Odor control

[Tap]

Okay, another thread asked about the effectiveness of open air ozone (Ozonics).
There is no magic bullet when it comes to odor elimination, prevention, and containment, but there are lots of hygiene practices, products, and then there is the topic of dealing with wind.
The scent control approaches hunters use to avoid detection range from just playing the wind, to ultra extreme measures.
Myself, I lean toward the more extreme measures to control odor but I don't go quite as far as some do.

Things I have not tried are open air ozone, but I do use contained ozone, and switching to a vegetarian diet.
But the list of things I do practice is long and complicated and it continues to evolve.
I'd like to hear about what you other guys do.

In case anyone cares, here's some of my current philosophies...
I put this into 3 categories but some blur the lines. Odor prevention, odor elimination, and odor containment/control.
I start my pre hunt practices with a few weeks of chlorophyl doses. Put that in the odor prevention column.
We also never use any sort of perfumed products in our laundry system or the rest of the home and vehicle if possible. Also in the odor prevention column.
And to preserve clothing and gear cleanliness, all hunting clothing and gear is designated just for hunting and doesn't get used for other activities. Gear is stored and transported in Rubbermaid tubs. I dress/change at the destination and I don't wear hunting clothing in my vehicle...especially boots.
Clothing, vehicle and gear are treated with contained ozone. I have an old Log6 ozone unit that still works well.

Personal hygiene:
I try to use unscented products year-round, but I really eliminate all scented bath products several days before I start hunting. I suspect that it takes a few days to for perfumes to purge from the body.
I firmly believe the greatest producer of bacteria causing odor is our mouths.
I start each pre hunt with a thorough brushing, flossing, and cleaning below the gum line with one of these... http://www.gumbrand.com/accessories/gum-stimulator.html
Also brush the tongue.
I rinse once with peroxide and rinse again with Smart Mouth 12 hour mouthwash.

Then I shower.
I wet down, turn the water off and scrub head to toes with unscented, antibacterial soap. I do not leave the water running because soap needs to be on the body for a few minutes. Rinsing while washing is not doing a thorough job of killing bacteria that cause odor. There is a good reason surgeons scrub for minutes before rinsing prior to operating.
I scrub with an exfoliating type sponge or cloth. Remove as many dead skin cells as possible.
Ears are another odor producer. My springer spaniel taught me that years ago. That dog never went into the garbage until there was a Q-tip with ear wax on it. Minutes after tossing a Q-tip in the trash, she would sniff-out the odor and eat the used Q-tip. Keep ears clean!

Post shower: Dry with a fairly fresh towel that hasn't been exposed to skin oils, etc. Some guys use a new towel every day but if you do a good job of bathing, isn't a used towel as clean as it was when it came out of the washer?
I do full body deodorant. Pits, hair, feet, cracks and crevices, you name it. Deodorant stones work well and I also have used that hunter's deodorant creme head to toe... it's made by Scent Shield.
I use anti-perspirant/deodorant on my pits, feet from the knees down (because of the sweating inside rubber boots) and crack. At this point, I am as odor free as I will be all day long and I try to stay that way as long as I can.
I wear clean, non-hunting clothing if I drive to the hunt and change after getting out of the truck. But I also deodorize the truck with ozone several times during the season. I also seldom keep truck windows closed tight throughout the year. I can smell the difference if the truck has been air-tight for a day or more. We can contaminate our clean bodies if we don't keep our vehicles odor free.

I do wear carbon clothing (odor containment) and, while I believe it helps, it is not a magic bullet. Reduction, containment, and control of odors, in anyway possible is my goal.
I still wonder though, if carbon clothes work, then why can I still smell a fart?

Odor control is yet another broad subject. What I mean by "control" is how he play the wind, and the residual odors we leave behind after the hunt.
I'm convinced that deer explore the woods during the night. I think they actually check-out the odors we leave behind. I try to never touch or brush against anything that I can avoid. I carry pruners and clip things that are in the way.

