When do start useing scents? pre rut or rut?

Just trying to get an idea of when most of you start using your urine estrous scents. I start in late October and go till the end of November. Or when I think the rut has ended.

I use Dominant Buck Urine from Halloween to the end of archery in mid-November...then I start using it again in December if we get snow and I find a good track to follow...yes, I spray it on my wool pants!

I put it on ma boots, i make drags, purty much use it from beginning to end. ive made me some litle homemade scent bombs out of asprin bottles. I like to make moc scrape lines and put a li bit in them. Iive used a bunch of different brands and some will RUN deer off. and i only use estrous theres probly other good stuff out there but i like to use tink 69 and code blue. Both work in alabama but very seldom do deer just run to where i put out the scent most times they cruze through lookin for the doe. Since deer here are kinda funny im kinda sparing with it so if i made a drag or put some out somewhere im hunting a day or two days before, i try to wait a day or two before i put anymore out because deer here can get educated real quick. so i use it bout all season but sparsly and very spread out.

I use doe estrous and dominant buck urine during the prerut all the way thru the post rut. The time of the year depends on where I'm hunting at the time. I'll make a drag with the doe estrous, then hang it upwind of my stand location. I will also hang a scent bomb of dominant buck urine off to one side of where the doe urine is hanging. To simulate, in my mind at least, a buck following a doe.

Sounds like I am doing it rite so far. I have not uses the dominant buck urine yet only doe. I might add it to my arsenal. What about cover scents do they work? I have not used those yet either. Just a drag with the doe urine.

I carry a jar of wall hanger (jell) from start till done. i sit it on ground near trail or scrape with lid off for a sent post while hunting , it will last several seasons if you keep it in sealed container in the fridge . sit it beside a bedded doe decoy and be ready , works on bucks and doe's

I do things a bit different. Not saying there totally right but they've worked for me for many years.
From the start to mid pre-rut I use just plain doe urine you don't want to be out of place. But when mid pre-rut starts I'll strart useing doe in heat urine. Mid to late pre-rut those bucks are wired and are out looking for those first doe's that are comeing in.
Never put any scents on yourself. You differently do not want to draw any atention to yourself. I've learned this through years of ground hunting.
I also make drags a little different.
I do 2 thingsd that makes or breaks your scent drag.
First when you add scent to a drag at the begaining of your walk to your stand. Starting out your scents strongest and the closer you get to your stand the weaker it smells. If the buck smells it he'll follow it backwards.
You want to start out with a weak only add a VERY LITTLE BIT of scent on your drag rag and add scent to it every 50 or 70 yards. This way your scent gets stronger the closer you get to your stand. If no bucks are showing up at your stand it because they cut your drag trail and followed it the wrong way.
Secondly never but the scent of your boots or a drag pad that attacts to your boots. No matter how scent free you or your boots are theres no way you would'nt leave, scrap a bush or what ever.
I've did this for many years and it works.
I put my drag on a 4 or 5 foot stick. Add scent as I said and get on the down wind side of my drag and as you walk to your stand the drads scent off to the up wind side. Bucks have a lot harder time smelling you if you leave any scent.
My best year was 55 bucks seen while hunting I say 15 bucks followed my drag rag on my site. I love useing a drag along with calling. The more of the natural illiousion you produce,smells and sounds at the same times a killer tatic

There's one other thing I only use drags if it's fairly open walking.
If it's so thick that I rub bushs and leave lots of scent. There's just no way exspecially a mature buck not going tpo smell you.
Then I relie on my set up and my calling.

sounds like solid advice crooket.

I use food lures up to and after the rut. During the rut I use a drag with doe estrus and nothing else

crooketarrow wrote: Starting out your scents strongest and the closer you get to your stand the weaker it smells. If the buck smells it he'll follow it backwards.

Spot on!. I use a drag when I get to the stand. I will walk across my shooting lane. I usually start 50 yards from my stand and then walk 50 yards past. I then double back and set up.
I have tried going further but honestly, I haven't ever had a buck follow a long range drag.

Maybe I will try it your way (adding more as I go) and see if I can bring one in from a distance. Cant hurt to try.

I'm sure bucks have cut your trail. Only to follow your drag back to where you started your drag at.

Look at it like this you jump a rabbit out of his pot. His scents the strongest the fatherest as he gets away from his pot where you jumped him. You put your dog on him. The dog follows the rabbits scent trail the father he gets away from where he started (jump up at) the scent gets stronger as he go's away. Just like your drag should do.

Meaning you have to keep adding scent to your drag as you go. So the scent on your drag gets stronger the closer you get to your stand. If you don't make the scent trail stronger as you go.The buck will follow the scent trail backwards to the strongest WHERE YOU STARTED.

THE SECOND REASON YOU MIGHT HAVE NEVER HAD ANY BUCKS FOLLOW YOUR DRAGS FROM AFAR IS THEY SMELLED YOU. This is why I never put the drag tied to my shoes on a PAD ON MY SHOE. Me leaveing scent is why I put my drag on a stick and walk on the down wind side of the trail I want the buck to follow. The drags 4 or 5 feet up wind of where MY scent. There's are far less chance of him finding me out (smelling me).
I'd bet my bow you do it this way you start haveing bucks come right to you.

When I get to my site I go a little past you don't have to go 50 yards. Just far enough so the buck go's into your shooting lane.
HERES A TIP
I use this on every set up. When I get to my shoting lane where I need the buck to stop. I'll but a scent canester where I need him to stop on the up wind side. Most of the time he'll turn quarteing away thus lookind away so I can draw. Then where I leave I take my scent bottle with me. Not to say scent put I in no way want the buck to know I was there.
So when the times and winds right I might want to go back to that site again.
Never do the blaaaaaaaaaaaaaa thing. I never drw atention to where I'm at.