By Lawrence Taylor

Bucks were moving. It was that time of the rut when the body overrides the mind and prompts mature bucks to wander in the open during broad daylight — when the urge to mate overrides caution.

Before daylight, Denny Snyder, then a cameraman and pro staffer for Code Blue Scents, applied scents to a double drag. On one of the drags he soaked buck urine, and on the other Standing Estrous, a peak-peak estrous urine that was being tested and was to hit the market the following year. He walked to the distant fence and dragged the scent down the middle of the greenfield, then laid the drag 30 yards out from the blind.

Snyder was shooting footage for Code Blue’s Scentology of the Rut DVD and hoped that this morning would produce a good kill. He snuggled into the box with a well-known outdoor writer and waited on daylight.

The misty morning was quiet and a mature doe fed calmly in the left corner of the big greenfield. Then, from his right, a big 10-point buck jumped the fence into the field. Focused solely on the doe the big buck swaggered toward the doe with singular intent. That is, until he neared the dragline.

Any normal time, the buck already would be leaving a blood trail, but since this was for the video, the hunter held off to see what would happen. The buck stopped and dropped his head to the ground at the scent trail. He raised his head and looked at the doe 75 yards distant. Then he dropped his head to get another information-gathering whiff of the scent trail. The raised his head and looked at the doe. He was obviously torn.

Then, it happened. The big, trophy buck turned away from the live doe and followed the scent trail toward the middle of the greenfield, where he took a well-placed bullet. Unbelievable, it seems, that a buck would leave a live doe for a scent trail, but this hunt is on the Scentology DVD, so you can check it out for yourself.

Early Season
Drags and Double Drags work great during the late prerut, peak of the rut and very early post rut, but during early bow season another aspect of scent is more important — eliminating human odor.
During the early season you’re hunting deer on definite patterns, which do not frequently respond to urines. At this time the most important factor is remaining undetected, and with the warm — often hot — weather during this time of year, hunters produce a lot of stink.

Basic steps to eliminating odor are:
All hunting clothes must be washed in a non-scented laundry detergent and placed inside a sealable container until ready for use. During warm weather, these clothes must be washed before each trip. It’s often a good idea to wash another set of street clothes in nonscented detergent, and wear these clothes on the trip to your hunting location and change into your camo before heading to the stand.

Hunters must shower in a nonscented hair and body wash before each trip to the woods. Remember that you’ll produce sweat during the walk to your stand, so be sure to take along a scent elimination spray or dust to apply before settling in.
Also, apply a cover scent that corresponds to your hunting area; hunt in cedars use a cedar scent, pines, use pine scent. Earth scent works anywhere in the country, and Knight & Hale makes a laundry detergent and a hair and body wash with fresh earth cover scent added, so hunters apply a total body cover scent when washing clothes and showering. One note on cover scents: They’ve got to be applied on an odor free body and odor-free clothes. Otherwise deer just smell the cover scent and a human.

Urines
Urine and sexual scents come into their own as the prerut wears on and the bachelor groups break up. The most underutilized and possibly the most effective during the late prerut is buck urine. And, the best technique for any urine usage is the drag. Bucks during the prerut are becoming territorial and dominant bucks will investigate a foreign buck in their area. Soak a drag in buck urine and drag it to your stand, hanging it 30 to 50 yards upwind and a little to one side.
Warning: anytime a hunter is using a urine he’s positioning the buck to come in downwind. Hunters better be as scent free as possible to avoid alerting the buck.

As the rut nears it’s time to break out a double drag and apply a buck urine to one of the rags and a doe urine to the other to simulate a buck trailing a doe. Again, drag to your stand and hang it upwind. It’s best if you can cross several deer trails as you drag.

When the rut kicks in, keep the double drag, but use a peak-estrous urine instead of normal doe urine. Code Blue’s Standing Estrous is collected immediately after a doe stands for a buck, so it’s “ready-to-be-bred-right-now” urine. And, like all Code Blue urines, is one-deer-to-one-bottle, which means the urine in each bottle comes from a single animal, not a blend of urines from a bunch of animals.
As the peak of the rut winds down, go back to the double drag with normal doe urine, then during the post rut drop back to just buck urine.

The Total Package
For scents to be effective several factors must be adhered to. First, you must remove human odor and keep it eliminated by using odor elimination products while on the stand. It must be used near travel routes to and from bedding areas to feeding areas. And, to present the total package, throw in a few calls. A call that makes a variety of sounds, such as Knight & Hale’s Translator that makes from a fawn bleat to a mature buck grunt, makes it simple and eliminates carrying a bunch of calls. Blind call every 30 minutes or so.
This year, put a plan together that involves smart use of scents. Look at your hunting areas and identify drag routes that will expose a scent trail to various travel routes, and make sure you’re as scent free as possible before hunting.

Adding a decoy during archery seaso
Deer decoying is a relatively new tactic that lots of people are talking about, and a decoy adds the visual to the scent (urines) and sound (deer call). Briefly, hunters can use a urine without a call or decoy, but shouldn’t use a call without a scent (the call will position the deer downwind to scent-check), and should not use a decoy without a call and a scent.
To properly use a deer decoy, first spray the entire deer with a scent neutralizer, then don’t touch it without wearing gloves. Do your best to keep the decoy from picking up any unnatural odors.

Use a drag soaked in buck or doe urine (buck for a buck decoy and doe for doe decoy) to create a trail into your hunting area. Then apply the same urine to your decoy and the ground around it.
Place the decoy within your range of comfortable shooting. Most deer will approach the decoy from behind and downwind, so face it away from you and slightly upwind. Make sure the decoy is placed in an area where it can be seen from afar.
Buck or doe? During the early season, bucks are more interested in other bucks because the does are not ready to be bred, so try a buck decoy during this time. If the decoy allows it, install only one of the buck’s antlers. This shows the deer already has been whipped once, and may prompt another buck to come in and give him another.

As the rut gears up and does begin showing signs of becoming receptive to bucks, switch to a doe decoy and slather it with estrous urine. Bleat with a tip-over call like the EZ Gravity Bleat and you might see a show you’ll never forget.