Cover Scent Thread

I was looking for the cover scent thread but it has escaped me. Didn’t really want to start another but here we go.

Decided to go sit in a stand this morning to focus on something other than what is happening this weekend. I walked in using the pickup trail. I stole one of the wife’s misting bottles from her craft kit and would give a shot of doe urine every so often as I made my way to the stand. The trail leads right to my stand indicated by the red line in the photo. The time is 7:02am when I climb the stand.



I give a couple doe bleats and I start recording at 7:16am when the deer in the picture showed up.

I will share the video once I get it uploaded. How close did he get?

you seem to be missing the picture with him laying there your bow over him and you holding up the rack .

I have never used a cover sent but you have me thinking now.

I don't know the individual but I read some where, where he has tested this cover sent for 5 years.
He took green walnuts placed them In a bucket of water. He had to weigh them down. Then left them for 2 days in the water. Then he strained the water through a cloth and then placed the water In a spray bottle. He say's It's the best cover scent he has ever used.

lol, there is one here breaking off antlers. I have time so I’m waiting on him. This one got a pass this morning.

He came in for corn I bet

He may have, nothing shocking about that. Walking in my footsteps is the odd part.

it could also be the path of least resistance , you walk it because you can do it quiet and easy , he would do the same.

The video is 4:30 but you can swipe with your finger or cursor to speed it up.

Anyway, here it is.

Could be I reckon. I suppose it’s individual preference as last week as soon as a buck crossed my path he bolted, after I had videoed him for 3-4 minutes. lol I’m starting think there is no rhyme or reason for what they do.

I'm of the opinion having been a hound and upland dog man you can't fool a dog's nose. It will smell the cover sent you your gun oil everything. A deer can smell as good as a dog I would guess . So I think cover seats are a gimic like sent lock ozone and all the rest of things marketed to people willing to blow money
Now a cover sent is not the same as an attractant like doe in heat urine. It seems like some folks conflate the two.

Wouldn’t an attractant just make them want something more than fear what is there also?

Still sounds like cover to me.

Just to be clear, doe urine is not a cover scent it is an attractant. Big difference between cover scents and lures.

I've seen that happen just once that I know of. It was an insane encounter with a mature whitetail buck back when I was a kid. I thought I'd stumbled on to the liquid gold of deer lures. Based on the experience of that little plastic one ounce bottle of deer lure, I went out and bought a gallon of it directly from the fellow who formulated it. I never had it attrack another deer since. Just a one-off, rut-crazed buck.

Yes.

If a guy is laying down fire to cover you is he eliminating your presence or making shooting at you less attractive?

Three cover scents I've had work for me are skunk, wood smoke and copius amounts of human urine.

Two different responses. Gets desired result of buck in range if the attractant works though. Think of yourself as a young man and how much dumb stuff you did and chances you tookjust for the chance of female companionship. A rutting buck is as bad or worse.
As a younger antler crazed youth I tried a lot of things. Rag on a shot rope soaked in doe in heat drug one my foot seemed like a sure thing to get every buck that crossed my path to walk right to me. Never worked. I got older and more experienced and and learned to watch my approach, play the wind, and be in the woods . I save a lot of money and we kill a lot of deer and let even more walk so it must work.

Lot of variables to account for when laying a scent trail. I've had it work for me several times.

I think most deer hunting scents should be labeled Distractants, not Attractants. We ain't fooling their noses any more than us trappers fool's a coyote's nose with lures. We are mostly just distracting them for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes..

Smoke cigarettes. Biggest buck I killed walked right in down wind. Marlboro Reds.

Some are yes, I wouldn't say most. There are a lot of good ones out there that really get the attention of the bucks. The lures I use in these drippers are just about guaranteed to get me a picture of every buck in the area.

[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/MrSTadKFfzo[/video]

The OP was talking about Cover scent not attrctants

Most deer are fickle, except mature deer.

If the wind is under 5mph and not steady, I’m probably going to get busted from the direction it’s blowing. Greater than 5mph and steady and I can have deer 360 degrees around my stand from 5ft to 40yds and they act like they don’t even know I exist. Now when I say deer, I’m referring to does and young bucks.