I always use milkweed for a wind monitor. Nothing works as well for during a hunt. I guess smoke bombs are better in the off season, but I haven't used them.
Every odor approach I've done so far is basically to reduce or eliminate any level of odor a deer could detect but nothing is 100%. Even when we play the wind right, we leave odor behind that can be detected hours or days after the hunt. That's the main reason I try to reduce odor. Keeping stands fresh is a priority for me.
But I still do everything I can to play the wind. And to understand what the wind is doing, especially in hilly terrain, is with the use of floaters, not with puff bottles or feathers on our bow. Those are okay but they can't compare to floaters.

Post hunt:
I change back into non-hunting clothes before I drive. Again, boots are never worn in the vehicle.
And when I remove the boots. I try not to touch them with bare hands and I never kick the 2nd boot off with a stocking or bare foot. When you do, you've just put human odor on the outside of the boot.
I pay more attention to clean boots than any other piece of gear. I treat the entire boot, inside and out with ozone. Either inside of a Rubbermade tub or unscented garbage bag. Used clothes go inside unscented garbage bags as well. I try to not contaminate clean tubs with dirty clothes.

Do I ever get winded? Probably a lot more than I realize. We all do.
Do I get away with either not being winded when I should or at least not blowing deer out? Yep.
Is all this worth it? I can't say.
I don't have hundreds of acres to hunt so I need to preserve the freshness of stands as best as I can.
Odor control has become almost a habit for me. I don't know any other way to approach a hunt than 100% or as close as possible.

I am starting to wonder if non-human odors are alarming to deer, though. Man made chemical odors are a part of pretty much every breath a deer takes. Yet they don't panic when they smell them. Why? Is it because the smell of tractor fuel, chainsaws, exhaust, cooking odors, in of themselves, etc have never been a threat to deer during their course of evolution? The only threats they have ever experienced is the odors of the predator themselves. Do we go too far worrying about reducing non-body produced odors?

What do you do to avoid olfactory detection?

 

[wklman]

I do none of that. All I do is hunt the wind and not worry about it. You ain't gonna fool a deer's nose with all the gimmicks in the world. I once watched a drug sniffing dog find a pack of drugs wrapped in plastic, wrapped in tinfoil, covered in hot sauce, welded up in a frame of a pickup truck at a border patrol check point and thought to myself "if a deer has a better nose then a dog then there isn't much besides hunting the wind I can do".

 

[Turkey Creek]

You will never defeat a deer's nose completely, the object is to make it not perceive the odor of the human as immediate threat. Tap more power to you, if I followed your routine I would give up hunting deer. I keep my exterior layers of hunting clothes in a separate rubber maid tote after they are washed in scent free soap. I keep my rubber boots outside during hunting season. I spray down with scent killer after I put on my outside layer of clothes when I leave the pickup. I use EverCalm on my boots and in a couple dispensers that I hang by me in the stand. I try to use the wind in my favor when possible. I dont think everyday odors such as gas and oil, etc have much affect on deer as they would freak out constantly in farm country.

 

[yoderjac]

Tap,

I think you hit the nail on the head when to talked about non-human scents. I think there is some natural aversion to the scents of predators including humans. However, I think there is also learned behavior. Deer surprised by a predator can associate many things with the bad experience. It can be sights, sounds, and smells that occurred time proximate to the negative interaction. When I was young, fox urine was commonly used as a masking scent. I think deer soon began to associate that smell with hunters. When a smell is common and encountered regularly with no negative experiences, it is discounted. I know in some areas where homes are heated by firewood, smoke becomes a regular smell in the fall woods. In addition to reducing, controlling, and containing human scent, another category is masking. I've known folks to smoke their hunting clothes in this kind of environment with success. Just like a deer caught in the headlights becomes vulnerable because the optical sensor is overloaded, high concentrations of some scents can make olfactory sensors less effective.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Turkey Creek]

Jack has hit on a very important aspect of deer behavior, actually animal behavior (including humans) in general. Responses to stimuli are a learned behavior, no animal is born with a fear of any stimuli. So deer can certainly be trained to show a certain response to stimuli. I saw it once on a hunting show and have no doubt that it would work. If you hang you dirty, smelly shirts out in the woods on a regular basis deer eventually learn that there is no need to fear that scent. Look at the fact that people trying to deter deer damage to crops, yards, etcc.. eventually hit a road block as the deer become habituated to the stimuli, and short of exclusion they generally cant stop the damage.

