My first real attempt at a trophy whitetail

[Cool Hand Luke]

I wonder how many of you guys ever hunt with a good pack of running dogs? A lot of the biggest deer killed are not ahead of the dogs, but after the dogs and drivers come through and the biggest bucks have slipped out as the dogs run another deer through the area. Hunters who stick tight to their stand often kill the biggest deer as they slip back in after the dogs and driver has passed through. The woods has got to absolutely reek of human and dog oder after the race has come through. Those big bucks will slip back in a few hours later

That’s pretty cool to hear about! Probably not many because only nine states allow it as I’m aware. Before you hate me, all my family on both sides are from Arkansas and Missouri, only one generation removed! It’s just a different deal down there just like it is up here.

…And why we have the biggest deer

 

[SwampCat]

That’s pretty cool to hear about! Probably not many because only nine states allow it as I’m aware. Before you hate me, all my family on both sides are from Arkansas and Missouri, only one generation removed! It’s just a different deal down there just like it is up here.

…And why we have the biggest deer

No doubt, our mature bucks dont have much notoriety as the biggest bucks around. My point - somewhat tongue in cheek - in our area - and a lot of the south - all the disturbance, noise, human and dog scent in the world doesnt matter when you “unleash the hounds”

 

[Telemark]

I know I can't eliminate all my scent, but I reduce it as much as possible. A lot of the new enzyme-based cleaners are amazing. I just used a "no rinse" hair and body wash on my moose hunt in Sweden, and it amazed me how effective it was at removing odor without detergents and perfumes. All my hunting clothes are freshly laundered after last season with scent-free detergent and then hung outside for a few days.

I do play the wind whenever I can. Unfortunately that is the rare times I'm in the open or at the top of a hill. Usually I'm in relatively tight forest, and the wind swirls a bit.

I can bounce around from stand to stand so as not to overhunt any particular area. This is my preferred way to hunt anyway, and it's why I bought a saddle.

 

[SwampCat]

Keep your hunting clothes in an empty rice bran bag. They will come looking for you

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

We walk into a room and there’s a cake, we smell the cake. A dog and deer walk in and this is what they smell…you can’t fool their nose so don’t even try. It’s a total waste of effort. Wind and thermals are your whole world.
-Humans smell “cake.
-Dogs smell “flour, eggs, sugar, butter.”
-Deer smell “flour, eggs, sugar, butter, human, wood floor, detergent, and an open window an hour ago.”

 

[SwampCat]

We walk into a room and there’s a cake, we smell the cake. A dog and deer walk in and this is what they smell…you can’t fool their nose so don’t even try. It’s a total waste of effort. Wind and thermals are your whole world.
-Humans smell “cake.
-Dogs smell “flour, eggs, sugar, butter.”
-Deer smell “flour, eggs, sugar, butter, human, wood floor, detergent, and an open window an hour ago.”

I agree 100%. My opinion is cover scent makes humans smell like human plus cover scent. The biggest buck I ever killed, I was using a crossbow sitting in a strutter chair. About 45 min before dark, the wind switched a 180. I got up and repositioned in about 20 seconds. Had I still been able to pull my bow back, I would have been hunting in a climber and no way would I have tried to reposition 45 min before dark and my scent would have been blowing straight towards where the deer was coming from. 100% sure I would have never seen him.

 

[Westwind]

There is a lot of really good information in this thread. I’m a former canine handler and I agree with everything said about animals and how they use their noses. I’ll add that they smell in 3d. They “see” with their noses.

I try to avoid touching anything. One of my canines was an exceptional man tracker. And when he was working out an older difficult track I would see him slow and take wet, licky sniff of a branch or a plant. I knew we were still on the money. There was scent there.

JUST like Cool Hand Luke said, it isn’t practical to think you can eliminate scent. Control the controllable and don’t drive yourself crazy with the rest. I hunt on my home ground so it’s really easy to hang my clothes outside and hang my shower towel that I use before a hunt outside. I do shower before I hunt. I’m weird about mouth odor. Not bad breath but I think you unavoidably dump odor out of your mouth that is super easy to detect. My very unscientific superstition is chewing a handful of clover as I walk to the stand and I usually put a little in my pocket for later. Chlorophyll and all, lol.

Only tip I have that doesn’t seem to be mentioned is ingress and egress. I try to walk around the outside, never go through the middle and come in to your stand the shortest distance you can from the edge. Ease in there like an old timber ghost, don’t ever be in a hurry even if you think you are late.

 

[hunts_with_stick]

speaking about breath. I always wondered if mints would alert deer or make them curious. Not sure they would associate that with human

 

[Westwind]

I try to breathe through my nose when I’m walking in and out.

I am nervous about any odor that shouldn’t be coming from 25’ up a tree or can’t dissipate before it gets to nose level. My goal is to not smell like anything even though I know it isn’t realistic.

Every footstep you take crushes vegetation, bugs, is in manure you can’t see and animals can tell where you put your foot down. That stuff is on your boots and shouldn’t be up a tree but you get away with it if you hunt the wind and because it’s in small quantities….

 

[Westwind]

BTW, I have a lot of goofy ideas so listen to me at your own risk! I have dedicated boots for hunting but I never wear rubber knee boots. I think they are stinky, noisy and I feel like Donald Duck walking and climbing in them.

I started to post in this thread that I thought there was a lot of great stuff in this thread, I can tell there’s guys posting that know what they are talking about and I get all preachy as usual, lol!

 

[Angus 1895]

I read an article about repeating trophy hunters in Minnesota and Wisconsin. All of them harvested animals post rut.

Most of them would only hunt during perfect wind conditions. Most of them only hunted a few days all season.

 

[Mtyhunter]

I read an article about repeating trophy hunters in Minnesota and Wisconsin. All of them harvested animals post rut.

Most of them would only hunt during perfect wind conditions. Most of them only hunted a few days all season.

I've had good success post rut for big bucks, so I support that 100%. However, my bucks fight a lot, and most of them have antler damage late in the season. Couple of years ago, had a really nice tall 10 point, at least 160", that I had coming in my area every 3 days for a couple of weeks in December. He came in again, as scheduled, on a Thursday night. Noone had hunted this lease since late November, so no recent pressure. He should hit the same trail that I had him on camera like 4 times doing the exact same thing. The wind was even perfect for that stand,so I took off work to hunt him, as all planets seemed to be aligning.
And aligned they were, the pattern worked perfectly. He showed up like clockwork that morning, only he was now a 7 point. Both brows broke in half, and missing about 6 inches off his right side G4. It was 8 hours overnight from the pics with a full perfect rack, to me looking at him with an effed up rack. He was big, too, and nope, never saw or got a pic of another buck that could have done that to him. He's also never shown back up on any cams.

I'm sure you all will concur on this...when I started running alot of cameras (used 2 cheapo stealth cams for years until I got into the cuddelink system), I started getting pics of bucks fighting clear into mid January. Best fight I ever got on cam was a brawl on January 1rst. Up to that point, I thought most all fighting would take place pre-rut. I guess the secondary rut can be just as brutal as the first one. Hunted for 30 years and didn't know that was happening until the cameras revealed it. That's partly why I claim I've learned more off of cameras the last 10 years than I figured out in the first 30 years of hunting without them.