A mature buck will not tolerate the constant scent of a human. They may walk my trail, but catch a molecule of strong fresh scent and they’re gone. I use a “cover/attractant” scent that works fairly well. But, I’d never really know if a mature buck doesn’t show. I’ve watched them catch my scent in the open where I could see a long distance and they don’t blow or stomp, they don’t even try to determine if that’s really what they smelled, they turn tail and gone, just like a hog or coyote would do.

Yeah mature bucks are killed wearing cologne or smoking a cigarette, but I can tell you with 100% certainty, he did not come from downwind. They don’t get to that age by walking up on humans they can smell.

The ONLY time a mature deer throws caution to the wind is during the rut.

I’m in luck, there are no mature bucks here for reasons already assigned in past posts.

So Marlboro Reds don’t count? They did that day. Guaranteed I was covered.

Neither buck seemed too concerned about crossing my scent. They knew the corn was there, been there for months. The doe urine I was putting out periodically probably blended with the urine in the 20 scrapes I walked by on my way to the stand and the bleats were from an invisible doe. Neither deer worked a scrape10 away from the corn. The one stopped, ate a couple mouthfuls and moved on. If they knew I was there, they didn’t care.

Human visitation on a regular basis at bait sites = many of the deer, not all, slowly begin to associate your scent with the availability of food at that site. They become somewhat acceptable to it.

I swear I have a couple spots in less than 5 minutes of me walking out they are there.
Hunted the other evening and the manager text that they’d be coming by shortly in the tractors. I welcomed them. I hadn’t see anything after being in the stand for almost 20min and as soon as they passed the deer literally ran in to see what was going on, lol.

I'm not knocking that scent but I've seen bucks destroy a scrape like that the night after I took a leak in it.

I use skunk urine as a cover scent which has worked for me fairly well most of the time.

I wear it in a Pete Rickard Scent-Vent. Wore it this morning.

Attractants work if that deer hasn't had a bad experience with it. Tinks 69 a deer and shoot him but he recovers Bet he wont come back in.

Buddy of mine shot a buck on his corn pile and could find him. 2 weeks later he was back on the Camara completely with large hole from the arrow in his back. The sine he described about the blood trail made me guess where the hit was. The picture confirmed it. 4 of the 5 deer I have lost in my life had the same type blood trail and hits were in the same area high in the back. Made me hopeful they didn't die either.

Agree but I exclusively play the wind but all individual deer are different, I’ve used vanilla extract with no ill effects that I’ve witnessed and if you have a 5 year old doe she’s pretty sharp just like a 5 year old buck

All i ever used for cover scent was aqua velva and a mist of eary times.

Tinks69 = cow urine.

Change my mind...

Monday I’m going to go in without spraying, turn around and spray on my way out and see if they will follow me out. lol

Should be interesting.

Charles Alsheimer was a well-respected deer hunter. He swore by estrus cow urine as an attractant, he called it "White Lightning". I'd give it a shot if procurement wasn't an issue.

About 15 years ago I started doing the scent free thing. I was skeptical but the first morning half a dozen deer walked right by 50 yards downwind and didn’t event toss a nose in the air. Not a skeptic anymore.
What is crazy is that people still insist you can’t fool a deers nose. Im here to tell you that after 20 years of getting stomped at, blow the whistle and run away with tail flag flying, that all stopped. It was like magic. I don’t even pay attention to wind direction anymore.
I wear clean clothes that are for hunting only and never washed with street clothes or fragrance, and I get my body super clean, shower right before I go out, and I use a home made spray on my armpits. One other thing I do, is use hydrogen peroxide gargle for my breath. I also try not to get sweaty walking to my stand. Sounds like a lot, but it has became routine and now I don’t feel right hunting without that routine.

It is true that I brought home deer without it, but the difference is so huge that I am not even interested in going back to the old ways. I could play the wind again and kill deer, so scent free is not necessary. But I actually enjoy having deer all around me unalerted and calm, and the experience of watching deer at ease without worrying about when one will blow the whistle.

