Therefore, I want to write up sort of a “user guide” here which is based on my own experience after many, many hours of playing and careful observations. Follow it, and you will understand the methods of successfully attracting animals, plus the chances and pitfalls in such situations.
In general, it is as always in life: learn and apply some rules, and you will be surprised how fast your success rate increases.
First, let me lay out some basic features you should be aware of in order to optimally use your lure:
- a) Both scent and call have a temporary attracting effect at exactly the location where you apply them. (The attraction spot, once set, does NEVER move together with the player).
b) The main differences between calls and scents are (i) the effective duration, and (ii) the perception period.
(i): The luring effect of a scent spray lasts 20 in-game minutes. A single call last not much more than half as long; this time also differs a little between the species.
(TIP: Animals do never eat while they approach a lure spot. Thus, you often can recognize the exact end time of a lure by seeing the animals starting to feed).
(ii) A scent needs some time to spread, but then exerts is function on all target animals within the effective radius permanently, until it wears out. (The maximum size of a scent radius is not known to me, but also plays no role because it is the render radius defined by the player position which determines whether an animal can smell a scent or not; see also point (e) below). A call, on the other hand, reaches the animal immediately but can only be heard by the animals for a few seconds. If they happen to be occupied by an overriding other activity during this “perception period”, they will not react to the call later. (TIP: I can be worth to repeat a call a few times, therefore, to ensure that it really reaches the animal. But attention: you can also overdo the repeats (see below)!)
c) The animals always walk to the closest attracting point. Thus, multiple triggers applied at different locations will override each other. (TIP: This is particularly important to remember when combining scent and call triggers. If you want the animal to walk towards a scent, do not call it afterwards from a location which is closer to it than the scent! But scents can replace an expiring call trigger when they are still active after the call effect has ceased.)
d) There is no additive effect for subsequent calls or sprays applied at the same location. Thus, the motto “more is better” is not true here, and only a waste of time and (in case of scents) money.
e) There are 4 possibilities why animals can ignore an appropriate lure trigger: (i) they are close to, or outside, the render distance, (ii) they are in a nervous phase (the nervous phase lasts for ca. 12 in-game minutes after spooking; pheasants 2 min!), (ii) they sleep, or (iv) they are in a long trotting phase. These 4 points are most important to remember when setting up a lure trap. Disobeying one of them is the major reason for a failure.
- a) I have heard an animal calling in the distance and set a lure, but it never showed up!
This complaint is justified at first glance as you can expect that an animal which calls is in an idle mode (not nervous, not sleeping, …) and thus, in principle, ready to react. However, one major reason for the animal still ignoring your lure could be that it was at the render border. In this “twilight zone” it can happen that animals do call but are not perceptive for lures already. More likely, though, the animal has left the render radius before you answered with an own call, or before the scent has travelled far enough to reach it.
A second reason could be that simply the effect of your lure has ceased before the animal could show up (remember that high scoring animals approach slower than small ones!), and you did not repeat the trigger in time. Here, we can often stumble into a consequence of the herding behaviour: Animals which follow a leader can be reeled out of a herd by a lure (even if the leader e.g. remains outside perception radius), but they will immediately start to head back to the leader once the trigger has worn out. If the leader is far away, the animals will bridge the distance by a long trotting phase, during which they are not reactive. In many cases, they leave the render zone, no matter what you do.
b) An animal is in my visual range and I can see it roaming, but it simply ignores my lure!
This is most likely due to the fact that the animal is nervous although you do not see it. Some species (hogs, coyotes, turkeys) have no particular extra animations which show the nervous stage. Only deer and elk stamp with their front leg (and deer in addition raise their tails) and make hectic head turns from time to time to indicate this phase. If you learn to recognize these signs, you can save a lot of time. And those people who always argue that it was “impossible” that they could have spooked this animal should remember that animals do not only get spooked by the player, but also by other (spooking) animals. Especially the elusive coyotes spook very early and can start a small spooking “chain reaction” in the distance. You never see the dog itself, but as a result you deal with other nervous animals in the area. (TIP: if an animal is within your visual range, do not wait but simply shoot it (unless you need a closer distance because of limited weapon reach) .
Another reason is that you applied your lure (here: a call) in a very moment of “deafness”. If the animal was trotting while you called, it could simply not hear the call, and will continue disappointing your expectations afterwards.(TIP: repeat the call as soon as the animal has fallen back to walking!)
c) An animal is in my visual range, and after I extensively applied my caller, it spooked!
Yes, this can happen. While there is no “optimal calling sequence” any more in the game to attract animals best (hence you can blow your caller or play your box quite to your own liking), you CAN overdo it if you repeat a signal too often in a too short time (over 12-15 fast repetitions). This is probably a mistake not many will make, and if, people will probably learn fast in this case.
In general, it is safe to say that the use of a lure trigger always requires some thinking in advance. It is highly unlikely that you have much success by “blind” application of scents and calls, in the naïve expectation that they will attract everything from far out. People who walk through the woods blowing a caller every other minute will not see a big herd of animals following them after a while. This might have worked in some other hunting games perhaps, but is not working in TH. Forget this idea, if you want not to be disappointed. Rather, always wait for an appropriate situation to apply your lure; in particular, be always sure that there are animals in the vicinity which can perceive your signal. Then, check the whole situation each time carefully. Do you know already roughly where the animal is? Do you know how far it is away? Is it still safe to mount a treestand, or are you better off to look for an elevated position on the ground and await your prey in prone? Are other animals in the vicinity which could ruin your trap because they will arrive earlier and spook everything? Dealing with these kinds of questions, and trying to find the optimal solution in each individual case, is where your true hunting skill can be proven. Those who know the rules and pitfalls are simply better off.
Thus, show your superior expertise, to yourself and others, by a clever and aware behaviour. You will experience big satisfaction each time you outsmarted your prey, and hardly have reason any more to complain about bad luck or non-functioning equipment.
Having said all this I will not finish without conceding that we never can exclude the possibility that the game has a true bug somewhere, and that this bug is the reason for a failure. We had this in the past, and still will have this also in the future, because nobody is perfect, also not our developers (and their predecessors in this game). However, before claiming a bug, make always sure that the situation cannot be explained – with similar or higher probability - by completely normal factors as I have outlined them above.
Have fun, and happy hunting!