My Secret Buck Lure

I first started using this buck lure over 40 years ago. That was decades before I ever set foot in a tree stand. Back then we hunted whitetails one of two ways, either still hunting are tracking. Still hunting on bare ground and tracking if we had any fresh snow at all.


Late one season I shot a doe and she fell in the bottom of a steep draw. I went to get help to drag her out. When we got back, we found not one but two bucks standing over her carcass. I knew what I had and immediately removed both of the hock glands from her hind legs and slid them into my parka pocket.

As the old Coca-Cola ad said, “ There aint nothing like the real thing, Baby.”

I kept the hock glands in the freezer and the next season I cut slits in them and laced them on to my hunting boots. People kept asking me, “where do you find all those bucks?” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that there were as many bucks finding me as I was finding them.

Later on in my career I would hang these hock glands from tree limbs near my stands. I haven’t found anything on the market that works quite as well. To be really effective the glands need to come from either a mature buck are a hot doe. I haven’t had very good response from glands taken from does not in heat or young bucks. Personally, I think the glands from a big buck work better than anything else.

Be sure to wear rubber gloves when you remove these hock glands. It’s not that you will contaminate the glands with your human odor, it’s that the glands scent is strong and damn near impossible to wash off your hands. Climbing into bed with hands that smelled like a dead deer can raise havoc with your spouses libido. Trust me, it’s not worth the risk.

Try to keep the glands as blood free as possible. If you don’t the Camp-Robbers and Blue Jays will pack them off before you can use them.

The only commercial scents that even come close is a combination of hot doe urine and tarsal gland extractions from a buck. Years ago, Miles Keller used to manufacture a tarsal gland lure in a jell. It was an excellent scent. In fact, I killed my largest whitetail ever using that product.

The next time either you are a buddy harvests a hot doe or a big buck be sure to remove the hock glands. There ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby!

Good Luck and Good Hunting,
Jim
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