Scent Control

[Bszweda]

I am about to take the plunge into a scent control system. I was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice.

1 Scent Master box (might diy as its fairly expensive)
Ozone generator for either scent master box or Rubbermaid
Activated carbon
Multiple layers of clothing dipped in activated carbon that I'll rotate.
Anti bacteria medical solution for clothes
Baking soda for brushing teeth

Anyone have any idea what I can bring into the stand for food that's odorless?

 

[Buckly]

Looks like most of your emphasis is on clothing. I'm in the camp that believes it's more important to de-scent your body. I like to scrub down removing a lot of dead skin cells that can flake off going to or while in your stand. I really like diluted hydrogen peroxide for mouthwash and brushing teeth. I wipe absolutely everything down that is not clothing in straight hydrogen peroxide. I would never even think of eating on stand so can't help you there .LOL.

 

[Bill]

I do the scent shower before every hunt. Last year we added a ozone shed off the back door of the house. I saw a differance but still always played the wind. Ozone generators can be had from Amazon for a far better price than anything marketed for,deer hunters.

Some say it's safe, some say it's dangerous. I don't breath it in. Just treat the clothes and enter later.

http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/ozone-clothing-shed.6445/

 

[Tap]

This is one of my favorite topics. I have a ton of opinions on this subject and a bunch of odor-control tactics that I employ.
I don't have a lot of time right now, but I will be contributing to this thread a little later.
On quick note... I do try to minimize as many odor control measures as I can to clothes and gear, but the most important thing to address in odor control is personal hygiene. And hygiene is much more than taking a shower and brushing teeth. More on that later.
Meanwhile, I always want to learn about other's experiences about odor minimization. Can't wait to hear more input.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I take a 3 hour Hydrogen Peroxide bath before each hunt and then give myself a peroxide enema. I then vacu-seal myself in sterilized airtight closet storage bags.

Sorry...just having some fun. I'm just at the other end of the spectrum. I shower in scent free soaps and shampoos. I wash my clothes and hang them in the fresh air for weeks. I grab a handful of leaves and moss and dirt and rub them into my pants on the way to the stand. I bring an apple for a snack. I brush in the areas behind my stands so deer can get behind me. And I absolutely will not hunt a bad wind for a particular stand.

 

[Tap]

I am about to take the plunge into a scent control system. I was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice.

1 Scent Master box (might diy as its fairly expensive)
Ozone generator for either scent master box or Rubbermaid
Activated carbon
Multiple layers of clothing dipped in activated carbon that I'll rotate.
Anti bacteria medical solution for clothes
Baking soda for brushing teeth

Anyone have any idea what I can bring into the stand for food that's odorless?

1st, The effectiveness of most of all this odor control stuff can't really be proven one way or the other, but there are some basic laws of physics that we do know such as bacteria is one of the sources of odor. We'll never totally eliminate odor but we can reduce it. Another point is that we are dealing with individual animals with individual personalities. Just because something worked (or didn't work) the day before has no bearing on whether it work as well the next day. We can't get inside a deer's head to understand why they do what they do. I've had bucks ignore a call "yesterday", and yet that same buck came in walking sideways with his hair up and with his ears pinned back to the same exact call, the very next day. Who knows what they think, but there aren't a lot of prime hunting days in a season and I don't have a lot of property to hunt...I want to take every precaution I can to put the odds in my favor. Odor minimization is just one more detail I pay attention to.

I know a lot of you guys already know I do some of this stuff, and yeah, I know you think it's not worth the trouble. Whatever floats your boat. When you make this stuff part of an in-season routine, it's not a big deal, especially for only a few weeks of the year.

My opinions on the stuff you want to get.

I'm not familiar wit Scent Master box but my latest version for ozone containment is contractor grade garbage bags. Make sure they are the unscented ones because some have perfume scent added. I just shove the hose from my ozone unit into the bag and turn it on. I'll shake the bag occasionally to make sure the ozone is distributed. The bag then doubles as a transport container to/from the parking area where I hunt and I dress where I park. The only "hunting" layer I sometimes wear inside my vehicle is a base layer in very cold weather when it would be brutal getting dressed outside.
I do treat the inside of my truck because I believe we can absorb odor from our vehicle.

