Whats your best deer attractant?

[abhold87]

Just wanting some personal experience from y'all on what worked best to attract deer? Looking to set up my game camera again to see what public land bucks I missed out on. I bought and used a salt block with molasses in it about a month ago and it attracted a family of raccoons and that was it. I bought a different kind of salt block this time and I live next to an apple orchard so I could grab some apples to. With the Rut starting I am hoping to get some bucks on camera instead of the tons of does I have got pictures of.

[Axle]

Just wanting some personal experience from y'all on what worked best to attract deer?

If it is doe only, my biceps usually work best. 

[Button Nubbs]

They're pretty much over the salt thing now. Gotta start in the spring.

[RadSav]

If you don't have a 20 year old girl willing to donate then "Golden Estrus" is my second choice.  Never had much use for food attractants during late season.  Though I have friends in Oregon having good luck with apples.  For whitetails sweet feed is hard to beat.

[lokidog]

A calendar, the day after season....   

Smash a bunch of those apples to get some scent in the air.  If you know anyone that got a buck this year, get the glands off the back legs and hang them near your stand.  I've had deer come sniff a dead one waiting to be hung.

[Goshawk]

The most expensive rose bush you can find, planted in a redwood tub. Think I'm kidding? Try to raise roses around deer!!

[turkeyfeather]

I had pretty good luck with both sweet cob, and sugar beat crush.

[Birdguy]

Apples work great and even better if your area is a few miles from the nearest orchard. At our place in Okanogan we used apples this year and got 1300 pictures of deer in a week. When I go back over next weekend I will set up more apples and some sweet COB (cheap at any farmstore) and I am thinking about an alfalfa feed station this year as well. I will only use the sweet COB after the bear activity has tapered off. Last year late summer we put some sweet COB out the the bears flocked in like crows. Never again, not interested in baiting bears. Bears like apples too but not as much as any corn product. I also put out some bird blocks for the quail and  the bears ate all the corn out of the bird blocks as  well  . Likely you will need to experiment with your area to see what works best.

I agree that salt blocks are not the focus this time of year.

[Wild Bill]

Find a highly used trail.
Dont put anything down except a estrus trail right now.
The does may stop and nibble, but the bucks could care less.

All my cams are set up on good trails. I am getting pics of mashers on a regular (almost nightly) basis. Nothing to attract them.

I used to use apples and got bears. Licks and got yotes. Grain and got birds and bears. Not worth the issues. I stopped trying to put the deer where I wanted them, and put my cams where the deer wanted to be, then started getting pics like the one below .... My wifes big 4x was watched in the same manner.

Just my
WB

[magnus100]

Apples.

[oldcamper]

Headlights. 

Ok Rose bushes.

[deltaops]

Yeah I run through the forest at night with two headlamps and a car battery strapped to my back. When deer see me they stop and just stare. While they are transfixed on the lights, I set out markers so I can come back to that location in the a.m. 

Ok, on a serious note, I have not used any attractants successfully. I may have used them at the wrong times! I have tried rattling and could not make it happen. I think I might have to switch to archery cause does are stupid and I see a lot of them.   

[tonymiller7]

Wet COB for whitetails.

[arees]

I got to watch some blacktail behavior up close over the last couple of days.  This is one of the bucks that have been hanging around in the yard.



There is also a 3x3 a couple of forkies and a pair of spikes.  One of the spikes must have thought he was a tough guy because he seems to have one antler broken off.

On Sunday afternoon my son and I were working in the back yard and the local does showed up to eat windfall apples.  The deer in the photo walked out of the brush and hung out with one of the does.  He mixed eating apples with sniffing her.  Clearly, she was more important than the apples but he was still eating.  None of them cared about us.  They came within about 50 feet of us, occasionally he would watch us but he was not going to leave the doe.

He eventually chased her into the brush but they came back later and he started following one of the other does.

He was back today without the does.  He hung around and ate some apples and eventually walked back into the brush.  It didn't look like apples were to top of his agenda, but he did eat some while waiting.  The photo was taken this morning.

[Pathfinder101]

Hey, that archery target on the left looks pretty realistic.  Must be a Rhinehart, huh...?

[arees]

These are high quality 3D targets.  They come in a variety of sizes and species.

[lokidog]

Nice.