A topic of many a campfire. Our group came up with NOT using scent. Over the years, when we used scent, the deer of whatever size/sex, tended to act differently when that scent suddenly disappears from the trail. Be it because you dropped the drag or because you left the trail. Much of the time the deer (both bucks or does) would "search" for the missing scent which increased the chances of getting busted when they circled downwind of us. We saw this same thing when we used skunk, doe estrus, food scents, or any other scent. I don't think any of these bottled smells actually smell like the real thing, so it must bring out the curiosity factor in deer. We had some real rednecks in our group so we used some pretty outlandish methods to deploy scents over the years. The scent deployment methods were much more fun to talk about then the actual results of using scents. Sounds like rattling or grunting seemed to bring more deer out, but rarely have I had them bring deer to my stand. I haven't used a decoy, but maybe someday I'll give that a shot. Just to see if I can get a buck to trash it. (Grin)
