Ozonics

Critter Chaser

Yearling... With promise
Ozonics – What are your thoughts?

Do these work? Are they worth the money? What info do you all have on these? Thanks.
 
Real deal in a ground blind. Not so much in a tree.
 
I've heard as long as the wind is fairly calm they work well in a tree too, just too poor/cheap/lazy to purchase one. My pack is too crammed as it is. Not sure about the health "benefits" of breathing it either.
 
I had some marginal wind stands so I tried it last year to see if the hype was anywhere close to reality. My unit was used in Iowa and Wisconsin as a good test and on different sets in both states. If it's used in a low pressure area it worked on most deer but when I used it in a high pressure area in WI and Iowa, most of the mature does were bothered by it and either left or blew as they went by.

Here was my success breakdown:

Iowa public land success - 65-70%, Mature does - 40%
Wisconsin private land (but high pressure) success - 35-40%, Mature does - 10%

My thought is that as more and more people us this product the ozone scent will someday be associated with hunting and be less effective everywhere. In the end I took the unit back but if you can afford $500 (with the extra battery) to fool a couple deer a year more than you otherwise would then by all means give it a try. I also hang and hunt most of the time so the less gear going out with me the better. As always, the best scent control is staying down wind or above where they can't smell.
 
I also tried one and would have to agree with shawnv in the post above. I had some success with it, but not enough to justify keeping it. Personally the ozone bothers me and gives me a headache. Most of the time in a tree I was able to avoid breathing it. I also did not like the fan noise. I don't think deer could hear it, but I hated the constant humming in my ear. It took away from my ability to hear deer approaching.

I am kind of a gadget guy and like to try new things, as I age I am starting gravitate towards "less is more" when it comes to hunting gear.
 
Ozone is unhealthy for you and I would not consider compromising my health.
 
Ozone is unhealthy for you and I would not consider compromising my health.
You breath it at the dentist on every drilling. I think they pump it at Casinos and hotels as well.
 
Doesn't mean I want to be breathing it to kill a deer.


What are the effects of recurrent or long-term exposure to ozone?
One of the major unanswered questions about the health effects of ozone is whether repeated episodes of damage, inflammation, and repair induced by years of recurrent short-term ozone exposures result in adverse health effects beyond the acute effects themselves.
Daily ozone exposure for a period of 4 days results in an attenuation of some of the acute, neurally-mediated effects (e.g., lung function changes and symptoms) for subsequent exposures occurring within 1 to 2 weeks. Some health experts have, therefore, suggested that individuals living in high ozone areas may be protected from any harmful effects of long-term ozone exposure. Others suggest, however, that the attenuation of the ozone-induced tendency to take rapid and shallow breaths may blunt a protective mechanism, resulting in greater delivery and deposition of ozone deeper in the respiratory tract and other airway responses described below.
Studies including bronchoalveolar lavage and bronchial mucosal biopsies indicate that, unlike the neurally-mediated lung function changes, the processes of airway injury, inflammation, and repair continue to occur during repeated exposure. After either 4 or 5 days of exposure, markers of cell injury and increased epithelial permeability remain elevated, and an increase in airway mucosal PMN, which was not present following a single exposure, has been noted. Also, unlike the neurally-mediated effects, small airway function has been observed to remain depressed over the course of exposures and is thought to be related to the ongoing inflammation.
Studies of laboratory animals have consistently demonstrated that long-term exposure to ozone concentrations above ambient levels results in persistent morphological changes that could be a marker of chronic respiratory disease. Exposed animals experience mucous cell metaplasia and epithelial cell hyperplasia in the upper airway as well as structural changes in the lower airway including an increase in fibrous tissue in the basement membrane area and a remodeling of the distal conducting airways. In addition to airway remodeling and basement membrane changes, concurrent long-term exposure of very young primates to ozone and house dust mite allergen has been observed to result in changes in the innervation of the airways as well as an accumulation of eosinophils in the distal airways suggesting induction of an allergic phenotype. Other studies indicate that sensitization of animals to antigen occurs more easily during ongoing ozone exposures. Based on traditional measures, there is little evidence that long-term exposure in animals results in substantial changes in airway function. However, these morphological findings suggest that long-term ozone exposure might play a role in the development or progression of chronic lung disease and/or asthma.
The epidemiologic evidence is inconclusive with regard to whether long-term exposure of humans is related to chronic respiratory health effects in humans. Several cross-sectional studies have found that young adults who spent their childhoods in locales with high ozone concentrations had lower measures of lung function than those from locales with lower ozone. Similar results have not been observed, however, in a recent well-conducted longitudinal study of lung function in children or in other cross-sectional studies. Two longitudinal studies have observed associations between development of asthma and long-term ozone concentrations in subgroups of the population. These findings have not been confirmed in other longitudinal or cross-sectional studies, but they are consistent with the animal toxicological literature. Part of the difficulty in evaluating such associations has been the small number of longitudinal epidemiologic studies specifically designed to evaluate respiratory health in samples with differing ozone exposures. The mobility of the population as well as the inability to precisely estimate exposure to ozone and other potential confounders over a period of many years degrades the power of, and leads to bias in, both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.
In spite of the inconclusive nature of the epidemiologic literature, the repeated cycles of damage, inflammation, and repair in humans and the morphological findings from the animal toxicological studies suggest that it would be prudent to avoid repeated short-term exposures, particularly in young children, until more is known about the effects of long-term ozone exposure.
 
I tried it without much success and ended up getting my money back. Treestand use only.
 
I tried it without much success and ended up getting my money back. Treestand use only.

You mean you didn't have an "Ah Ha!" moment?
 
Drury puts his outside the ground blind. We did some smoke bomb tests in ground blinds and found that as long as you closed half of the blind up, the air liked to mix on the 'sides' of the blind. 95% of the smoke came out neither upwind or downwind, but swirled out the sides.
 
You mean you didn't have an "Ah Ha!" moment?

Actually I did and it went something like this: "Ah Ha I'm a sucker"!
 
Thanks everyone. Seems clear to me, I am gonna save my money and spend it on something else. Thanks again for your input.
 
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