With such a variety of scents to choose from these days, you can be easily confused as to what’s your best choice. You must first ask yourself what you are attempting to do with the scent, and what time of the season you plan to use them. With scent being the operative word in this article, you must first address your own.
There are many scent eliminating body soaps, sprays, and washes on the market used to decrease your odor. I use a lot of these products, and do my best to eliminate scent. There are also several types of clothing and clothing sprays which claim to kill human odor. You can try them for yourself, but I’m still not convinced on their effectiveness.
Cover scents are your first choice, and should be used all season. I prefer red fox urine and use it from the first to last day of season. Although not recommended, I spray some on the heels and toes of my boots for my walk in. Most brands state TO NOT spray on your person because you may be attacked. I’ve done this for fifteen years or so, and had no problems thus far. As for the type of animal you might expect to attack? I will continue to use the fox urine until I find out!
I also, like to spray a few times around my set up. I’ve seen deer smell my foot trail when I forgot to use it, so I try to remember to apply every time. On a separate note, there are a couple new products on the market. One is supposed to clog the olfactory sensors in a deer’s nose with natural scent, thus blocking your detection. There are also electronic ozone units which are becoming quite popular. I haven’t used them yet, but plan to, and will report on their effectiveness later.
Next are territorial or boundary scents they are applied on rubs, scrapes, and licking branches. A scent dripper placed above a scrape filled with dominate buck urine can be extremely effective during the pre and post rut. They only drip during daylight hours, which can condition a buck to check while still light out. These scents are used to make your own sign post or keep a buck in the area by placing them on his, and creating a territorial response.
Whitetail urine of the buck and doe variety are the most commonly used and misunderstood scents. The timing of use for doe in estrus scents is relatively important. If used in the early part of the pre-rut, they will be much less effective. Plain doe urine works best at this time. A combo of doe in estrus and plain doe urine works great on the third and last week of October. This is done to mimic a mature doe that’s entering her cycle traveling with her immature fawn. The next two weeks require a full article; it’s the rut you know. I’ve used a wide variety of scents available and found the compressed air spray cans work the best .
One last point of interest is scent drags. This is a commonly used method that is done by placing scent on a rag or sponge attached to a string and dragging it to your stand. The hope being a buck will intercept the trail and come looking for the supposed deer. This works, but after having a few bucks go the other way to never return, I quit using this tactic. I later became aware of the mistake that had caused them to never return. I would place the scent on the rag once and proceed to my stand. By doing this, the strength of the scent was becoming weaker as I approached my stand location. When deer track each other, they go in the direction of strengthening scent. By scenting once and dragging, I was causing the deer to go the wrong way. I now spray a tuft of golden rod instead of a drag. Drags tend to get snagged on something every ten steps, and with golden rod being readily available, it is one less thing to carry. I spray one small blast on the top and begin to drag it along the ground behind me. I spray another blast every seventy five yards or so which slowly increases the scent strength on the trail. I finish by sticking the stalk into the ground and completely saturating the top. Make sure to place it so the buck is drawn past you without crossing your wind.
Of course I end with talk of playing the wind. As you can see I am a self-proclaimed “wind freak.” Hope I have been helpful making some sense of scents for you. Good wishes and happy hunting.

Questions and comments may be directed to Sheldon at sheldonsoutdoorbusiness@hotmail.com.