Real-World Test Video: How Far Can an Animal Smell Deer Urine?
OutdoorHub Reporters 11.16.17
Have you ever wondered how far away a buck can smell the deer scent you dump on the ground? Several factors play into it. For starters, what is the wind direction? How much moisture is on the ground? Thermals, the outside temperature, and how long ago the scent was dumped all play into the equation.
I recently started working with Wyndscent, a company that makes a scent dispensing unit that dispenses deer urine in vapor form. The unit heats the urine and then vaporizes it. Because the scent comes out in a vapor and is hot, I figured that smelling hot vapor must be easier than smelling doe pee that was poured on the ground. To test how far away animals could potentially smell the vapor, I asked my buddy Tracker John to put his bloodhounds to work.
Tracker John is probably the best-known whitetail blood tracker in the Midwest. When someone shoots a monster buck and they can’t find it, Tracker John is often the guy they call. Over the years, Tracker John has tracked for a wide variety of TV hunting celebrities and professional athletes. When the stakes are high and a monster buck has been hit but not found, Tracker John gets the call. His highly trained dogs know how to zero in on scent and find the end of a trail.
Of course, there is no way of knowing if a bloodhound’s nose can smell something as well as a deer or vice versa, but I figured it would be a comparable match. I sent Tracker John a Wyndscent unit to test out with his dogs.
As the video below shows, he put the Wyndscent unit deep in the woods and then let his dogs walk at will without any commands until they hit the scent. What we discovered was that the dogs can smell the Wyndscent unit from several hundred yards away. I am fairly certain that a deer can smell the heated scent from a great distance as well.
Over the years, doing scent drags on the ground has become popular. The problem with this tactic is the scent dissipates quickly and in some cases, doing a scent drag can leave behind human odor. With vapor scent, however, the wind does the job of dispersing the scent so the hunter doesn’t have to walk through the area.
Technology has changed the way most of us hunt. From faster bows to Scent-Lok suits and Ozonics machines, deer hunting is much different than it used to be. Modern-day technology has hit the deer urine market, too.
Watch Tracker John and his rock star bloodhounds test out the Wyndscent unit in the video below, then decide for yourself if the product would help your deer hunting.
