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Talk me off the ledge of Scents....

I've been reading @John Eberhart 's "Precision Bowhunting" book. He has a nice section dedicated to scents, and it really opened my eyes. Pretty much, if you're going to use scents to attract deer, do it in a way that is in line with nature.
 
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So I was listening to the rompola buck pod cast. Got me thinking about just working some synthetic scrapes. A lot of you guys on here are anti scent, smoke and mirrors kinda guys. Which I greatly respect. I feel like trying some and running it at the farm I hunt, or behind my parents house. I wouldn't bother on public with it. To many other hunters around.
Talk me into or out of 35$

Been making and using mock scrapes for about 25 years. After using all kinds of different scents, drippers and scented dirt I realized none of it works better than a mock scrape “placed in the correct area” with no scent and a good licking branch. It doesn’t matter what you put in the scrape if it isn’t in the right location. I don’t use scents anymore waste of money in my opinion. Look up Jeff Sturgis from whitetail habitat solutions. He’s doing it right, I just don’t urinate in mine. Good luck.
 
I’ve had results with real deer urine bought from a deer farm and literally hosing the woods down with a sprayer. At least a pint whenever I used it. Never had deer spook and many times had deer investigate or follow the trail in. I’ve also seen clusters of scrapes or rubs where it was put out.

that being said, it gets to be a pain and as been said, if you’re not In the right spot, deer aren’t going to drastically change their habits to visit scent. I believe under the right situations it can be good to enhance an already good setup.
 
When you listen to his podcasts pay particular attention where Troy says he spends 250-300 days per year (I think he even mentioned spending some nights in the woods in the Rompola podcast) preparing for hunting. I do believe that he has developed a method using scents that helps him kill mature deer but, it's the 300 days he spends per year scouting/learning/preparing, etc. that allows him to do it consistently.

I feel you are right. This be an example of probabilities of success that is based on variables. That due to the amount of time spent, that they more experienced hunters are getting result based on different skill levels? l have not seen the mentioned podcast, but I feel its one of the trapping in regards to taking advices from experts due to circumstances between different individuals and myself. Someone who liveihood is in the wood would be making decision based on their experience that they are doing subconsciously. Like myself, never attempted any scent strategies, if I go try to pick a location for a scent lures, I can spend hours looking at signs and trying to determine best placement. But my success rate for that placement will never be as productive as someone who been in the woods most of the year and can instantly see what is the best scenario.
 
Gotta pee in the woods find a scrape and make it useful lol
Funny story about this. So I pee in scrapes all the time, and last year I went to PA to hunt bow hunt with my Dad for a week at our cabin. We decided to go check out some uncharted territory in the state land we hunt up there so we hopped in the truck and set out. We found a good little ravine that was thick with laurel and hemlocks so we parked and started walking in. We got about 100 yards in the woods and like usual we found a big scrape under a hemlock. So I start peeing in this scrape facing our direction of travel and my dad starts laughing. He knows I do this so I said, “what’s up?”. He looks ahead of us and says, “there’s a guy up there looking at you”. Haha so I look up and sure enough maybe 30 yards in front of us was a guy tucked back in a hole and leaning against a tree quietly laughing, probably bc he saw me come up like a deer and clear this scrape and pee in it. Anyways, I wave, put my equipment away and we just laughed back out of the woods. Never saw a vehicle around either so he must have been walking from a camp in the distance or something but idk..
 
I played with nose jammer a little last year. Saw some curiosity out of 1.5 yo bucks and a couple doe but if big hank caught a wif he was gone like a rocket. Other than that I quit using other scents.
 
Snake eater that’s hilarious! I’ve never hunted much PA game lands. Mostly all private. I gotta venture out one day this year.
Archery is the time to do it, come the second and third day of rifle the dutchies literally drive out the mountain in front of and behind our cabin. Obviously they don’t get all the deer but movement is almost nonexistent in the daytime after this. Not everywhere is like that obviously, my little brother kills a stud on public with his bow every year and usually a different piece than the year before. PA has some monsters in them hills.
 
I ended up talking my self out of this. Mostly because it was gonna turn into 100$ spent that I can't follow thru on. Make the scrape, pour the stuff in, set my trail cameras. It would be an all day event plus the money. Then what? Come back in a few weeks and freshen it up? More time, more gas, more scent stuff. I feel I'm better off just not disturbing things, and waiting to use my time to just hunt instead of trying to bait one in.
 
So I was listening to the rompola buck pod cast. Got me thinking about just working some synthetic scrapes. A lot of you guys on here are anti scent, smoke and mirrors kinda guys. Which I greatly respect. I feel like trying some and running it at the farm I hunt, or behind my parents house. I wouldn't bother on public with it. To many other hunters around.
Talk me into or out of 35$

Easiest talk ever bud. Just try a mock vine scrape with no scent added and you'll quickly see why scents are a massive waste of money.

 
Deer urine, especially estrous urine, is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the hunting industry. An adult doe can produce a quart of more of urine a day. Guys out there buying the stuff in one or two ounce bottles? C'mon man.

Estrous cannot be contained in a bottle. It degrades too quickly, so anything labeled that is either synthetic or just plain urine that happened to been collected at that time.

Trappers figured this out decades ago. Some of our biggest names used to dowse everything they used in fox urine from traps, their equipment, boots, gloves and pants and two ounces over the set. Then figured out we caught the same amount without the urine as with it.

I hardly ever use it unless I need to catch a cat.
 
Archery is the time to do it, come the second and third day of rifle the dutchies literally drive out the mountain in front of and behind our cabin. Obviously they don’t get all the deer but movement is almost nonexistent in the daytime after this. Not everywhere is like that obviously, my little brother kills a stud on public with his bow every year and usually a different piece than the year before. PA has some monsters in them hills.

sure does. I hunt Susquehanna country and you wouldn’t believe how quiet it is the first week. And then opening day of doe season if I hear 8-12 shots it’s a lot. My ground usually takes 4-5 opening day of doe and we do a majority of the shooting. It’scrazy how Quiet it’s gotten in the last 10 years
 
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