 

[Barndog56]

I don't use much scent control at all. My ladder stand is downwind when we have our normal winds. If the wind does happen to be at my back, my scent is covered by the smell of horse manure from our pasture and barn.

And I'm a believer that deer can be conditioned to accept human scent. Same thinking is why there is an orange shirt hanging in our box blind right now. When rifle season gets here deer won't be concerned seeing our orange in there.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack has hit on a very important aspect of deer behavior, actually animal behavior (including humans) in general. Responses to stimuli are a learned behavior, no animal is born with a fear of any stimuli. So deer can certainly be trained to show a certain response to stimuli. I saw it once on a hunting show and have no doubt that it would work. If you hang you dirty, smelly shirts out in the woods on a regular basis deer eventually learn that there is no need to fear that scent. Look at the fact that people trying to deter deer damage to crops, yards, etcc.. eventually hit a road block as the deer become habituated to the stimuli, and short of exclusion they generally cant stop the damage.

I don't think I'd go quite as far as to say no animal is born with a fear of any stimuli. I think the latest science is showing that both nature and nurture play a role. Prey species kept from predators can still show a negative reaction to some forms like forward facing eyes common with predators. That said, nurture can reinforce or override that default programming.

Having said that, your point is well taken. Deer are highly adaptable creatures. What works well in one area my be insufficient in others.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

It depends...

Early in the season
All my clothing is cleaned and ozoned. Shower towel included.

I also clean my teeth. I have periodontal desease so I'm a clean nut anyway. Water pick, brush, tooth whitener and even dental picks. But not every time.

Scent soap on for 5 minutes before rinsing. I also use a woman's scrunchy thinggy to get the dry skin off.

Get dressed outside the house.

When its cool if I'm taking the side by side I will drive to my parking place in base layers and finish dressing on site. I do spray the side by side down with scent killer.

I used to take chlorophyll pills but they didn't agree with me.

I end with hunting the wind.

Late in the season like after the third day of gun season I say screw it. Do the ozone, shower and go.

 

[Catscratch]

I use to take over an hour to get ready for a hunt, my wife was only allowed to use certain detergents in the washing machine, and dryer sheets were off limits also (she puts up with me). Driving my truck while wearing work clothes sucked! It made my skin crawl just thinking of all the scent I was putting on my seats.
Now I go to great lengths to hunt the wind and will walk miles to keep from crossing likely deer paths. I also wait until daylight to enter morning stands (glassing to make sure I don't spook anything going in). And I wear scent control leggings over my pants and boots to keep my trail scent to a minimum. Overall I became a much more effective hunter when I gave up on scent control (on my body and clothes) and focused on scent avoidance at the hunting spot. I'm also a lot happier when I do see deer as there is very little chance that I will get winded.
Life is easier, I kill/see more and bigger bucks, and hunting is more fun. It's all about personal choices and best fit for you. I will probably change all this again at some point.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

I do nothing for odor control. Same hunting clothes aint been washed in 20 years. LOL!

 

[archer2]

TAP,

I respect the lengths you go through for scent control and I used to be the exact same way and did nearly all of the same things. My wife and hunting buddies thought I was nuts, but I always had pretty good success, so they didn't make too big of a deal about it.

I started to realize that it was way too much time and effort and I couldn't confirm that it even worked. It was really taking the fun out of hunting for me because I was paranoid about every little thing that could have negative scent consequences. It got ridiculous.
I still take scent free showers, use scent free hunting detergent to wash my clothes and store them in Scent totes and dress when I get to my hunting spot. Many of the other things I considered over the top I don't do anymore. I pay way more attention to wind than I every did and that is the key. The scent practices give us a false sense of security and we think we can hunt the wrong wind.