It would appear he looked up at me but didn’t seem bothered by it. I wonder if he saw himself in my phone. lol

X2 I am a proponent of just being as scent-free as possible and avoid lures and scents. All my gear, including all layers are washed scent free labor day (full month before season starts) weekend and hung on the covered porch for the rest of the season. They wont see the inside of house until after January. Its cold getting dressed outside at 6am, but it has made a huge difference. I still play the wind to the extent you can in Michigan....changes every 30 minutes. As mentioned, this is all after a thorough shower with dead down wind....and I mean thorough. Im not trying to change anyones personal opinion on what works for them, but this has worked great for me with numerous deer down wind with nothing more than an occasional second glance.

It works for you.... I was just at a hunt where a retired co spoke. He had the same stance on it as I do but with much more experience.

He basically put it like this. They tried everything on the market and tracked them all no problem with dogs. Sent lock sent killers , cover sent, the ozone products. He said rubber boots were the worst and the sent puffed out of the top with Every step leaving mushrooms of sent behind. No matter what your doing your not sent free.

I have had the same results you describe going hunting directly after work in work closes and boots deer right under me and beding down never showing alarm in a few hours they hung out from 5 to 50 yards. On a different day in another area every deer that would get down wind would blow and run off before getting into sight.(but one came in from the other side and got an arrow in the top of its head) A lot depends on were your hunting, time of year, and the amount of exposure/pressure they get to people.

Says doe in heat I always figured they meant doe rabbits

I don't buy any of that stuff. Lots of time our scent us blowing over them and they can't smell it. I stopped years ago with the routine. Saved lots of time and saw more deer as I hunted smarter. Some guys swear by it though. I know a whole bunch of people on a hunting website forum that don't use any of those products and shoot big deer consistently year after year and on public land. Bernie is on that site. He can tell you too.

Only thing I really buy is scent free soap. No scent lok clothes. Just everything super clean. Deer can still track me right to my stand, and still know sometimes if they cross my trail, but the key is that they are not alarmed. Dogs could do it too, they can indeed smell something and I expect the deer can too. But they don’t spook. Not an opinion or a theory, it’s an observation based on comparing decades of before and after experience.

Went decades getting busted in the same stands same situations, deer turning themselves inside out when they crossed my scent. Went clean and it stopped. Same spots, same pressured deer, same winds. Consistently, not just certain conditions.

Believe me or don’t, makes me no difference. I know what I can see with my own eyes. Wind direction is no longer a concern for me, haven’t had a deer spook from my scent in years.

I think some places they expect to smell it. The dog had to go out 2:30 this morning. I put my headlamp on and out we went. On the north west end of the compound 4 pair of eyes were watching us, they were apparently drinking from the rain barrels located around the sheds. To the south east were another 6 pairs. I’m pretty sure all were doe. They watched the dog do his business and were still watching when we went back in the cabin. No blowing or mass fleeing.

I’m betting that wouldn’t happen over on the Greenhill Complex, which is 1200 acres of public hunting land.

Deer definitely get used to people being certain places. The local “backyard deer” will routinely let me do chores within 50-75 yards.

I have had this “does scent free work?” discussion on deer hunting forums. Basically it ends with the “I don’t believe it” guys calling me a liar. No worries, believe me or don’t. Carry on.

I also do have friends who have a lot of trouble still spooking deer after doing the scent free routine. Some figured out where the stank was coming from and stopped spooking them, some gave up before they figured it out and went back to playing the wind. Maybe some folks just stink so bad they never can get rid of that armpit-a-liciousness.

Notice I say “spook” not “smell”. Some seem to sniff high and low and act they smell something but they don’t spook. Most show no indication that they smell anything. Occasionally one crosses my trail and tracks it a ways, even to the base of my tree, and often they turn around and track me again over the same track when they leave, never spooking. I expect they can smell the disturbed dirt and crushed plants and such, but they seem curious and not alarmed. I have had them sniff the tree steps and tree, and look up and spot me. That spooks them. So when I say I haven’t had one spook in years, I am talking about spooking from my scent downwind. Of course I spook deer all the other ways.

Suburban deer are used to barking dogs, kids playing in the backyard and whatnot. I've hunted them in that environment. They'll tolerate a lot compared to the big woods deer I'm currently after. They'll get used to a logging operation and come in and nibble on the tops but stray human scent where they don't typically encounter it...they're gone.

Man, you need knee high boots for some of these stories, lol.

