How to Boost Your Whitetail Scent Game

Using drags to create a scent trail or hanging a scent rope at a scrape can generate great responses from a buck. Photo by Wildlife Research.

Most hunters I know buy a bottle of doe-in-heat juice and a few wicks with it, set them out near their stand a few times, have no luck, and say, “To heck with it, I’m not fooling with that stuff anymore”. If that sounds familiar, it’s time to step up your scent game. Deer lures can work, but you have to commit to using them every day on your rut hunts. Here are three tricks to try.

MUSKY LIKE A BUCK

Biologists note that during the rut, bucks rub-urinate often over their tarsal glands but don’t lick the urine off their hocks like they do at other times of year. Thus, those wet, dark hair tufts act as wicks for myriad bacteria. Those bacteria, along with gland secretions and the urine, cause the hocks to emit a buck’s powerful individual musk, which advertises his presence to other bucks and does.

Don’t Miss: How to Stay on Bucks All November

By setting tarsal lure near your stand or blind, you throw down a challenge to other aggressive bucks working an area. If a big deer thinks a stinky interloper is invading his turf, he might march over for a look with hackles raised.

I set two wicks juiced with a heavy dose of tarsal near my stand when I’m hunting the first 10 days of November. The hard pre-rut is the best time to try it, when bucks are rowdy and on the prowl, but before most does are receptive. Keep in mind that strong tarsal musk can scare off young bucks. But if you’re after a big old deer, as most of you are, buy a bottle of tarsal and try it.

DOUBLE-DRAG SCENT TRAIL

Twenty-five years ago, you couldn’t pick up a deer hunting magazine without reading an article on how to lay down a sweet scent trail during the rut. How times have changed. Today, there are few paper magazines left to read, and hardly any of them mentions scent trails anymore. I bet few of you guys younger than 40 have heard much about scent trails, much less tried the technique. But you should.

Don’t Miss: 3 Killer Ways to Get More Bucks on Your Trail Cameras

You’ll need two drag lines for the way I do it. First, cut a piece of thin rope or paracord about 4 feet long. Cut a second string a foot to 18 inches long, and tie it tightly toward the front of the long rope so that it will ride a couple of feet behind your boots as you drag the lines along. Now tie a scent wick to each end of the strings. On a hunt, when you’re 200 yards or so from your stand, pull out the double-drag. Juice the long line’s wick with buck urine, and the front short line’s wick with hot doe. Sneak the rest of the way in, dragging the wicks as you go. By towing doe and buck scent on your drag line, you create the illusion of a real buck trailing a real hot girl. If an interloper comes along and cuts this scent trail, he might turn and follow it to your stand.

ROPE RUSE

The hottest new trick going is the scent rope. For this ruse, you’ll need several pieces of rough natural-fiber rope cut 2 to 3 feet long, and some bottles of deer lure. Some scent companies, such as Wildlife Research Center, sell rope kits, or you can pull together your own. As you’re scouting and hunting the next few weeks, snoop around in various corners of your land for big, black, stinky scrapes — ones that multiple bucks have been hitting regularly. Find stout branches above those scrapes, and using zip ties or pieces of wire, hang your ropes so they dangle above the scrapes and about 4 feet off the ground. Fray and spread out the bottom fibers of the ropes, and douse those frayed ends with heavy doses of tarsal scent and doe-in-heat. Dump more tarsal and estrus doe lure into the scrapes’ fresh dirt. Set trail cameras near those scent-posts, and get the heck out of there.

Check Out Our Latest Camo Pattern: Realtree APX

A biologist once told me that if you hang several cameras on hot scrapes scattered around your area, you’ll get images of most of the resident bucks there, as well as some vagabonds that cruise through in search of does. That’s right, and creating several rope scrapes where you hunt enhances that. As multiple bucks and does visit those scrapes, they’ll rub their foreheads and eyes on the ropes, and lick and chew them. The scent of those deer will become immersed in the ropes’ fibers and linger for weeks, attracting more deer. Check your cameras daily, and you’ll find a shooter or two, and where those bucks are hanging out. Move in with a stand and hunt. If terrain and cover allow, you might be able to hunt over or at least close to one of those rope scrapes and fill your buck tag.