I have killed my 3 largest bucks ( the largest being a 193 inch) in the last 5 years since I changed my scent regiment and I enjoy hunting way more and am not spending nearly the time freaking out about every little thing.
Good luck this year.

 

[Tap]

I don't have much time to respond tonight, but hopefully I'll have time tomorrow.
But I will at least say this tonight...
The more you stink, the better chance that the mature buck we are both hunting for will avoid you. The less I stink, the better chance I will have of that same deer walking through my shooting lane.
Odor avoidance is nothing more than physics, math, geometry, and attention to details. It's not magic.

 

[Booner21]

I follow almost the same regimen you do. Couple additions I ozone treat the truck every hunt, use an ozonics and use a different towel every hunt. I take nullo an internal deoderant I douse everything in carbon powder or zeolite after treating with ozone. I dry my boots after every hunt to prevent odors.

I also bought a carbon filter face mask to try this year. I primarily hunt on 60 acres and go to great lengths to ensure the deer don't know they are being hunted. I see more deer on the last hunt of the year than the first.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[Turkey Creek]

I follow almost the same regimen you do. Couple additions I ozone treat the truck every hunt, use an ozonics and use a different towel every hunt. I take nullo an internal deoderant I douse everything in carbon powder or zeolite after treating with ozone. I dry my boots after every hunt to prevent odors.

I also bought a carbon filter face mask to try this year. I primarily hunt on 60 acres and go to great lengths to ensure the deer don't know they are being hunted. I see more deer on the last hunt of the year than the first.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Isnt that ozone hard on the interior of your pickup with repeated use?

 

[Booner21]

I have been using it for 10 years and don't have any noticeable ill effects.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[Tap]

I do none of that. All I do is hunt the wind and not worry about it. You ain't gonna fool a deer's nose with all the gimmicks in the world. I once watched a drug sniffing dog find a pack of drugs wrapped in plastic, wrapped in tinfoil, covered in hot sauce, welded up in a frame of a pickup truck at a border patrol check point and thought to myself "if a deer has a better nose then a dog then there isn't much besides hunting the wind I can do".

Just hunting the wind is so much more complicated than it sounds.
It's a great concept... If the air flow doesn't go from me to the deer I can't be winded, right?
But how does one accurately predict something as complex as the interaction of prevailing wind, thermals, terrain, wind speed, and how a partly cloudy day effects thermals in varying amounts thru out the day, etc, etc? You can't. And anyone that believes they can ignore odor control and only hunt the wind doesn't really understand wind. And all of these factors that effect air flow which I named are not "stand-alone". One has an effect on another. At least in the hilly areas with variable cover that I hunt, a day of consistent and predictable wind is extremely rare, and especially for an all-day sit. I'm sorry, but the wind just ain't gonna be consistent thru out the day.

Here's a description of a hunt that further proved to me what I already knew...that predicting wind direction is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Draw this out on paper if it makes it easier to envision.
Partly sunny day with those big white clouds moving across the sky all day long. I was hunting an east exposure on a 50% partly cloudy morning with light and relatively consistent wind direction...that is, as long as the sun was behind the clouds. When it was shaded, the wind flowed light and consistent from the North. My shooting lanes were to my West. My stand was located on the outside bend on the East side of deer movement. It was almost impossible to be winded by deer traveling the trail to my west, while the sun was behind clouds. But about half of the time though, the sun came out and would shine on a lone, dark-colored pine to my west which was in the exact direction of my shooting lane. That pine absorbed the sun's heat and would actually change the surface flow. There was a chimney effect happening. The sun came out, and heated the East exposure of the pine. The air in front of the pine would warm and then rise straight up until it got above the pine and then the air would resume it's North to South flow. I proved what was happening time and time again that morning with milkweed. As long as the sun was behind clouds the pine was not absorbing heat and the air (and my milkweed) moved to the South safely away from deer trails. When the sun came out, the milkweed would be drawn to the West, right into my shooting lane, and over to the heated air in front of the pine. The floater would then shoot straight up until it cleared the pine and then the floater turned 90 degrees and blew North to South.
The prevailing wind was not changing all day long. It consistently came from the North. What I was dealing with wasn't just a thermal, it was a micro-thermal that was created or abated due to the changing cloud conditions. Make no mistake...I'm 110% certain that was what was happening. I watched my milkweed prove it happening for hours...over and over again
How does a hunter predict such a wind pattern? You can't.