Yep that’s me. Mr. Tells A Tall Tail Liar. Carry on.

No, no it doenst.
Takes an EXTREAME amount of discipline the type most will never do butif done, yes, you can get away from getting detected. Been doing it for years.
Aint gonna go into my routine but i will say it SUCKS doing it.
As for a " cover scent" , aint gonna happen. Lots of people say they did this/ that and it worked. In reallity, most likely was a day when thermals were carrieing your scent up n over the deer.
If you stink, your clothes stink, your equipment stinks, they will smell that as soon as they smell your " cover scent".
You can eliminate (or real close) your scent but you AINT gonna cover it up.
e,

Cmon bucksnbears, we both know you are just telling them that so you can laugh when they go through all that effort for nothing. It can’t be done. At least not by those who can’t do it.

I don’t care what you use or who you are…a mature buck walks downwind and you ain’t killing it. That’s if you even get to see it.
Yes young bucks and does have days I could fall in a septic tank and go hunt and they’d pay absolutely no attention. Don’t know if it just the thermals rising or what but I can have deer 360 around my stand. Other days the slightest scent and they’re gone.
Other than playing the wind and only hunting certain stands with the wind in your favor will you kill mature deer. If I could be “scent free” I could park where I want and walk to my stand however I want. It would definitely pay off sneaking in on hogs at night. But I fortunately fairy tales don’t exist.
You can minimize your scent, sure. But the minute you step outside you’re scent is there.

A good number of mature, pressured bucks who got an arrow in the chest while standing downwind of me say you are flatly wrong. Just because you don’t think it can be done doesn’t mean I can’t do it.

And in the end these discussions almost always end like this. I say I do it, someone says I am a liar. I just smile and carry on.

I’m guessing a mature buck doesn’t become mature acting like a young one when they are young. lol

Be pretty crazy if we learned what we are discussing was actually “by design” to keep hunting species and prey species alive.

Tell ya what loosanarrow,
So you mean to tell me, in the history of the world, you can magically become scent free, yet no other person or species can accomplish what you have done. Not doubting you’ve killed mature deer. But just not buying I’m scent free, lol. Not sure if your profession, but you’d be worth millions to the outdoors products manufacturers. If you have a melanistic mountain lion, you’d be worth billions. You could write your own check, scripts for TV, you name it and it could be yours. Heck you could come film down here, by yourself of course cause they’d smell the camera man. I could see it now, brand name bow, arrows, release, broadheads, and that milk weed stuff blowing right into a sounder of hogs and you sneaking in within 20yds to make a perfect heart shot. I know some folks in the industry that could make it happen. I bet Ozonics would double whatever you’re offered to not share your secrets. You’d put them out of business.
And I’m not calling you a liar, just saying you’re a one in a trillion. Instead of the commercials “The most interesting man in the World” they’d be “The most Scent Free man in the World” if you go this route, remember I have it documented here first.

I would never call you a lier becues it works for you and you believe you are sent free. How do you become sent free and eliminate your sent you are exhaling and all the millions of skin cells your sheading with each step?. I suppose I'm a stickler for wording. Yes you can reduce your sent, ie not stoping at the gas station and walking in the spilled diesel on your way to hunt and not using scented soap and laundry detergent and staying clean ie no not taking a bath for several days. But you are and never will be able to be sent free. You said as much in one of your reply. But when you say you do the sent free thing it's very misleading to those that don't understand the difference. Like those that don't know the difference between bait and lure.

I turned the alarm off and stayed in bed next to my wife this morning( much nicer listing to her breathing piece fully sleeping than siting in a stand when I'm away at work so much of the year. It's the little things) . Talk about not spooking any deer.

Lots of times when in a stand, the scent stream will carry scent high over the top of the deer and not too him. You can see it if you use wind floaters instead of powder. You can watch the floaters for quite a distance. I use milk weed fluff. It's free and works better than anything else I've used. I also saw video of a guy using milkweed and it actually hit the deer. Lol. Some deer just don't care either.

Deer Dander ...by Fitsgerald is the best I've used

Mando my wife was born without her since of smell. Stands to reason like people some are more cautious, others careless, some aggressive, some layed back. Some people are blind other have great vision.

