Game animals, particularly those hunted for food and/or sport, such as but not limited to deer, are attracted by scents varying from those of other animals and odorous attractant scents such as those of food. It is these scents which hunters use to pull animals closer for harvest opportunities.
During mating seasons, male animals, as part of the mating ritual, attempt to attract females by “scraping” the ground, using their hoofs, at desirable locations and urinating in the scrape in an attempt to attract females. The females in turn, when attracted, deposit a female hormone in the “scrape” which is highly attractant to males. Hunters, in an attempt to mimic these attractants, have developed commercially available “attractant scents” which substantially duplicate the male and female mating scents.
Those who wish to examine animals at close range, such as hunters, routinely manually disperse such scents on the ground in an attempt to attract their quarry.
In some cases, hunters prepare the ground, by making a mock scrape using various implements, to simulate a deer “scrape” before dispensing attractant scent liquid into the scrape. However, humans entering these sensitive areas can disturb the animals, in ways known only to animals. In many cases, these trespasses into an animal's area provide persistent unseen warnings which tend to keep the desired animal from approaching.
Various devices have been developed over the years which attempt to continuously or periodically deliver portions of scented liquids to the desired spot without human interaction. The present invention provides significant improvements over the prior system as described below.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,279,062; 5,361,527 and 5,220,741 all to Burgeson describe devices for dispensing a scented liquid (scent) onto the ground. The device employs a rigid camouflaged scent container having a cap with an exterior nozzle tube which may be straight or bent through 180 degrees into a J shape or through 360 degrees into a circular shape. The container is suspended over the ground and is partially filled with the scented liquid. As the air in the space over the liquid expands during the day it pushes out a volume of scented liquid. However, these devices have several problems.
The Burgeson patents suffer from the defects that the scent container can be only partly filled. Also it must be clear that the amount of liquid scent delivered depends on the unfilled volume within the container. When the container is more filled, the air volume remaining is less. Thus, less liquid scent can be delivered for a given temperature change. Principle operations of these devices are dependent on temperature changes.
Additionally, the Burgeson devices require a rigid container must be used, when the container is filled, it has a large mass and must respond more slowly to any temperature change. By contrast, when the container is nearly empty, there is a large gas volume within the container which will cause a larger amount of liquid scent to be delivered for a given temperature change. Further, when the container is nearly empty, the small mass of liquid heats easily, thereby causing a widely varying rate and quantity of liquid scent to be delivered, depending on the fraction of the bottle which is filled.
Furthermore, the containers in the Burgeson patents must be made of some rigid material such as glass. Such a container is easily susceptible to being broken, should the container fall from the tree or support where it is suspended. Additionally, if the container is made of rigid plastic, the container can crack over time with constant exposure to sunlight or other environment factors, such as, heat, cold, or changes in temperature over time.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,510,984 to Burgeson describes a temperature regulated, pressure activated liquid scent dispenser. The pressure in the interior of the container increases as ambient temperature increases. A release structure of the container will release a portion of the liquid scent once a threshold pressure or threshold amount of pressure build-up is reached in the interior of the container.
This device requires filling the interior volume with a liquid scent so that the interior volume also includes a volume of air, suspending the dispenser over a ground surface, and dispensing the liquid scent from the interior volume through the release structure. Due to an increase of pressure of the volume of air, and upon reaching a threshold air pressure, the release structure releases a portion of the liquid scent from the interior volume.
Similar to the other Burgeson Patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,279,062; 5,361,527 and 5,220,741 these devices provide for liquid delivery dependent on temperatures changes to shift atmospheric pressure inside the rigid vessels in order to drive the liquid dispersal.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,739,455 to Burgeson describes a temperature regulated, pressure activated liquid scent dispenser. The pressure in the interior of the container can increase as ambient temperature increases. A release structure of the container releases a portion of the liquid scent once a threshold pressure or threshold amount of pressure build-up is reached in the interior of the container.
The Burgeson '455 patent device provides for filling the interior volume with a liquid scent so that the interior volume also includes a volume of air, suspending the dispenser over a ground surface, and dispensing the liquid scent from the interior volume through the release structure. Due to an increase of pressure of the volume of air, and upon reaching a threshold air pressure, the release structure releases a portion of the liquid scent from the interior volume.
Similar to the previously referenced Burgeson, this device includes a, pressure interior to the vessel that is dependent on ambient temperature variations to create internal vessel pressure to drive the liquid delivery system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,208 to Kennedy describes a device for delivering an animal attractant scented liquid employing a flexible walled container with an external gas filled balloon strapped to the container so positioned that expansion and contraction of the gas within the balloon, in response to temperature changes, causes the wall of the container to flex so as to discharge liquid from the container when the temperature rises, and cease discharging on a temperature drop.
Similar to the other prior art is in its use of atmospheric pressure and temperature changes to expand the gas inside the dispersal drive mechanism. Here, the Kennedy '208 patent uses externally mounted balloons.
U.S. Published Patent Application. 20080054021A1 to Brown et al. describes a product directed at the deer hunting market for scent application and dispersal that uses a molded, rigid container capable of being filled with liquid scent and then dispensed in a multiple ways, including a flip top cap for direct placement of its contents to a variety of specific areas, using scent wicks, cotton balls, etc. to establish scent stations (dipping these into open liquid reservoir). Similar to the other prior art, Brown '402 relies on temperature changes to drive fluid dispersal.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art that does not require head space nor temperature changes to drive animal attractant liquid therefrom.