Then there are thermal air flows occurring on a slope that is in the sun while an adjacent slope is still in the shade with a different thermal flow happening. What happens along the line where those differing air flows meet? And that flow pattern will change as the sun moves across the slope(s). How do "just hunt that wind"?

Still on the subject of thermals... Have you ever watched the extremely strong thermals that blow upstream on rivers? On sunny days with a large warming-temperature swing, thermals can get so strong that they create whitecaps on rivers. That strong wind pattern will effect wind patterns on adjacent hills, slopes and valleys. If the temp fluctuation changes because of clouds, that major thermal will weaken and cause less disturbance. How do you predict that wind?

Let's talk about eddies. Wind eddies can effect a 100 acres or the 100 square feet at your tree.
The leeward side of a mountain, hill, or heavy cover will produce swirling winds at certain wind speeds depending on the configuration of the structure. The wind in that same exact place may not eddy and swirl at all with a slower wind speed. The wind speed that makes or breaks those swirling conditions is different depending on the shape of the structure. How do you predict if, or how much the wind will swirl on days of variable wind speeds? You can't.
Then there are micro-eddies. Sometimes a wind floater, under certain wind conditions, will shoot straight down the back side of the tree. Doesn't matter if you are 10 feet or 30 feet up...sometimes the wind eddies straight down the downwind side of the tree. Yet another unpredictable wind situation.

The argument that you will never fool a deer's nose is ambiguous.
If I'm clean and odor careful, the residual odors that I leave behind at my stand will dissipate much faster than they would if I was sloppy with odor control. Stands stay fresh sooner and longer. That's important to us guys with small average and minimal stand choices.
Someone that doesn't worry about odor control will have deer realize their stand site a lot longer than that is careful about odor control.
And I respect the comparison to dog's sense of smell. It's a actually one of the main reasons i bought John Jennenney's book. I wanted to learn more about how dogs detect odors (blood trails in the case of the book). I figured that could help me interpret how deer smell. But dogs are not 100% and neither are deer. Sometimes they either don't get a whiff, or misinterpret the whiff, or pause when they do get a whiff. A clean hunter has a greater chance of a deer pausing when they get a minor whiff on the edge of the hunter's scent stream. Hey, I might get a shot instead of watching a deer blow out of there like a maniac.

And, yes, no matter how careful we are, we still get "winded", but the level of deer reaction can't be dismissed. A clean hunter may be detected, but that deer may not turn itself inside out blowing out of there like it will when it smells a dirty hunter. We've all had deer on the fringes of our scent steam. If we are lucky, (or careful about odor control,) that deer may just get nervous and walk out. Maybe even allow us to get a shot, or at least not alarm every deer on the farm. The dirty hunter has a much broader and much stronger scent stream. The odds of eeking-by are much greater with the clean hunter.

Some guys think it's too much effort to practice odor reduction. I look at it this way...I spend so much effort, time and money to improve my property, hold deer, protect bucks, and/or travel to far away hunts; that I think it's crazy to not take an extra half hour per hunt (for only a few weeks) to not take these easy precautions.

Odor reduction is easy...maybe the easiest part of the hunt.

