LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Brian Sparks owner of Nelson Creek Outdoors Lucky 7 Brand
Welcome to another episode of “Whitetail Rendezvous.” We’re heading over to Wisconsin today to talk to Brian Sparks. He’s the owner of Nelson Creek Outdoors with Lucky 7 Brand. He makes some great scents and cover scents and attraction scents. He just told me he caught a five-pound bass this fall. So this guy’s got a lot of skills. Brian Sparks, welcome to the show.
Brian: Thank you, Bruce. I’m glad to be on.
Bruce: Hey, let’s just . . . I know this is a whitetail show, but let’s tell the folks about the bass success you’ve been having, the five-pound bass in Wisconsin. That’s a pretty nice bass.
Brian: Yeah. I use my product [inaudible:00:00:46] liquid and a stick form. I’ve been out doing a lot of bass fishing with the fall, cooler weather. I’ve really put on a feed bag as of late. So I’ve been taking advantage of that in a little local lake here, another, I don’t know, 50-acre lake. I ended up pulling a five-pound-12-ounce, 21-inch large mouth.
Bruce: Hey, good for you. I’d love to see a picture of that on your website. Brian, at the end of the show, you’re gonna be able to give a shout-out to any sponsors, any people, friends, anything that you want to. So you’re gonna have a shameless promo at the end of the show. Let’s start right off. Folks, I’ll just share with you what happened to me last year. I hunted a couple different states, and I got Love Potion 7. It was recommended. I have [inaudible:00:01:34] sight. I’m a big attraction-type guy. I believe you can sway the odds, not 100% increase, but sway the odds by using scent, especially cover scent and attraction scent. If you do it right, you got an opportunity to have Mr. Wonderful walk underneath your tree. So anyway, I did that. I was able to take a buck in Iowa and a buck in Wisconsin.
Part of it, the scent was out there. Brian’s gonna talk about that. So why do you think your scents work? Now you got . . . If you go to his website, at Nelson Creek Outdoors, you’re gonna see he’s got a number of products. Let’s talk about them. What’s the number one selling whitetail product?
Our number one seller is the Love Potion Number 7, the natural deer urine
Brian: Our number one seller is the Love Potion Number 7, the natural deer urine [inaudible:00:02:26].
Bruce: Tell us about that.
Brian: Basically we only sell it during the season. In fact, what is . . . Today is Tuesday. We just actually started yesterday, delivering and mailing out scent. We bring it in a couple of times a week during this time of year. The scent, by the time it gets here, is no more than three days old. It stays refrigerated. We bottle it. We ship it. We get it to you basically as close to steaming as we possibly can. That’s really important with deer urine products. The number one thing that drives effectiveness of it is how soon you can get it. No matter what preservative you use, the deer won’t detect in it. Fresh deer urine will go bad. By the time it’s four months old, it’s time to throw it out.
Bruce: So how do you control . . . You just said four months old. You sell it so sunlight can get in it. I understand that sunlight and air really breaks down the chemical composition of the deer urine. Is that correct?
Brian: Yes. Any light in there, if you put it in a clear bottle, which a lot of places do, the UV light gets into that bottle, and it’ll break it down even faster. That’s why we prefer the solid white plastic bottles that sunlight doesn’t penetrate. Of course, we don’t fill them all the way to the top. There’s no air in there. We only fill them up for the season. In fact, we started with one bottle here, doing one bottling this Monday. We’ll do another one this weekend. We’re not keeping anything year to year. We’re not bottling it in February and hoping to sell it now. We’re basically . . . We have contracted with a deer farm that we found was the most cleanly place, as far as no contamination in the urine. We knew exactly what we were getting.
Just basically, this place had the greatest product and could deliver to us fresh all the time. We make sure that it . . . I can’t express enough. There’s really two things to Lucky 7 that make it great. One is its freshness, and the other is that it is a dual scent with a secret combination of some [inaudible:00:04:42] buck in it too, to make sure that that buck will not only smell that there’s a dough around, waiting for him. He does have a little competition out there too. It’s a little bit more motivated.
Bruce: Let’s spin that. Just stay on Love Potion 7 right now and spin that to . . . I’m Bruce. I’m heading out. Well, in 30 days, I’ll be heading to Iowa. Then I’ll be heading to Wisconsin. I got a number of farms to hunt in Wisconsin this year, fortunately. It should be, I should hit pre-rot or prime-rot, and I’m gonna hunt close-rot, looking for Mr. Wonderful. How should I use your product?
Brian: First, I would say a lot of [inaudible:00:05:28] in Wisconsin [inaudible:00:05:31] around here. What usually happens, the peak of the main rot is November 7th, give or take a couple of days [inaudible:00:05:38] around there. A lot of people don’t realize that the months prior to that, a lot of those does will [inaudible:00:05:47] October. [inaudible:00:05:50]. So you can actually start using a doe and heat scent effectively around that October 7th/October 10th mark [inaudible:00:06:00]. [inaudible:00:06:04] make sure it works the best for you. Make sure you keep it refrigerated when you’re not using it. As soon as it starts warming up, it starts breaking down. So keep it refrigerated.
My favorite thing to do is generally two things, depending on how often I’m hunting the area. I like the little cotton scent wicks hung [inaudible:00:06:25] a tree. If I’m going hunting, I’ll take one. I’ll hang one there, and then I’ll bring it back in. Other stands, which may be a little harder to hunt because of wind conditions, it’s one of those stands you have to kind of wait until wind is just right to get into it without spooking the deer. Those, I like to use one of those [inaudible:00:06:44] drop scent out of its urine during the day, not at night. So then the bucks can be conditioned to come during the day, and they will be there when you’re in your stand and not midnight.
Bruce: Now, you mentioned the wick and sticks, and then you mentioned the drippers. Now how close to the stand do I want to put those?
Brian: Well, I’m more of a bow hunter than I am anything else. I don’t like to shoot past 30 yards. So most of the stands, it’s within 30 yards when I stand, if I’m going to hunt over the scrape. If I have a concern with wind, and I use cover scent, I use a detergent and stuff that eliminates scent from my clothing. So I do do other scent control. But if I’m worried about stand, the way the wind is blowing or something like that, or I know it’s one of those stands where there might be a swirl or two, I may hang the wick on a scrape. I only hunt [inaudible:00:07:40] that scrape and not actually be over top of it. In those cases, I could be 50, 60 yards away from my scent. I have had success with that in certain funnel points and certain stands in the past.
Bruce: Okay. So you’re setting up on a scrape, but everything isn’t just right. So you’re using one of the trails that come in. It’s gonna lead to the scrape. Now if you’re on a hub or if you’re fortunate enough to find a community scrape, there’s a lot of trails leading to that scrape. Now how do you set up on that?
That’s how I set up if I’m gonna be able to fire off of those scents.
Brian: [inaudible:00:08:13] I hunt very well. I do a lot of scouting. Generally, I know what the other [inaudible:00:08:19] are. We have . . . On my property, which is here in Wisconsin, we’re allowed to bait. So I have mineral sites that I place strategically between bedding areas and in the stream. Then generally, after getting up, they have a little of some minerals or maybe some bait, go to the stream. The next thing they’re gonna do is go check their scrapes out. So I like to know which direction they’re coming from at any given time, from knowing my property. That’s how I set up if I’m gonna be able to fire off of those scents.