I've used activated carbon and I'm sure it helps but, man, it's messy. By the time I get done with an all day sit in the stand, I really don't feel like getting yet another shower. All I want to do is eat dinner and get to bed so I can get up and do it all over again the next day.

I used a medical product for bacteria reduction called BioProtec. I believe that the stuff probably works or else the medical industry wouldn't use it. The stuff was hard to find and extremely expensive. I don't think I'll be spending the cash on it again but I did have some impressive episodes of not getting odor busted while I was using it. I can't say if it made the difference.

IMO, mouth odor is the #1 culprit for odor busts. I do believe the saying "If you're breathing, you're putting out odor". Just brushing with baking soda isn't enough. Floss before every hunt. Brush your tongue. Clean below the gum line with a Butler gum massager. There's usually plaque there even after brushing and flossing. Plaque equals odor. I also use SmartMouth 12 hour mouth wash. It seems to work better than regular mouthwash.

Food for the stand... 2 apples per hunt. They are very effective at deodorizing the mouth. I gotta say that by the end of the season, I'm pretty tired of eating apples, but they do work to minimize odor. In cold weather, I'll fill a thermos with hot apple cider. It deodorizes and helps warm me.

I got a lot more to say on the subject, but that's all for this post.

 

[j-bird]

I'm in Natty's boat..... not the peroxide enema thing! The scent free shower, scent free clothes, scent free spray and play the wind thing!

It's hunting....you can take it as serious and to as far of an extreme as you wish.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I gargle with coors lite

But my weapons of choice are an i pad and binoculars

Wife and kids hunt My thrill is habitat

bill

 

[Barndog56]

After seeing the research experiment where the german shepherd finds the guy inside the plywood box right away, no matter what type of scent control he uses, I haven't put much faith in any of these products actually working. The only thing I would have faith in is Ozonics, but can't afford it.

So I take a different approach. Since my horse barn is just a few hundred yards from my stand here at the house, I walk through a horse stall on my way out there. Deer here are used to smelling manure.

That and we almost always have a west wind.........

 

[Booner21]

Along with other things mentioned in this thread I take nullo capsules, never wear hunting clothes in the truck, single use base layers and towel, use carbon powder and zeolite liberally combined with a carbon mask, scent free shampoo soap deodorant all hunting season plus a month prior. Scent free detergent on all my clothes starting about now and a dedicated washer that only sees hunting clothes. Ozone all my clothes and truck prior to every hunt. Wipe my truck down with peroxide before showering foe the hunt every couple of days. Make a very conscious effort to not have any strong odors in my truck during season and dedicate my truck to only deer hunting during prime time.

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[Bszweda]

I don't mind putting the extra effort into hunting. If it produces results. I have a small property and want to try not burning it out. I don't know about using hydrogen peroxide for mouth wash for safety reasons. I'll try the SmartMouth 12.

 

[bigeight]

Very similar to Tap's regimen. Ozone cloths/truck/enough carbon to cover my skin cloths every hunt and re apply on stand, take care of the breath, etc.
I agree, you might as well scrap everything if you don't take care of your breath, and seems like people tend to skip that one the most. I can always smell a person with bad breath before BO, so it makes the most sense to me.

I usually brush with carbon, or baking soda, and start taking Chlorophyll tablets a week or so before the season starts and take one before each hunt. The one I really like is to take a swig of chlorophyll liquid before hitting the stand every time as well. You can sure tell the difference in your breath/if you burp, etc.
I also like to uses some type of gumamouflage style gum while I hunt. I like to chew gum anyways, so that's an easy one for me :)
Really confident in my approach, and happy with the amount of deer I see, and how they act down wind. Keeps me on stand longer, which is probably the most important part of all.

 

[Buckly]

I don't mind putting the extra effort into hunting. If it produces results. I have a small property and want to try not burning it out. I don't know about using hydrogen peroxide for mouth wash for safety reasons. I'll try the SmartMouth 12.

No safety issues with peroxide. The directions are right on the bottle to! Great mouthwash, kills a lot of bacteria at least for a few hours for the hunt.