Tip of the day: Use milkweed. Every day...all day. You don't really know what the wind is doing and how it effects your odor reduction practices without using floaters. Puffs can't compare to floaters.
Stay clean, my friends:);)

 

[kl9]

Hunting isn't a science IMO. A good portion o

Just hunting the wind is so much more complicated than it sounds.
It's a great concept... If the air flow doesn't go from me to the deer I can't be winded, right?
But how does one accurately predict something as complex as the interaction of prevailing wind, thermals, terrain, wind speed, and how a partly cloudy day effects thermals in varying amounts thru out the day, etc, etc? You can't. And anyone that believes they can ignore odor control and only hunt the wind doesn't really understand wind. And all of these factors that effect air flow which I named are not "stand-alone". One has an effect on another. At least in the hilly areas with variable cover that I hunt, a day of consistent and predictable wind is extremely rare, and especially for an all-day sit. I'm sorry, but the wind just ain't gonna be consistent thru out the day.

Here's a description of a hunt that further proved to me what I already knew...that predicting wind direction is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Draw this out on paper if it makes it easier to envision.
Partly sunny day with those big white clouds moving across the sky all day long. I was hunting an east exposure on a 50% partly cloudy morning with light and relatively consistent wind direction...that is, as long as the sun was behind the clouds. When it was shaded, the wind flowed light and consistent from the North. My shooting lanes were to my West. My stand was located on the outside bend on the East side of deer movement. It was almost impossible to be winded by deer traveling the trail to my west, while the sun was behind clouds. But about half of the time though, the sun came out and would shine on a lone, dark-colored pine to my west which was in the exact direction of my shooting lane. That pine absorbed the sun's heat and would actually change the surface flow. There was a chimney effect happening. The sun came out, and heated the East exposure of the pine. The air in front of the pine would warm and then rise straight up until it got above the pine and then the air would resume it's North to South flow. I proved what was happening time and time again that morning with milkweed. As long as the sun was behind clouds the pine was not absorbing heat and the air (and my milkweed) moved to the South safely away from deer trails. When the sun came out, the milkweed would be drawn to the West, right into my shooting lane, and over to the heated air in front of the pine. The floater would then shoot straight up until it cleared the pine and then the floater turned 90 degrees and blew North to South.
The prevailing wind was not changing all day long. It consistently came from the North. What I was dealing with wasn't just a thermal, it was a micro-thermal that was created or abated due to the changing cloud conditions. Make no mistake...I'm 110% certain that was what was happening. I watched my milkweed prove it happening for hours...over and over again
How does a hunter predict such a wind pattern? You can't.

Then there are thermal air flows occurring on a slope that is in the sun while an adjacent slope is still in the shade with a different thermal flow happening. What happens along the line where those differing air flows meet? And that flow pattern will change as the sun moves across the slope(s). How do "just hunt that wind"?

Still on the subject of thermals... Have you ever watched the extremely strong thermals that blow upstream on rivers? On sunny days with a large warming-temperature swing, thermals can get so strong that they create whitecaps on rivers. That strong wind pattern will effect wind patterns on adjacent hills, slopes and valleys. If the temp fluctuation changes because of clouds, that major thermal will weaken and cause less disturbance. How do you predict that wind?

Let's talk about eddies. Wind eddies can effect a 100 acres or the 100 square feet at your tree.
The leeward side of a mountain, hill, or heavy cover will produce swirling winds at certain wind speeds depending on the configuration of the structure. The wind in that same exact place may not eddy and swirl at all with a slower wind speed. The wind speed that makes or breaks those swirling conditions is different depending on the shape of the structure. How do you predict if, or how much the wind will swirl on days of variable wind speeds? You can't.
Then there are micro-eddies. Sometimes a wind floater, under certain wind conditions, will shoot straight down the back side of the tree. Doesn't matter if you are 10 feet or 30 feet up...sometimes the wind eddies straight down the downwind side of the tree. Yet another unpredictable wind situation.

The argument that you will never fool a deer's nose is ambiguous.
If I'm clean and odor careful, the residual odors that I leave behind at my stand will dissipate much faster than they would if I was sloppy with odor control. Stands stay fresh sooner and longer. That's important to us guys with small average and minimal stand choices.
Someone that doesn't worry about odor control will have deer realize their stand site a lot longer than that is careful about odor control.
And I respect the comparison to dog's sense of smell. It's a actually one of the main reasons i bought John Jennenney's book. I wanted to learn more about how dogs detect odors (blood trails in the case of the book). I figured that could help me interpret how deer smell. But dogs are not 100% and neither are deer. Sometimes they either don't get a whiff, or misinterpret the whiff, or pause when they do get a whiff. A clean hunter has a greater chance of a deer pausing when they get a minor whiff on the edge of the hunter's scent stream. Hey, I might get a shot instead of watching a deer blow out of there like a maniac.

