As a hunter, have you ever seen a herd of deer roaming around the trail in your trail cam? But, when you explore the area, there is no trace of these beauties.
This mysterious disappearance makes you wonder, how did the deer know you were coming? Are they some psychic beings or something? Is it their sixth sense?
No, it’s none of these things. If there is one thing that keeps a deer vigilant and aware of its surroundings, it is its sense of smell. And these whitetails know when you are coming just by your scent!
If you want to catch a deer, you first have to defeat its very powerful sense of smell. The deer family is known for their legendary olfactory powers; if you wish to beat it, you need to know everything about it!
Did you know that researchers at Mississippi State University have deeply studied and put shocking numbers to the deer’s smelling sense? Dogs’ sense of smell is 500-1000 times more acute than humans’, and so are deer’s!
No wonder a deer can smell a hunter from half a mile away! And how deer can do that? According to scientists, a deer’s nose has thousands of sensitive receptors in its nostrils; these receptors are used to sort out up to six smells simultaneously!
But with that kind of amazing sense of smell, how far can a deer smell? Can it smell out a doe in heat? Can it smell human sweat? Find out all the answers to your curiosities in this article!
Deer Smelling Sense 101 – Know The Basics
Fellow hunters, the hunting game is tough, especially when you realize that to beat a deer first, you must beat its nose! It’s a challenging reality, but a deer can smell better than us.
A deer’s long nose is great at picking up all kinds of scent particles in the air, with a mind-blowing number of 297 million olfactory receptors!
Fun fact–a human has no more than five million!
The numbers are far more than dogs, which have about 220 million. When you think about it, we are using the wrong animals to sniff out bombs and carcasses buried deep underground. We need to use deer instead!
A deer’s nose can compete against any other animal’s and win!
And this gets even more shocking as there is more than just one organ for scent detection in a deer! The presence of a gland called vomeronasal, which is also known as Jacobson’s organ, is also used for sniffing out smells.
It is known as the “second nose” of a deer. This particular gland allows a deer to pick up essential environmental scents, such as deer’s urine, that are known to trigger and influence hormonal reactions in the wild buck’s body.
These animals truly live by their nose. A deer can’t just smell scents from miles away; it is extremely aware of the various scents around it. This awareness enables their survival among roaming predators.
Unlike humans who do not pay much attention to their surroundings, let alone sniff out the scents, a deer can identify every scent without letting any one scent empower the other!
With its nose twenty-four-seven in the air, the other senses of a deer take a back seat and help fortify its defense in the face of potential danger.
How Far Can Deer Smell Exactly – Especially a Whitetail?
Now we know that a whitetail’s nose is one of its most powerful weapons, and it helps them avoid would-be successful predators. The next thing to understand is how far these whitetail deer can smell.
Well, a whitetail can smell anything or anyone from a mile and a half! Human odor or anything else, a deer can sniff out the scent and decide what to do with it.
Did you know a whitetail deer can locate the source of a scent from ¼ mile away? furthermore, if a hunter isn’t actively trying to hide his scent, a deer will be able to locate the treestand as well as the hunter!
Many a time, a hunter will have the best hunting equipment available, but his gear is going to be useless if he makes no effort to hide his scent. Why? that is because a hunter’s sweat, cigar smoke or any artificial smell is going to scare away the whitetail deer!
A whitetail’s nose is its superpower. Their ‘nose’ can prove challenging for hunters. A single whiff of tobacco smoke or sweat can prove to scare the deer! Therefore, to allow the playing field to operate successfully, hunters use versatile outerwear, sprays, gloves, and detergents to mask their scent.
The right gear can help hunters camouflage and beat the legendary nose of a whitetail deer to an extent.
Remember, you can always use the deer’s ultimate weapon, the nose, to trick the deer and lure it to any location of your choice!
Lure The Deer To The Place of Your Choice! One Trick Game
Scent luring is an effective scent control strategy of providing the whitetail with a scent they love so much that they will give up any precautions, ignore any dangerous smells, and come running toward the source!
Plus, if you have queries about how far a buck can smell a doe in heat, do not worry, for a deer can sniff out a doe from a mile away even in the heat and when she is hot!
All you have to do is use this factor to your advantage and employ an appropriate deer scent in the right season and conditions.
Using certain scents below, you can trick a deer into thinking that another deer has recently visited the area or is still lurking there.
Just remember to use the right weather conditions. Using the right scent on a windy day can increase your chances of luring a deer to your tree stand from as far as a mile!