 

[Tap]

A lot of the process of odor minimization is attention to details. I think it's safe to say that most every hunter agrees that showering with unscented, antibacterial soap before the hunt ups our odds. But there's a right way and wrong way to shower. Take a surgeon scrubbing before operating for example. He scrubs for several minutes. He doesn't just put a little soap on his hands and then rinse it off. Why? It takes a few minutes, and friction, for the soap to kill the bacteria on his hands. Bacteria equals odor. This is proven science, it's just not some belief.

When you shower before the hunt, wet-down, turn the water off, lather-up, and scrub for a few minutes with a luffa sponge (or similar type rag) to exfoliate.
Destroying odor causing bacteria and scrubbing off dead skin cells isn't a major chore. It's just another detail. If you're gonna do something you may as well do it correctly.

The same can be said for mouth hygiene. Brushing alone doesn't remove all of the odor causing plaque. Cleaning below the gum line and flossing are just a couple easy details.

Under the worst conditions, deer will still smell us no matter what we do to eliminate our odor. Total odor elimination just isn't possible. But it's the deer on the edges of the fringes of our scent stream that I believe can misinterpret our presence when we are clean. They may think we are farther away, or that it's just residual odor that they smell and think we aren't really still there. Being winded (or not) isn't an all or nothing deal. Deer don't always get a full nose of our odor. So many things come into play. Air flow, humidity, individual deer's attitude/personality and how much human odor they experience on a daily basis all have a bearing on how or if a deer reacts to human odor. Sometimes it may be just a few second delay in the deer's reaction to our odor, and those few seconds can allow us a shot. Sometimes odor control can buy us a few precious seconds.

I said in an earlier post, most (but not all) of this odor stuff can't be proven in a real-world, hunting situation. But I do know that I don't have a lot of prime days to hunt. I don't have a ton of land or stand sites to screw-up with sloppy odor control. And I know for sure that there aren't many mature bucks where I hunt, and sure as $**t the wind will shift and screw me more often than not. And I know that my choice of weapon (recurve bow) means that I need to be within 20 yards for a chance at a shot.There's a tiny margin of error for me and I'm going to try to put as many odds in my favor as possible.
Nothing sucks more than having the 200 inch buck that I've hunted for 3 years on his way in for a slam-dunk shot, only to have the wind drift just the slightest bit and blow the chance. That actually happened to me a long time ago before I paid much attention to odor control. To this day, I wonder if I would have paid attention to just a few small details would have upped my odds on that buck. I'll never know for sure, but I do know that I no longer ignore the little details that I can control.

 

[H20fwler]

I just shower with scent free shampoo and soap before hunting and keep my hunting clothes hanging outside on the screened in back porch. I play the wind, keep my stands up high and try not to move too much.
I don't know if any of it really works but I see a lot of deer very close, now and then a nice one.

 

[nateb440]

I smoke up my clothes and body prior to every hunt with a bee smoker and wood chips. I hunt steep hills and used to get busted all the time since it's virtually impossible to hunt the wind with the shifting thermals etc. Since i started smoking up I have literally watched deer come in down wind, lift their nose and smell me and keep on coming. Can't explain it but it works. It's kind of a pain in the rear smoking up half naked in the cold on site but well worth it. (I used to be a scent control freak and could never beat their noses)

 

[ghilliehunter]

Nate- I've read about using a smoker and it seems to make sense. Any particular wood type that you use?

 

[nateb440]

I use hickory. I've used apple chips but I smelled so much like a BBQ that i was hungry all the time. Ha. Jk. I like apple too but it's a super strong. Any hardwood is good. Indigenous is probably best. Give it a shot. i think you'll be impressed with the results.

 

[Bill]

I do a tap version. Water pick, brush teeth. Shower with a woman's scrungy thingy and keep the soap on about 5 minutes.
Dry with an ozone treated towel. Walk to the ozone shed in said towel and dress in treated clothes. Hunt the wind.

I tried a smoker once and it freaked some does out.

 

[KDdid]

I do a tap version. Water pick, brush teeth. Shower with a woman's scrungy thingy and keep the soap on about 5 minutes.
Dry with an ozone treated towel. Walk to the ozone shed in said towel and dress in treated clothes. Hunt the wind.

I tried a smoker once and ...

I was SO hoping for a "Smokey Bear hit me with a shovel " kind of punchline here...



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