And, yes, no matter how careful we are, we still get "winded", but the level of deer reaction can't be dismissed. A clean hunter may be detected, but that deer may not turn itself inside out blowing out of there like it will when it smells a dirty hunter. We've all had deer on the fringes of our scent steam. If we are lucky, (or careful about odor control,) that deer may just get nervous and walk out. Maybe even allow us to get a shot, or at least not alarm every deer on the farm. The dirty hunter has a much broader and much stronger scent stream. The odds of eeking-by are much greater with the clean hunter.

Some guys think it's too much effort to practice odor reduction. I look at it this way...I spend so much effort, time and money to improve my property, hold deer, protect bucks, and/or travel to far away hunts; that I think it's crazy to not take an extra half hour per hunt (for only a few weeks) to not take these easy precautions.

Odor reduction is easy...maybe the easiest part of the hunt.

Tip of the day: Use milkweed. Every day...all day. You don't really know what the wind is doing and how it effects your odor reduction practices without using floaters. Puffs can't compare to floaters.
Stay clean, my friends:);)

If all of these thoughts were in my head while I was hunting I would be miserable. Hunting isn't meant to be an exact science. I'd rather try and get lucky than spend the time to figure out what my scent is doing every minute of the hunt. To each their own though.

 

[Tap]

Hunting isn't a science IMO. A good portion o


If all of these thoughts were in my head while I was hunting I would be miserable. Hunting isn't meant to be an exact science. I'd rather try and get lucky than spend the time to figure out what my scent is doing every minute of the hunt. To each their own though.

Of course hunting is a science. Everything we do, from plotting to gun balistics to weather to blood trails and everything in between is science. Whether we choose to pay attention to science or not is indeed "to each their own".
I look at these things as fasinating parts of the challenge.
Some guys talk about needing books, phones, or whatever in the stand in order to stave off boredom.
I can sit dawn to dusk and be entertained by observing science. It's part of the enjoyment and challenge of the hunt.
Gene Wensel wrote "Bordom is a sign of an inactive imagination". I'm seldom bored while hunting.
It's not worry...it's observation.

 

[Knehrke]

Good thing I'm a scientist, then!

My 2 cents: deer react badly to any odor that's "new" to them, particularly where they don't expect it. This is true in other species, as well, most notably rats in NYC. They have travel routes that they perceive by scents left on the walls by their whiskers as they pass. A rat has to encounter something SIX times for it not to cause an alarm reaction. So, regardless of the source, new and out of place is bad when it comes to scent.

My biggest problem hunting isn't scent control though, it's getting busted as I'm looking around and dreaming of what my next project will be...

 

[Natty Bumppo]

My 2 cents: deer react badly to any odor that's "new" to them, particularly where they don't expect it. ..

I work on my land all the time...logging, walking with the family, making trails, trail running etc. Over the years it has been quite amazing to witness how the deer have become habituated to my presence and my smell. Not all deer. And certainly not older bucks that only show up in late Oct. and Nov. But for the does and young bucks who hang out on my land my presence rarely causes them alarm. There are certain deer that will allow me to walk by on a trail or drive by on my ATV giving me maybe a 25 or 30 yard berth, unalarmed and unspooked. After driving into a logging area this summer on my ATV, I had a deer stand and look at me from 20 yards as I put my logging chaps and my helmet on. She only walked off slowly, feeding as she went, when I started the saw.

With that said...I still do practice moderate scent control. I take basic, common sense steps. But I don't go crazy. And I will say, having does on my land who recognize my scent and don't spook when they encounter it has proven beneficial while in the stand on many occasions.