Why Deer Scents Work

Biologists still don’t know everything there is to know about how deer react to scents. Here’s the latest on what we do know.

I've never seen an apple tree grow anywhere along the flood plain of the Tombigbee River that runs through Mississippi and Alabama. Therefore, when a hunter from Pennsylvania told me he planned to take some of the apples from the dinner table, cut them up and put them around his stand to lure in bucks, I thought he'd lost his mind.

The next morning when we left the lodge before daylight, I asked the Pennsylvania hunter if he had his apples with him. Reaching deep into his hunting coat, he pulled out three large delicious apples from the state of Wisconsin. I couldn't resist saying to him, “I hope those apples work.” But I knew he'd probably spook more deer with those apples than lure in any deer to them. I thought for sure I'd have a big laugh at the expense of the Pennsylvania apple man when we came in from our morning hunts for lunch.

Then when the truck the apple man rode in pulled up to the front of the lodge, I couldn't believe what I saw — a huge 12-point buck on the back of the truck. At the time, I said to myself, “Well, at least someone who went with the apple man took a really-nice deer.” Then I heard the apple man's voice say, “I guess you'll believe me now, John, about how much deer like apples. What do you think of that buck?” The apple man told me how the buck had come in with his nose in the air, looking at the apples and walking straight to them before the apple man squeezed the trigger. I shook my head in disbelief at what I'd just heard. Having lived in Alabama for most of my life, I'd felt certain that apple scent never would lure in a buck. However, the apple man had proved me wrong in front of a crowd of people.

With a smile on my face, I looked at the apple man and said, “Hey, I'm going to carry some of those apples with me too in the morning.”

Why And How Deer Lure Works

Puzzled by why a big buck would come to a scent he'd never smelled before, I discussed what had happened with Dr. Karl Miller, a deer researcher at the University of Georgia. Miller explained, “A deer will come in to check out any strange smell he finds. He wants to know what that new odor is and what's causing it.”

Since learning that deer will respond to strange smells, I've interviewed other hunters who have used shaving lotion, the smell of fresh paint, the smell of fresh earth, fox urine, doe urine, buck urine, tarsal gland and a wide variety of other deer hunting scents and lures to bring deer to within bow or gun range at various times of deer season. I've learned that when you find a buck in a place you can't reach, such as a clear-cut or a thicket or across a property line, often you can utilize deer attractant to bring that buck to you.

Not all deer lures work equally well, and you'll find some more effective than others. I've asked Dr. Larry Marchinton, recently retired professor of wildlife biology at the University of Georgia's School of Forest Resources and long-time deer researcher, why lures work. Marchinton explains, “Lures will work sometimes. Often I think deer react to a lure more out of curiosity than anything else. They may be responding to a strange scent in their environment.”

Mike Cartwright, a wildlife biologist of Arkansas' Game and Fish Department, also has some interesting ideas on the topic. “During the breeding season, the communication between the bucks and does is very strong,” Cartwright said. “That's why the behavior pattern of a buck changes, and he begins to make scrape lines and deposit scent through urine over his tarsal glands on his hind legs. The urine mixes with the scent on the tarsal gland, leaves a very strong smell and communicates information to other deer in the area — both does and bucks. The bucks can tell by the scent a doe leaves whether or not she's receptive to breeding during the breeding season. Scent communication is much more developed in deer than in humans.”

Deer Lures Either Initiate A Breeding, Eating or Curious Response

Lee Christianson of Wisconsin, an avid deer hunter, believes it. “Basically, lures are either a sex lure that initiates a breeding response, a food lure that calls deer to eat or a curiosity lure that stimulates a deer to come and investigate,” he said. “You've heard the old saying that curiosity killed the cat. I believe curiosity has killed more deer than it has cats. Deer are gregarious herd animals and very social. Because they want to meet and greet new individuals in their herd, they'll investigate the smells of what they perceive to be other deer.”

One key for scents to pay buck dividends is the fact that you must match those scents to the amount of hunting pressure in an area. As one hunter explained to me, “At the beginning of bow season, deer are in full-rut mode hardly anywhere in the country. So you may not want to use a sex scent at this time of the year. You may prefer to choose a different kind of scent. If you're hunting in a high-pressure region on opening day of deer season and everybody hunting is putting out some type of deer lure, then any deer lure probably will be counterproductive because of the large amount of lure being put out by hunters.”

What Deer Scents Could Be Communicating

Many hunters consider the words “buck lure” a misnomer. A buck lure probably contains hormones a doe will give off when she's ready to or getting ready to mate. These hormones attract the buck because of his natural mating instincts.

