“Hair Bag” Hunting Tip
Bob McNally 10.07.15
Because whitetail deer are so conscious of human scent, smart hunters have learned to take advantage of this trait to down bucks.
For example, a friend of mine has a favorite hunting spot along a well-maintained fence line. Several deer trails pass under the fence, but they’re so far apart he couldn’t “cover” all of them from a single stand.
At first he placed several stands over the fence holes and rotated hunting them. But he always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then he was given a tip by another hunter that helped him “funnel” deer to a single place where he waited in ambush.
“All I did was save some of my cut hair after I went to the barber,” he says smiling. “I took the hair and wrapped nylon mesh from panty hose around it, then tied off the mesh. Next I hung the hair in the nylon from fence strands at all of the fence holes except one, where I had a stand placed – and that’s where all the deer funneled through.”
A week after placing his “hair bags” and creating a “downwind funnel,” my buddy shot a respectable 8-pointer as it crossed a fence hole where no hair bag hung.
“I checked the places where I left hair, and there were no deer tracks,” he explained. “The scent from human hair spooked deer from using those holes and directed them to the fence hole I hunted over.”
Similar “downwind funnels” can be made by placing sweaty human garments like shirts and caps along well-used trails to “foul” them. This effectively re-directs deer to places a hunter may be waiting.
