 15 minutes studing the situation. Came on in at 50 yards then fed down to 28 yards and broadside 20 minutes before dark.
2 days ago.

[Deep Woods]

foxfiredidit Nice Buck! Congrats!


I don't like all the "commercial cover scents" either.....We do use Vanilla, and will rub our clothes on the goats or the horses before going to the woods. We always leave our hunting clothes hanging on the back deck during hunting season.
My son and I always put 4-6 deer up in our freezer every year and even give others some meat from more kills....mostly bow hunting.
Main thing as stated above....HUNT THE WIND..

[gunseller]

I have a 180 class rack that came off of a buck that I arrowed from 25 yards while in a t shirt and blue jeans. Probable had a little gas and oil smell on them. Cover sents are ment to sell to the unknowing. If you want a cover sent try skunk.
Steve

[foxfiredidit]

Cover scents don't work for me either. Deer are such curious animals, if I'm going to use a scent, it's got to be one that makes them curious. A cheap way to make them curious by scent is to cut the metarsal hair off the back leg of a doe or buck, or both, put it into a plastic bag, then distribute that on the incoming trail close to your stand. It will smell pretty strong long after it's dried out too. They seem to like it when I've been lucky enough to put it where one comes across it.

I agree that hanging one's hunting clothes outside is probably the best way to keep the scent to a minimum. Doing that, and also having a set of coveralls to put over them, but not putting the coveralls on until you get to the hunting woods is better. Keep them in a plastic bag on the way to the woods is good.

[winemaker]

Here in PA our rifle season starts after a holiday weekend. So after 4 days of eating and having an all around good time, we have 4 different cover scents.

1. Dad, 80 years old and still works, he swears by garlic and scotch scent from the night before. Garlic keeps him young and draws deer from miles away, scotch helps him fight the buck fever.

2. Brother, 40 yrs, absolutely swears by the scent, marlboro No. 7, brings em in like they were on a rope.

3. Son, 18, cheap colonge and loose women scent from sunday night, he's usually last one up on monday. He prefers to hunt the evening hours, go figure.

4.Me, 43, since I feed everyone, bacon, eggs, bagels, and cheese. Whatever alcohol that is left in my system from the night before, discussing our plan of attack.

We cant leave out the most powerful scent, left over turkey, after its made its way thru middle aged men.

Seriously, we all hunt with the wind, our farm is pretty fair sized so we can pick our spots long before. The wind always blows the same direction here so its easy.

First day of PA deer season, largest participation sport in the world, almost 1 million hunters afield.

[barnyardgal]

Be 'BERRY~ BERRY' quiet.......ha..ha..

[Graham]

One morning last year I had been sitting in my stand for about three hours, with nothing showing. I decided to call it a day and before I climbed down, decided to smoke my pipe. While I was filling the woods with vanilla flavored tobacco smoke, four does came through, followed by a nice six point. I was trying to figure out how to put my pipe out and reach for my bow, when a young spike came crashing up over the gully edge and scared all the others off. He just stood there wondering why all the others took off and didn't once look nervous about the tobacco smoke drifting about. Meanwhile I was still puffing on the pipe. Moral of the story is I'm holding out until they make a Captain Black flavor scent spray before I waste my money on the stuff.