Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Are deer attracting products unsporting?

I dont use any of that crap, the best scent is no scent at all, Unless it comes naturally from the area Your hunting in, If You wanna use a little cover scent headlock a cedar or pine tree when You walk by, rub on your head and hunting hat, armpits, back of knees, and boots.

Gunner

Even that ain't enough. I've read studies that determined a deer could detect and categorize 7-8 different scents simultaneously.

Not sure how they found this out...

If true, it mean he smells you and the cover scent.

I still rub pine or dirt on me sometimes, but the only way to really beat their sniffer is to be upwind of them.

JM

I agree JM, I don't use any scent crap.... just watch my wind.

10-4 JM, one of the most overlooked items when it comes to getting close to big deer is everybodies stinking rifle, bow, or ML, all lubricants whether crude based or synthetic smell like hell.
My hunting rifles are lubed w/ a good spraying on my wifes olive oil cooking spray, its a plant based oil and does not alarm deer.

Gunner

They're mostly money scams...hunt the wind and keep your focus out ahead and all around you..not at the ground in front of you.

I usually try to stay downwind

Is it cheating to use a rifle instead of a handgun. Handgun instead of a muzzleloader, muzzleloader instead of a bow. Compound instead of a stick bow.

What about camo. Don't really need it but do you use it as a crutch??

Do you use a scope on your rifle. Or binocs to check things out.

If its legal... get after it if YOU want to. I or no one else can tell you what you think you should do. Its your tag, your season, your deer.

As an aside I use all kinds of methods, I have feeders, food plots, hunt trails, use stands, don't, use old guns, new guns, bows, crossbows, MZ you name it. Never give it a a second thought if I"m having fun doing it and its legal.

And could give a flip less what others think.

You go O brother of the stick n string!!

10-4 (except those cheatin crossbows in 'real' archery season-of course)

Always snip the barbs if that counts..grin

Dober

Why would you ruin a perfectly good hook? LOL!

How did guys get deer years ago before all these scents
were available?

I agree. I put out salt and feed to keep the deer somewhat close to where I hunt . If you don't, the deer will roam to private property or to the thick where you will never see them. It is very thick cover around where I hunt, scopes are out. A long shot is 75 yards. You really want to keep your deer close to your land around here, not only for hunting. YOu can manage them better if you can keep up with them in the off season. Even if you hunt around bait it is still a challenge because of all the brush. Now that the tornando's have came through, it is even thicker. I had some hardwoods to hunt , but now they are gone. I had to climb over alot of downed trees to find my treestand. If you did not put out some supplements, the deer will just leave and find it somewhere else.

Personally I'm not above taking advantage of natural deer attractors- food, cover, avenues for ingress and egress, etc.- as found when hunting or scouting. That's called using your head, and besting the animal on neutral terms. Building a blind and landscaping, planting deer-oriented crops, and providing deer snacks all around it is non-sporting to me and smacks of deer "killing" instead of deer hunting. But that's my opinion, and I'll not castigate anyone employing those methods if it's legal. Besides, I don't see how someone can sit in that same spot for hours every day they go out hunting. Looking at the same trees all day, year in and year out, would drive me batshit.

As far as scents and scent blockers go, 99% of them are just modern versions of snake oil- products that have little redeeming value other than lining the pockets of those who market them. Mind the wind and keep quiet and be done with it. Heck, I had a lit cigarette in my hand while shooting half of the deer in my life.

Camouflage? The only reason I wear any is because most affordable hunting clothing anymore is in camo. I don't get it but what's a guy to do.

STRATEGEREE!!!!

I will always remember being a kid and going with a fellow that worked with my dad to scout deer. We found a log that had a line of salt poured down it's length. I remember the fellow I was with having a fit about what kind of lowlife would salt a deer. It's legal but now when I see the advertisements for deer corn etc.I always think about that day years ago.

This coming season will be the first in south Ga that it will be legal to hunt over bait. I think our will be extremely detrimental to our deer herd as well as hunter success rates. Every club I've been in since I began hunting 20+ years ago you could always tell when guys had corn on the ground. The deer would go completely to night feeding.
For me it isn't about ethics . Simply what works and what doesn't.
And from what I've seen here in Ga it doesn't work.

On a personal level I do like feeders or any bait really that someone puts out to attract deer.

If you hunt over an apple orchard that deer like, then you are using your brain.

Wareagle, without going into the endless arguement about feeders and the good/bad sporting/unsporting arguement let me give you some advice. We could argue about it, and have, until hell freezes over and there would still be two sides to the deal.

If you are going to bait and do it free choice you are absolutely right in saying that the deer will go nocternal on you. They ain't stupid. On top of that hogs will find your corn and run the deer off.

Solution to the problem or at least a partial solution. Put timers on your feeders. Time it so feed is slung say just at good daylight and again an hour before dark. Not a bunch of feed maybe a pound or two which you regulate by how long the feeder runs.

Deer will find it and soon become acustomed to the schedule. They will clean up the corn and there won't be anything there for hogs to eat. If hogs find it first shoot the hell out of them and they will leave the place alone for a while. A couple of weeks anyway. It won't bother the deer they will be back the next day at feeding time.

This is the way we have to do it. Won't work for coons but deer and coons get along pretty good.


BCR

The reason I use feeders is three fold:

1) its a great introduction to hunting for my 2 and 5 year old sons. They can't spot and stalk with me, but they can sit on my lap and wait for the feeder to go off and count deer.


2) When you've only got 300 acres to hunt in the Texas Hill Country you need some reason to bring deer to you. You only have so much land to hunt. Ditto all the statements on spreading bad smells around when you spot and stalk

3)We have so many deer where I hunt that they need to be killed by any method available. Without feeders, there would be even more starvation.

Many of the arguments center around "you'll never kill a mature buck off a feeder". My response is, I have fun shooting the other deer. I really like to pull the trigger. It feels really good. I'd rather shoot four deer a year for four years than kill one mature buck every four years.


All that being said, my big mature 14 point I killed was not within a mile of a feeder.