Fresh Tarsals

[OXN939]

With the end of Whitetail seasons in the east, I'm doing an AAR on learning points from this past year. The first item that stands out involves a pair of tarsal glands. Basically, at beginning of November, I killed a mature 10 point that was in full rut. Took the tarsals, threw them in the fridge while processing, and then it slipped my mind to grab them on the way out of hunt camp in the midst of a work call. Realized this about halfway through the 1.5 hour drive home, and elected not to turn around for them.

Basically, how far would you drive for a fresh set of tarsals from a big rutting buck? I've definitely heard stories of guys using them to get a territorial response from dominant animals, but have never conclusively seen an instance where this worked.

 

[Cfriend]

I've heard that they can be effective. Haven't tried them yet myself. Definitely don't think I would make a 1.5h round trip to go get them - at least based on my current knowledge.

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[Bentonrich]

I use James valley scent. It seems to work great

 

[Jbxl20]

I shot a buck, took the tarsals to another state 2 weeks later for a hunt. Used them sun,mon,tue,wed. Forget/ didn’t feel like messing with them Thursday. Shot a buck Thursday night. If you have them great, if not I wouldn’t worry about it. plus you shot your first buck without them.

 

[AttackMode]

I use James valley scent. It seems to work great

I used to have great success with their scents, but for some reason right around 10 years ago they just stopped being effective for me. I haven't gave them a shot in the years since.

 

[Berksbowman]

I never had any success trying this. I think there are better commercial options.

 

[boonez40]

I just use my own pee in a mock scrape. They do not know the difference.
I know this is hard core, but I have often thought about what if I tossed one off in a scrape.
Might have to get the wife to help me out with that one.

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