I'm of the opinion animals also run the same spectrum but to a lesser extent since the careless ones get removed from genetic pool. So maybe they don't care or maybe their nose is not as good as it should be could be a touch of both.

Why would you be worried about diesel fuel when every piece of equipment running through the field runs off of it?

Too many things combined to pick out one as the reason they avoid you. Take the video I posted the other day. Would that deer have bolted when he crossed my scent if I hadn’t spent 4 minutes videoing him? If I had just gone to the cabin without stopping he probably wouldn’t even have cared.

It feels good to think they are deathly afraid of humans and their scent when you are hunting farm raised deer but that’s not really the case is it.

I don't believe you can become scent free. I do believe you can get it to a level where it's not alarming.

For the record, anybody who thinks they are scent free has never dated. lol

To the people that preach play the wind. How do you get your deer to only come from one direction. Where I hunt they can come from any direction. What do you do when a deer you don't want to shoot comes from upwind and walks by you? It is now downwind.

Exactly! Thats what loosanarrow is essentially saying and i agree 100%. They know something is there, and you may get a second glance in your direction, but they are not alarmed. Once you have a routine, its not a big bother and it makes a huge differnce. If youd rather go out smelling like a stank pot and it works for you, carry on...

You don’t. As for them getting by you, they may smell you but not know where it’s coming from. Deer cross the street all the time in between houses, was it the people 20yards away or the ones 200yards?

You scent free guys ever farted while in a stand or walking to one, especially you old guys? Tell the truth. lol

Yes…that’s good stuff too. It’s right up there next to BowHunters Obsession.

I’m sitting in the stand as I type and just had a deer come “downwind” according to what I feel and the powder showed me. A nice 9pt but not the one I’m after. I dropped a tuft of thermal checker and my wind blows directly to where that deer came from for about 30yds then takes a hard West direction. Lay of the land, brush, trees, etc all play a factor in being smelled or not.

Cover scent, (Deer Dander, BowHunters Obsession) helps mask that scent to where if he did catch it or and does that come through, they aren’t going to blow and raise cane in my observations. They’re just going to back out the way they came without too much disturbance.

When I hunt, I have trails upwind of me I’m “hoping” the deer use. Do they “always” use them, nope. Unfortunately I hunt way more than I kill, lol.

Why would you be worried about diesel fuel when every piece of equipment running through the field runs off of it?

Too many things combined to pick out one as the reason they avoid you. Take the video I posted the other day. Would that deer have bolted when he crossed my scent if I hadn’t spent 4 minutes videoing him? If I had just gone to the cabin without stopping he probably wouldn’t even have cared.

It feels good to think they are deathly afraid of humans and their scent when you are hunting farm raised deer but that’s not really the case is it.
[/quote]


It was one example a lot of the I'm sent free crowd often misses. And yes things run on diesel but farm equipment only runs now and then and the smell would be associated with equipment not a trail running through a beding area.

Also often over looked by many. NOT everyone has the same crop fields they hunt as other people. I grew up hunting crop fields with tree lines on the ditches connecting small woods. Now I often hint big woods in steep hills with 300' elevation changes. There are many less deer per mile and they are way more sensitive to sent in the big woods than farm land deer. Thermals must be paid attention to. I will 2nd using milkweed especially where there are hills and Thermals. I have had the wind in my face and had deer blow out. Flat some milkweed to find the air swirl and go right back to the deer with a steady breeze in my face from the deer to me. It has been a a learning experience to say the least.

Wannabe- not saying I am scent free, Im saying the deer don’t spook.

And here is something neither you nor the scent control industry will like - the only products I buy that you don’t are scent free soap, and hydrogen peroxide. No scentlok clothes, no ozone stuff, none of that.

I do have clothes that I never wear unless freshly showered for the hunt, but you wear clothes also I assume.

After decades of getting busted and spooking them, it stopped. I don’t need fluff or favorable thermals or any other explanation- it is clear that I have my scent below what would spook them. Even when I am on the ground 20 yards upwind. I never said I had no scent- some deer even clearly smell me or “something” - but I repeat, they don’t spook.

Funny thing about telling someone they can’t do something- if they are doing it you are wrong. Believe it or not, I don’t care. I am used to having people not believe me. They are, of course, always people who have never done it….

