How to store scents after season
Whitetail Deer
I just discovered my deer actractive scent tote had a bottle that I didn't tighten down all the way so I started cleaning out the tote and was thinking that I Hurd someone say I should store scents in cold area not garage so I'm asking if I should just throw all the scents away and start over this fall and where should I store my scents after the hunting seasons? I've have a few bottles of scents for a few years but have always kept inside a tote in the garage for the year is that a bad idea?
I'd store them in the trash.
If it's a urine based lure, flush it. It's nothing but ammonia now anyway...heck, it was ammonia when you BOUGHT it!
My go to urine was from a small deer farm that didn't force feed their deer with flavored water. I bought my first few bottles at the deer and turkey expo in march. Shot a booner with it that November. He was trying to catch the doe that was pissing in my mock scrape for 2 days before I shot him, I freshened the scrape every morning I sat the stand. I Stored in the refrigerator and only took what I needed to the field. I store all scents in the fridge, a ziplock is a good idea just in case.
As far as urine lures are concerned, what the attractant is, is NOT the urine per se (as urine begins to break down into ammonia), but the pheromones of the animal that it came from. This is why I gave up on store bought urine a long time ago and just started using my own in scrapes. I've gotten far better response from that than I ever got from commercial urine. My pheromones are the same as any other male animal and that's what causes them to tear up any scrape I put it in. This is also why a woman hunter (or if you can get you wife/girlfriend/or both to let you collect theirs) has probably the best buck lure available............especially if it's a certain time of the month.
So you're saying bucks don't run around 365 with their nose up does a$&? No way! All this time I thought "the rut" was relevant.
I store everything but my aerosols in the round file after season is over, aerosols I just put the lid back on and lose them somewhere!
I don't get your point ohio.
Thanks guys I'll pitch all of it into the trash and start this fall all over again. I did see a few doe and small bucks turn away from my hunting location because of my trail drags they'd walk to them and smell my drag line path put there flags up and turn and go back where they came from WOW I'm dumb but thanks to all of your help I know now to buy yearly and store in refrigerator when I'm not using during the season THANKS AGAIN for informing me I was doing more harm than good. Any suggestions on which brands because scents have been in my past one of my goto things that helped put pope n Youngs on my wall. I will still get Fitzgerald deer dander annually because I've had deer walk right to my tree and luck my tree pegs or ladder :)
I know this is a "Your Mileage May Vary" topic, so take the following with that in mind.
I went through the whole gamut of attractant scents over the decades. I started out with homemade scent canisters made from 35mm film cans , and then homemade drags. When the commercially made stuff came along I bought that. I made a special box to keep my scent bottles in that would fit in my hunting bag and kept them cold, etc . I even tried the scent sticks that looked like incense.
Well in all that time 99% of the deer that I KNOW were in the scent line of them ignored them entirely, especially the bucks. The only definite positive reaction I had was from a fawn that left it's mother's side and came right in to sniff a scent stick I'd put out (I didn't shoot it). But I kept at it anyway.
10 years ago I bought a bottle of Tink's Gel Scent that had just come out. I set it out up wind from my stand and in that morning I had TWO bucks...an 8 and a 10 pointer....get almost close enough to my shot zone, hit the scent line, go on "alert"and then turn right around and exit the way they came in. They came from opposite directions about a 1/2 hour apart and were unalerted and calm until they hit that scent.
On the way home later that day I stopped at the first roadside trash barrel I could find and threw ALL of it away. 10 years later I don't miss it. Not at all.
Now if I use any scent at all (my take now is that the best scent is NO scent), I use my own urine by peeing in scrapes or wherever I want. It's not magic bullet...nothing is...but I can attest that the scrapes that I've pe'ed in have been torn up afterward, and several of them were hit the day I freshened them while I watched from my stand. My theory is that my pheromones are the same as a bucks, and by the time the rut starts the local bucks (and does) know the scent signature of all the other local bucks and therefore the pecking order. When the smell mine, they may think..."HEY! Now who in hell is THIS sumbuck!!???"
Just a theory based on my experiences.
I have excellent luck with scents. That said I use mainly urine I collect from deer that have been killed during the season . During the rut the best combo I use is urine from a doe recently kill on a drag rag and then on a second rag fresh buck urine. As for storing it, never I just use it all up before season runs out. I also live about 30 minutes froma guy with his own small heard and I do get scent from him as well. Scooby
Thats choice scooby. Just keep tabs on his does and when they start squatting collect it! I had a good relationship w/ buckeye scents and they bottled fresh for me. As long as he doesn't over filter it, obviously you know the value of fresh urine.
When I was teaching Bowhunter Ed. years ago, I would often be asked "What kind of scents, lures do you use?" My answer was " Most scents, lures did their primary job when you picked them up off the shelf."
I freeze left over scent and use it to make mock scrapes the following year. Not sure if it works but I do get pictures of bucks and does visiting the scrapes. I'm too cheap to just throw it out.
I have always been told to either put them in the refer or in a dry cool daru place, never freeze. Liquid scents I have always thrown out, this year I have some James valley gel left over so I will keep it and see how it smells in October.
Freezing can degrade molecular structures. I've always liked James Valley, an old trapper who gave us a glandular lure for deer. The gels, pastes, and solids will last longer and are more stable than 100% natural deer urine, but IMO all can have longer shelf life when stored in the fridge.
