Vanilla for scent block?

robhof

Had a friend in Louisiana several yrs ago that didn't bathe for the duration of deer season, got pretty rank, we drove with the windows down on the coldest days, he always got his limit. One year he brought out a doe with powder burns on her chest and a large hole in her back. He said he got tired in the stand and climbed out and fell asleep against the tree, the doe woke him up by scraping her hoofs on his jacket, he rolled the gun:rolleyes: out of his lap and placed it against her chest and shot. Judging by the evidence we couldn't discount his story.
 
You know sometimes the sound makes a pretty convincing grunt call but
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Don't think Ill try that one for at my age, I'm liable to soil myself. Is soiled allowed to be posted? ..... :eek:



Be Safe !!!
 
...I'm liable to soil myself...
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Pahoo,
When you get our age there's a favorite saying,
"Never trust a flatulent " ;).

Want to hear the strangest one I've heard lately?

Deer can't resist powdered, lemon-lime Gatorade mix sprinkled on the ground,stump, cornpile, etc.

I've had various degree's of success with vanilla, anise and peanut butter but I haven't tried that one yet.
 
I was think about this again and I remembered imitation vanilla is sometimes made from certain tree saps.

I don't know the whole process and there are different ways to do it, but it is interesting.
 
I haven't used vanilla extract in years. Maybe because I forgot about it when I took my break in hunting (Dang military decided it needed me to head east, really really far east, for a couple of years).

I would put it into a film canister and use and unscented tampon as the cotton and hang it by the string in a tree near the stand. The deer would come up and sniff it.

Where I hunt now, I do not worry about cover scents or attractants. We are in and out of the woods during the entire year and the deer are use to the human scent.
 
I tried vanilla a number of times two years ago. I had a number of deer go through downwind, and several walk literally right through the center of the area where I had the vanilla. Not one single deer ever appeared to notice. The last time, I used an entire (I think 12oz) bottle on the ground, on some golden rod and on branches. A doe and her fawn walked right through the area, on a trail they would have been on anyway, right through the middle of the stuff and never so much stopped to sniff the air. They acted like they smelled NOTHING.

I'm convinced that most attractants that are thought to work are largely the combined effect of the hunters hope, active imagination and coincidence.

Sometimes, yes, they work. Mostly, it's almost impossible to tell.

I did once use some Tinks 69 that looked like a deoderant stick and rubbed it on a tree. I had a buck walk past the tree until he was slightly down wind, stop in his tracks, sniff the air, turn around back to the tree and stand there licking the tree. There's no doubt that stuff worked THAT time, but I've virtually never seen a response to Tinks, or any other attractant, ever.
 
I don't know about the deer, but it sure smells good. Makes my stomach growl. BTW Buck Bomb has vanilla in it's spray cans now.
 
Wildlife Research makes a scent called Trails Blend.
It smells like a mixture of anise and vanilla,along with other scents.

I've used it on drag rags and have watched deer(does and small bucks) follow the scent trail right under my stand.

Never had a solo big buck follow trail in but did shoot a mid 140 class during pre-rut when doe followed scent trail and buck followed doe.

There's also a long story which I posted here along time ago of getting halfway to my stand, setting my gear down and putting Trail Blend on like cologne and having a nice buck charge me, stopping some 20-30yds out. With his nose in the air and lips curling,this stuff clearly had him fired up. He then ran over the hill and made a scrape next to my hunting partner.

From that day on I followed the obvious warnings on the bottle not to put it on your person :o.
 
I had success with the Trails Blend before and then continued to use it for several more seasons (new stuff not the old) and nothing showed so like anything it could be hit or miss. I also used vanilla extract in the past without success.
 
Back in the early 80's before artificial scent really became the cool thing to do there was a product called Cover Up that smelled exactly like Vanilla extract. It probably was. i don't know if it works or not but I soak a small rag with vanilla and put it in the dryer with my clothes.
 
I think there are two things to look at here:

1) Does it attract deer?

2) Does it scare the deer?

If it does attract deer, great. If it doesn't attract them, does it scare them away? If it doesn't, I don't see a reason to NOT use it. It's like me using my rattle bag this year. Did it call in the 7 point that I saw after using it? I don't know, but it also didn't scare him away.
 
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