“Many things are labeled buck lures,” Marchinton said. “If the tarsal scents are made from tarsal glands and if that scent is representative of the actual smell of a deer, then we think this lure can communicate the individuality of the animal. That scent may be able to communicate the sex of the animal that has produced the scent. We strongly suspect that the scent probably even communicates the social position or rank of that deer in the herd. This theory is not proven and is not scientific fact. Biologists only have some circumstantial evidence to support this idea.”

What Native Americans Knew About The Importance Of Scents

Although Native Americans and early settlers used fire drives to round up deer, consider the Cree way of bagging bucks at close range that I saw demonstrated when I hunted with Whitetail Outfitters in the wilderness area of Manitoba, Canada. I met Lenny Huff there, who used the Native Americans’ way of luring in bucks with fire.

How Fire Works To Lure Deer

The Cree tribe of Manitoba has built fires since recorded time to stay warm during the cold, harsh winters while hunting and to lure deer and moose to within bow range. When I asked Huff why he built a fire and hunted from a ground blind, he explained it to me. “I don't hunt much from tree stands because I feel too confined in them,” Huff said. “I get bored easily, and I like to be on the ground where I can maneuver. Years ago, a Cree named Gordon Pronto taught me the way he and his people had always hunted deer with fire. He explained that deer weren't afraid of fire and that they would come to it to investigate. Once the deer saw the fire, most of the time they'd stare at it, almost as though mesmerized, walk around it and then walk off. If the fire stayed in the same place, they'd often come back two or three times in one day to look at the fire.”

Huff went on to explain that the smoke from the fire masked the human odor. Also, watching the smoke coming from a fire helped them see that the wind changed direction many times during a day of hunting. The wind would carry the smoke from the fire in a blind in whichever direction the wind blew. Too, the Cree found that the sound of breaking branches and twigs to feed the small fire in snow country would carry some distance, prick a deer's curiosity and call in deer.

“I've had bucks walk up to the side of my blind before and look over in the blind at the fire,” Huff reports. “Many times I've had them come within 10 feet or less of the blind. Although moose react the same way to the fire and the smoke, they'll only come to within about 25 yards.”

The Chippewa tribe used the smell of white cedar slashings to attract deer in winter, since deer loved to eat these tasty morsels. The Chippewa would cut down groups of about one dozen trees, one mile apart, and set up accordingly to harvest the deer that responded to the scent of the trees. All Native Americans recognized the importance of not leaving human scent. The Iroquois went so far as to remove the dirt from pit traps they dug for deer and also either wash or smoke anything their hands touched because they knew scents could affect deer adversely.

How to Use Deer Lure

Here's some simple rules to follow to use deer lure successfully.

• Don't place scents on your body or your clothing. Instead, put the scent in the area you want to draw the deer to, like a bush or a tree.
• Don't put the scent in a region where you won’t be able to see the approaching buck. You also must remove or eliminate your human odor when and where you put out scent, or else the deer lure won't do its job.
• Don't leave buck lure out all night, because it will work all night to pull in nocturnal deer. When the deer go to that region and smell the lure, they'll eventually walk off because they'll find nothing there except the smell. To use deer lure most effectively, put it out during the hours you hunt, and take the lure with you when you leave.
• Put the lure upwind of where you believe the buck holds.
• Place your tree stand across the wind from where you expect the buck to show up. Don't put the deer lure straight downwind of your stand, because the buck most likely will smell you before he smells the lure.
• Wear a drag rag as you walk to your stand to effectively call deer to where you wait. Tie a piece of nylon cord around each of your boots with a 12-inch-long drag rag that you've soaked in deer lure. As you walk to your stand, upwind of where you expect a buck to move from, the deer-lure-soaked rag not only will cover your human odor, but also lay down a scent trail that may cause a buck to walk right to your stand and give you a shot. On some occasions, I've taken nice bucks that have come in behind me with their noses down close to the ground, following the scent trail to my stand.

What Lures Work Best

“All lures have a place in the overall scheme of hunting, but the hunter must have confidence in and be comfortable with the lure he's using,” Marchinton explained. “Some scents undoubtedly do attract deer at certain times. But at other times, those same scents may scare off deer. For instance, if you utilize a dominant buck scent, and a young buck comes to it, the younger buck may feel he must leave the area once he's identified the scent. The effectiveness of specific scents on individual deer seems to be a matter of the deer's rank or position in the herd, what kind of animal that scent or lure is made from, and the quality of the scent being used.”

Marchinton emphasized that biologists don't really know how scents are carried in the environment. “Under certain conditions, scents seem to rise and travel better than at other times,” he said. “If the air's dry, scents may not travel very well. Too, wind patterns will be a factor in how well scents travel. I believe humidity and wind are key factors affecting how effective scents are.”

For success when using scents, consider the factors mentioned here and adapt your use of scent accordingly. Hopefully a big buck will come in to the scent you've put out.