Some hunters wouldn't head for their stands without a little deer scent in a bottle. Others never use the stuff.
Dennis Udovich, who happens to sell deer scent under the Udovich Guide Service brand, is a believer.
"The idea of scent is to get them to focus, to slow down for that broadside, humane kill," said Udovich, of Greaney.
Like many hunters, Udovich uses scent in several ways. He will dab an absorbent cloth liberally with doe scent and drag it on the way to his stand, then drag it at a right angle to where he'll be sitting. The assumption is that an interested buck would follow the doe scent and present a broadside target.
Or, he'll sprinkle buck scent around a scrape that another buck has made by pawing the forest litter down to bare earth. Bucks urinate in their scrapes to let does know they're in the area. When re-checking a scrape, a buck might be surprised to find the buck scent that Udovich has sprinkled nearby.
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"Deer know who's out on the property," Udovich said. "If they get a new buck in there, the breeder buck think, 'Who's this now?' "
If he's apt to check his scrape more often, or stop at that scrape, that might give a hunter an advantage.
Udovich, who has been guiding deer hunters for 31 years, knows some deer hunters don't use deer scent.
"People who tell me they don't use deer scent, 70 percent of them are hunting over a good food plot or bait," he said.
Baiting deer for hunting is illegal in Minnesota.