Ok you win. My offer still stands for marketing though.
And no, I don’t have any fancy stuff. Yes I wear clothes that are washed and stored scent free. Yes I’m particular about my footwear. Yes I’ve had deer downwind without a care in the world. Yes I’ve had mature deer cross my trail and not spook.
NO I’ve never had a mature deer, hogs, or coyotes get downwind of me and not spook. So my marketing offer still stands. We could have the monopoly on deer, hog, and predator hunting industry.

I will say this, wind vs calm days, ground vs tree hunting, humidity and even height in a tree, all determine whether “I’m” detected or not.

Edited to add where the mix up may come in is what I consider Mature. It’s not antler size because my son has a documented 3.5yr old 154” on the wall.
I call a deer Mature if he’s reached 5.5yrs old and above. Yes, a 4.5yr old and even a 3.5yr old can kick your butt, but they still aren’t Mature.

That's a belief though. Not a fact. Lots of times when we find something that worked once, we tend to believe. I'm guilty of it.

Yeah it’s a hot debate. Im not really trying to win anything, I am just saying that I can indeed get my scent level down to where it doesn’t spook deer. Yes I shed skin cells like everyone, but those skin cells must be stripped of the oils and stuff that smell like something that spooks them.

You say I’m one in trillion but others do it on a regular basis. You just don’t believe us for some reason. And we are not inexperienced hunters with no “before” to compare to the “after”.

It’s something I have gotten used to - people say all kinds of things about why it might appear to work sometimes or individual deer not caring, on and on. What I am telling you, and you can just believe me or not, is that after decades of getting busted nearly every time deer get downwind, I managed to lower my scent to the point that deer just don’t spook from my scent anymore. It is what it is, and I know because I have done it.

That's the part that doesn't seem fair.

Because science had proven you wrong. Lol

Most people have never even seen a 3 1/2 year old or older. Most deer shot are 2 1/2 or younger.

Not many chinks in their armor once they have two three seasons under their belt.

Aaaand here we are. I do it and I know it. Others say I don’t and can’t. It was a forgone conclusion when the discussion started. I do still participate in the conversation, even knowing how it will go. Science can just keep proving me wrong, and I will just keep ignoring the wind and arrowing deer upwind, downwind, and all around. Which was not the case before I started lowering my scent level. I know you don’t believe me, and that’s OK.

The part I don't get is guys storing their gear "scent free" for a month before the opener. That's well and good for your first foray, but once you wear them, they're contaminated.

I wash my clothes and shower between every hunt. Use the hunters soaps and hair wash, spray my clothes and boots. That gives me a shot at getting to a stand undetected. At least I think it does. I have stands for different winds.

I'm looking for olfactory challenged deer that are nearsighted and hard of hearing.

I wear my work boots I wear daily and whatever I grab out of the closet, my jacket I wear cutting wooden and doing all farm stuff. On my farm I don't get winded. I did have the nicest buck I have seen in a few years hit the trail I walked in on and go on alert mode yet he hung out at 30 yards for 3 mins and I could have killed him at any time. But he was only about as big as the biggest I have ever killed and I had two deer hanging to process the kids had shot and it was going to get warm that day so I let him walk.
Now if I got 12 miles away to the 25k acre forestry and don't want to get winded I have to pay attention to sent. I will wear farm boots and Pau attention to wind, thermalals and my aproch.

But I have got to admit I'm not serious about deer hunting big bucks. I'm serious about taking the kids. They tagged our on bucks and one shot 3 doe and the other 4 so far this year. 11 total and by the first week in November. They also passed a dozen or more each. So while I have all my tags I'm pretty well done for the year and it's been a big success. To be honest I care less about shooting any deer myself any more. Today I have more enjoyment taking kids and others that don't get the chance to go. I would be more productive just taking a Camara.

Maybe I would kill big deer if I payed more attention to sent control. But my experience with dogs tells me it would be a pointless activity. Who knows though it's working for you after all.

You this whole thing the thread turned into is GreenCounty’s fault. If he had just said, “Whatever’s working for you” but he had to say, “You got me thinking.” lol

Handy scent dispenser with skunk.