Stories and Articles    -    Authored by Jason

A Wife's introduction to scent bombs  

 Especially during the rut, I enjoy using my flambeau deer decoy while archery hunting.  For maximum effectiveness I also like to use various scents in conjunction with my decoy. I will often drag a cotton swab with Tinks 69 or other various scents while heading out to my stand.  Next, I’ll place several scent bombs or ‘bombs’ as I refer to them, in the general vicinity I am hunting, playing close attention to the wind direction and which paths I expect the deer to be traveling. Most often I also place a ‘bomb’ actually inside the decoy, as the decoy is hollow on the inside.  I believe this gives my decoy the illusion of having more of a natural scent when real deer get in close proximity. 

As the daylight faded out of the western sky on my evening archery hunt, it was time to get down and pack up.  Another beautiful day in the woods, however, I hadn’t seen any deer which was unusual for a rut hunt.  One of the challenges I often run into when archery hunting is having to pack up all my gear and walk out in the dark.  It can be quit an ordeal getting everything packed up and ready to carry out, making sure not to forget something along the way.   

This night was no different, I gathered up the ‘bombs’ and broke down my decoy.  My usually routine is to screw the lid back on the ‘bombs’ and then put them in a small plastic zip-lock baggie for safe keeping until my next hunt.  I’m not exactly sure what happened, but as I was about to find out, I apparently didn’t get the lid of one of the bombs on tight as well as not sealing the bag correctly. 

The walk went surprisingly fast as I approached my vehicle in the parking area.  My wife and I had recently purchased a new SUV, which meant my gear had to go inside the vehicle. I opened up the back tailgate and set in my equipment.  Since the weekend was upon us and I planned to hunt at least once more, depending on what my schedule would allow, I decided to leave some of my hunting gear including my decoy etc. in the vehicle.   

Fast forward to the next day.  My wife and I headed out to the vehicle to run some errands.  I knew I was in trouble the minute the first door was flung open.  The smell of doe in heat estrous filled the air, to the point that it was almost hard to breath.  I had turned our entire SUV into one big scent bomb.  My wife say “oh my gosh, what is that smell”.  Of course, I had only one answer I could give.  “What smell”, I said?  So we climbed in the vehicle and off we went, with my wife rolling down the windows the entire afternoon we were out running errands. Of course she knew I was up to something, but at least it kept her off my back. 

As soon as we arrived back home I quickly and discreetly moved my hunting gear to the back deck.  While it took many days of airing out the vehicle to fully get rid of the odor, I learned a couple of lessons.  Doe in estrus urine would most likely not be a popular car air freshener scent and the second, was to make sure I pay extra attention to properly pack any ‘bombs’ and scents when I done with the days hunt.