Use Doe or Buck Urine
When you want to attract a deer to your hunting spot, you can use a deer! To clarify, using doe or buck urine will attract a deer to your lands far better than anything else!
And here is the reason why.
The thing with deer urine is that upon smelling it, a deer will feel calm and quiet at the nerves. The deer’s urine also increases and stimulates their curiosity, luring them to a new place.
The best part of using a deer’s urine is that it can be used during all kinds of hunting seasons as deer pee in the woods all the time, all year round.
Did you know that a doe’s urine will attract both does and bucks, but a buck’s urine will only draw other bucks?
You can use doe’s urine as a cover scent while walking through the trees. To further influence the game to your side, combine the deer’s urine with other powerful baiting scents such as peanut butter or apples!
For instance, effectively spread deer urine along with some doe estrus scent near your tree stand to lure in a buck; he won’t care about being cautious. Instead, he will only seek the source for potential mating.
Use Doe Estrous Scent
A deer can smell a doe in the heat because it emits estrous or estrus. It is triggered by a hormonal change in a doe’s body that changes the chemistry of her urine.
This scent stimulates a buck’s senses and lets it know that a doe is ready to mate. You can employ this scent during rut periods to lure a buck to your tree stand.
It can work before and after rut periods. However, during a rut period, a deer will be too busy mating with a doe to bother with a mere scent. In such times, chances are low, even if you try the most powerful scent, as a buck won’t leave a doe when she is hot.
Can Deer Smell Human Sweat?
A deer can sniff out all kinds of smells. However, can deer smell human sweat? Absolutely YES! Under normal conditions, if you are not attempting to mask your odor, a deer can sniff you out from at least 1/4 mile away.
Moreover, if the scenting conditions are humid with a light breeze, a deer might smell out from even farther. All this makes a deer impressive.
But, if the nose interferes with your hunting game, it can cause trouble for you.
The thing is, we humans tend to make a lot of smells, from emitting pheromones to liquids like body oil and sweat. These oozing liquids can combine with other bacteria and microorganisms to produce even more odors.
Hence, remember, hunter, before you go out, eliminate the odors of others and yours from your body by taking a quick, thorough shower.
Do not shower with coconut vanilla body wash or any other kind, as it will make the game even tougher for you. An artificial scent might give away your location to the deer faster than natural ones as they are easily detectable by a deer.
Use hunting-specific odorless body wash and soaps to kill your scent.
Do not spray any perfume on yourself. Make sure to eliminate any smell from your hunting gear and accessories. Play it safe by using scent-eliminating clothing and dryer sheets for you and your hunting gear.
Fellow hunters, it is normal and unfortunate to become covered with other kinds of scents during hunting. From smoke from your cigar to the scent of your car’s air freshener can alert a deer’s nose and drive it away from your location.
Luckily, fear not, for certain hunting-specific products, such as carbon scent absorbers, can help you get rid of any scent! Use it before coming to the hunt and during the wait!
Or mask the scent with something else!
Unfortunately, sometimes you would follow all kinds of rigorous and useful scent-eliminating routines. Still, some of these might only partially assist you in getting rid of all kinds of smells.
You can never truly become odorless as your body always makes new scents and releases them into your surroundings.
And unluckily for you, a deer can smell all your scents from a mile away! So, what do you do?
You try to mask your scent by using a scent that is attractive to the deer and allows you to take cover and hunt as you like!
For example, you can research and use domestic methods such as covering your hunting gear with a big plastic container full of nature, such as pine needles, leaves, and dirt. Or, you can choose scent-masking agents to cover your smell before the hunt.
Some experts recommend making your cover scent by taking leaves and twigs and boiling them with distilled water.
And if you wish to invest in good scent masking products, try out different odorless and scent-elimination products such as sprays and wafers.
The sprays and wafers remove scent from the surroundings that will truly help you mask your scent and hunt as you will!
Wrapping Up
There are so many factors that come in when it comes to hunting. But the most lethal and challenging of them all is a whitetail’s sharp nose!
You can’t defeat this bad boy entirely, but you can try various products to mask or eliminate your scent.
Hunters, you mustn’t fear the game and hold your ground by using the wind and practicing good scent control on your every hunt.
You can do your homework before you set out to hunt. Spend your offseason to scout, analyze hunting property all year round, do some research on deer habitat, and explore versatile scouting and hunting methods.
As we learned in this article, there are many ways to mask and eliminate odor. A deer might be sharp, but it is all knees in the face of a hot doe! Happy hunting!