Guide To Using Scents While Predator Hunting

Scents Are An Effective Tool For Many Species

Scents, when used properly, can be a very effective tool for a variety of species we hunt. So many animals rely heavily on their nose. They might not see you, but if they smell you the game is often up. On the flip side, animals are often attracted by the correct scent. If an animal has a visual but they don’t smell the proper scent when they are downwind of the visual, they get nervous because things don’t seem realistic. The same thing applies while using calls. If you call in an animal, they often approach from the downwind side. If they don’t smell the critter that they think they hear, they are often undeceived.

Many people are very familiar with using scents for deer hunting. Hunters have been using scents for deer hunting for generations, and it has been proven to give you an edge that you otherwise wouldn’t have. There are 2 ways that whitetail hunters use scents. The most common way hunters use scents is to use them as an attractant. The smell of a hot doe is hard for a rut crazed buck to resist. The other way whitetail hunters use scents is to help mask human scent. We try to do everything we can to be scent free, but also running a cover scent can often be exactly what it takes to keep downwind deer calm. Scents are effective for whitetail hunting as cover and attractants, and the same principles apply to a variety of species including coyotes and other predators.

Use Scent With Your Call

Predator calls have a remote for a reason. Most predator hunters place their calls a ways away and control them remotely. Placing your call a ways away helps for several reasons. First of all, you don’t want coyotes to be looking right at you. Placing the call away from you keeps coyotes focused on the location of the call and not the hunter. Secondly, having the call further away means that sometimes the coyotes will be downwind of the call but not downwind of your position. This situation presents a perfect opportunity to use scents. If a coyote is downwind of the call and you have scent at that location, he will be even more convinced that the critter making all that ruckus is actually there. Often that is what it will take to bring that coyote into range.

Using a tool like Wyndscent to vaporizer your predator scent is even a more effective way to use scents. Wyndscent vaporizes the scent making it small stronger, last longer, and travel further. Another advantage of the Wyndscent unit is its remote controlled meaning you can control both your scent source and your audio source (predator call) remotely.

Pic courtesy of Bone Maniacs

Hunting High Pressured Areas

Animals in high pressured areas are often more leery of calls. That again is where scent really helps. Scent completes the deception and gives predators more reason to come into range.

Keep Track Of The Wind Direction

Keeping track of the wind direction while coyote hunting or any type of hunting for that matter is critical. If you are using an attractant scent, make sure to position the scent where it isn’t blowing in the same direction as your downwind side. If you are using a cover scent, placing that next to you works great. A cover scent often buys you a little extra time to get a shot off before the predator catches your scent.

Using Scents In The Cold

I went coyote hunting recently, and it was COLD. A lot of us that live in the northern US coyote hunt in cold conditions. Using scents in the cold has long been an issue because scents freeze up in the cold. That problem has been solved with the Wyndscent scent vaporizer. Wyndscent heats the scent up and vaporizes it out. Wyndscent is very effective even in cold conditions. The Wyndscent 2.0 unit comes with a high powered, rechargeable vape battery that works well in frigid temps. If you want to up your scent game while predator hunting, make sure to check out Wyndscent. Wyndscent offers rabbit scent for predator hunting along with several great cover scents including earth and pine. If you whitetail hunt as well, Wyndscent offers a large variety of cartridges that you can use on the same vaporizer unit.

Scents can be very effective for both critters that eat grass and the ones that eat the ones that eat the grass. If you try using scents for your next predator hunt with Wyndscent, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

The coyote from one of our recent coyote hunts.