By Ben Norman

We all remember our elders telling us to stop, look and listen before we crossed the street. Were deer to pass along similar advice to their young, they'd modify their version to: "Stop, look, listen and smell for humans."

Are you one of the thousands of hunters who have failed to connect with a buck (other than to see his flag as he bounded off) because they were winded well before they were aware of their quarry's approach? If so, you may want to consider using a cover and/or attractant scent.

Forty-five years ago, on my first deer hunt, my cousin, Clifton Holliday, told me to rub pine needles over my clothes, boots and hat. I didn't get a buck, but several does came within 10 yards of me. I became a believer in cover scents that day.

Pine needles, crushed acorns, sassafras, and other readily available natural scents are still free for the taking. But deer hunters today have a much more varied selection of commercial scents to choose from than did hunters of 15 or 20 years ago. A walk through the scent section of a sporting goods store can leave you more confused than ever as to what scents to choose. There are urines - both real and synthetic - along with candles, wafers, gels, wicks, and poppers. The number of different cover scents is enough to boggle the mind. You can find bottled pine, acorn, sassafras, squirrel, skunk, and fox cover scents - name it, and someone's probably tried to sell it. One enterprising individual was considering bottling armadillo urine. I haven't seen his product on the market yet, but don't rule him out.

Don Bell with Code Blue Scents (www.codebluescents.com) is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to discussing the use of scents in deer hunting. "There are four categories of scents," says Bell. "You have urines, which are attractants, odor stops, such as detergents, body soaps, and sprays that kill human odor, cover scents that mask or cover human odor, and the various mineral mixes. All of these scents can work for the hunter in harvesting a buck."

Bell not only sells Code Blue scents but also uses the product in his pursuit of trophies. "One of the first things one should do before deciding on what scent to buy is to educate himself a bit on the breeding activities of deer," he remarked. "Hunters are often confused when it comes to pre-rut and full rut. Actually, a deer is in rut from the time he sheds his velvet until the end of gun season - that is, he is capable of mating with a receptive doe any time during this period. You often hear hunters say the rut is on when they see a buck chasing a doe. When you see a buck chasing a doe, the full rut may be starting, but if he is chasing her, she is not in estrus."

Used in the right places and at the right times, the proper scents can help you bag a trophy. Photo courtesy of Knight & Hale

Later, as his neck begins to swell and he gets still more irritated with other bucks infringing on his territory, he'll pick a secondary scrape and urinate over his tarsal gland as he rubs his legs together, thus depositing his rutting odor; this consists of the urine mixed with musk from his tarsal gland and his inner digital gland, which exudes the waxy substance between the hooves that is the buck's fingerprint. The rub line and primary scrapes are a buck's way of saying to other males: This is my territory! Stay out! At the same time, it's an invitation to any estrous doe to hang around.

It's at this stage of the game that attractants such as tarsal gland secretions and buck urine can be used to dupe a buck. "At this time, full rut is not yet taking place," Bell observed, "but he still doesn't want other bucks in his territory. Now is a good time to use tarsal gland and buck urine. It's still too early for estrous doe urine; wait until peak estrus begins to use the estrous-doe urine. Peak estrus means that the majority of the does in a given area are in estrus. Does will stand for a buck about six hours out of the 36 hours they are in estrus. We are now bottling 'Standing Estrous' which is urine collected from does during this six-hour period. This is absolutely the best attractant scent I've ever used."

Once full estrus begins, it's time to use doe-in-estrus urine and buck urine to lay a trail. Bell uses a double drag with doe scent on the wick closer to his boot and buck urine on the wick behind it. "This simulates a buck trailing a doe. If decoys are legal in the area I'm hunting, I cock the decoy tail up and apply estrous-doe urine under it. Nothing works every time, but if you use the right scent at the right time and have taken steps to reduce your body odor, there is no doubt in my mind that you will kill more and bigger bucks using urine scents combined with a tarsal gland."

Billy Schofield, another accomplished deer hunter, is partial to his own homebrewed deer scent, the ingredients of which are a closely guarded secret. He developed it as a cover scent to be sprayed on clothing and equipment, but it's proved to be an attractant as well. "I discovered it had attractant properties one day after spraying my boots: A buck trailed me to my tree stand. I have one customer who swears a doe trailed him to his stand and licked the rung of the ladder stand he had climbed into."

Like Bell, Schofield's harvested some serious bucks by using both his and other makers' scents. "I use and sell my scent, Billy's Cover Scent" - contact bigdaddys@troycable.net - "as a cover scent," he noted. "Its attractant properties are just a bonus. I still use doe-in-estrus urine during the peak of the rut and buck urine during the pre-rut, when I'm hunting a rub line. It's important to bathe and wash your clothes using non-scented soaps. Also, it doesn't do any good to do all of this and then go eat at a restaurant before you hunt. If you smell like a hamburger or rutabaga, your cover scent may not do the job," said Schofield.

According to Schofield, using attractant and cover scents to fool your big-racked quarry isn't as complicated as it seems. "You need the wind in your favor; you must blend with your background; be quiet, eliminate body odor, and use a scent that triggers a buck's curiosity, romantic urges or fighting instinct. If you get all these elements together, you'll get a nice buck."