Solid sent wafers

[recurvericky]

What experience do any of you have with the HS solid sent wafers estrus doe? Compared to a liquid type doe in estrus sent they do smell somewhat different. It could be due to not having urine in it.

[Shawn Leonard]

I have had good succes using them during the rut. I usually hang one high in the tree I am in, more as a cover scent than an attractant, but it works as both I believe. I have shot several bucks using them over the years. I only use them for about a week during the season. I also have taken them and hung them and left them over a scrape or near a rub line. They say they hold their scent for a few hours and than put them back in the container and they refurbish themselves, well I have hung them out for over a week in all kinds of weather and gone back and they still have  apretty strong odor. Shawn

[foxbo]

I tried them a couple of years ago and the only action I got was a nice buck which spooked and hauled butt. Won't use them again.

[tippit]

In the past I had two small bucks put there nose on them.  Never seemed to do much more.  Don't use them anymore...Doc

[Smilingg]

I have had exactly the same experience with scent wafers as I have had with every other variety of estrus scent--in a word, sporadic.

I have had mature bucks come in and put their noses an inch or two from the wafer in great curiosity, and I have had them walk right over scent trails laid down only 20 minutes before and not even stop to investigate the trail for a moment.

Nothing commercially marketed--no liquid, gel, or wafer, etc.-- can hope to compete with the real scent of a doe in estrus. On the other hand I have laid down a scent trail using wafers, had no luck with it that day, hunted the same spot the following day, and had bucks with their noses to the ground following every inch of that trail.

One thing I have learned is that does of any age will usually re-act negatively to the scent of a doe in estrus. They won't spook madly, they may even hang around long enough for a shot, but they will usually turn around and go back the way they came in a state of nervousness or unease.

So if you are a meat hunter, you might want to avoid using estrus scents around the time of the rut.

I have had lousy luck with attractant scents at the same approximate elevation as myself when I am in a tree stand. They have brought deer in and have led the deer to look right up at me in the tree and wonder what the Hell I am and leave quickly. For firearm hunting that might not be such a disadvantage, but for bow hunting. I have found it to be too risky--but to each his own.

[Smilingg]

Forgot to mention that it is a good idea to put a couple of quarter inch pieces of reflective tape (found at WalMart,etc.) on the wafers because they can hide from you once it gets dark.