Scent Control

[bigbendmarine]

Mostly in the camp of Natty Bumppo, but will add one thing I do that didn't appear to hurt me last year (killed my 2 nicest bucks in just a few hunts, and with each hunt had multiple deer walk yards from me while I was fighting not to sweat in Florida heat).

Versus focusing on one particular strong cover scent or a lure scent that local deer might not regularly smell, I go out a week or so before season and collect a sample of MULTIPLE local plants (most with distinctive scents), simmer them until I'm left with a tea that I lightly spray on my clothes and exposed skin before heading to my stand.

Things I collect down my way are pine straw, beauty berry leaves, acorns, hickory nuts, pear tree branch tips, etc. Brew ends up having a somewhat complex pleasant odor somewhere between lemonade and Christmas scents. The result isn't that particularly strong (nor do I want it to be), but what I like about it is that it gives off faint odors of items that absolutely surround my deer here. Can't say with any scientific proof it HELPS, but what anecdotal evidence I gained last year at least loosely pointed to it sure not hurting too much (not a single deer visibly focused on me / snorted at me / alarmed deer in the area) and 2 nice adult shooter bucks came into my plot during daylight hours.

 

[KDdid]

In my area goldenrod is a prevalent plant, with a distinctive odor. I often put broken goldenrod stems in my tote, and it lasts for weeks.
I'm more nuts about ground scent than clothes odors. I'm adamant about trimming entry paths, using a stick to push things out of my way, and my rubber hunting boots get used for hunting, and nothing else. I'm scrubbing them down with borax and baking soda with water, drying them upside down over a fence post, then scent killer before a plastic bag. Never touch them with bare hands, and you've gone a long way to avoid getting busted. I hear about guys using zeolite on clothes and boots, I sometimes use clean diatomaceous earth and baking soda dusted over mine.


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[Tap]

Mostly in the camp of Natty Bumppo, but will add one thing I do that didn't appear to hurt me last year (killed my 2 nicest bucks in just a few hunts, and with each hunt had multiple deer walk yards from me while I was fighting not to sweat in Florida heat).

Versus focusing on one particular strong cover scent or a lure scent that local deer might not regularly smell, I go out a week or so before season and collect a sample of MULTIPLE local plants (most with distinctive scents), simmer them until I'm left with a tea that I lightly spray on my clothes and exposed skin before heading to my stand.

Things I collect down my way are pine straw, beauty berry leaves, acorns, hickory nuts, pear tree branch tips, etc. Brew ends up having a somewhat complex pleasant odor somewhere between lemonade and Christmas scents. The result isn't that particularly strong (nor do I want it to be), but what I like about it is that it gives off faint odors of items that absolutely surround my deer here. Can't say with any scientific proof it HELPS, but what anecdotal evidence I gained last year at least loosely pointed to it sure not hurting too much (not a single deer visibly focused on me / snorted at me / alarmed deer in the area) and 2 nice adult shooter bucks came into my plot during daylight hours.

View attachment 14169

I love ya marine, bit cover scents (IME) don't work.
I'll compare a deer's ability to smell with a drug sniffing dog. They still smell the drugs regardless of other introduced odors. When we try to cover our human odor with the same scents that are already airborn in our hunting area, why would that work? Deer already sort out our odor among thousands that they analyze every second. Dirt, leaves, skunk...you name it...a deer still has the ability to smell "human" regardless of the strength of those other odors.
My stance on odor control isn't so much that deer won't actually smell me if my odor molecules reach their nose, my tactic is to reduce the LEVEL of my odor for 2 reasons...make deer believe I'm either farther away or that I'm no longer present, and reduce residual odor that remains for hours or days after we've left our stands or passed thru our access trail.
IMO, the weaker our odor, the faster it disapates.
The key isn't covering our human odor, the key is reducing it.

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[Tap]

In my area goldenrod is a prevalent plant, with a distinctive odor. I often put broken goldenrod stems in my tote, and it lasts for weeks.
I'm more nuts about ground scent than clothes odors. I'm adamant about trimming entry paths, using a stick to push things out of my way, and my rubber hunting boots get used for hunting, and nothing else. I'm scrubbing them down with borax and baking soda with water, drying them upside down over a fence post, then scent killer before a plastic bag. Never touch them with bare hands, and you've gone a long way to avoid getting busted. I hear about guys using zeolite on clothes and boots, I sometimes use clean diatomaceous earth and baking soda dusted over mine.


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Lot of good points on boot care and ground scent and avoiding contact with obstructions in our paths.
But I'm still not a believer in cover scents. I've used goldenrod, spicebush, and fresh black walnut husks. They all have a strong scent. But so does skunk essence and fox urine but deer still smell "human" odor among those other odors.
Sorry guys, it'll take some convincing to get me to believe I can get a deer to accept human odor by "adding" another odor that already exists in the area.
We humans often try to equate a deer's sense of smell to ours. Our nose can be blocked by other strong odors but I don't believe that applies to an animal whose very existence (whether it's for food, sex, herd socialization or escaping predictors) relies on scent detection.

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[bigbendmarine]

Tap, sure NOT saying I think my cover brew gives me a ticket to ignore hygiene. Not at all the case... just that I carry it to about the same level as Natty. Also likely helps that I'm walking a few hundred yards out my door to my stand immediately after showering versus driving, stopping to eat at a restaurant, etc... AND since hunting fairly close to my home deer already associate it with a distant amount of human scent. All that said, our average early November highs can be in the upper 70s and even walking a few hundred yards can lead to a sweat. Which is why in addition to getting clean I spray my tea brew on my clothes and skin.

 

[g squared 23]

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.

Regarding the surgical scrub being superior, several studies have shown it's not superior to a waterless sterilization technique but has been passed down simply out of ritual. Surgeons are superstitious creatures of habit.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196655301826584

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00480169.2017.1342175

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02713683.2017.1304559

http://journals.lww.com/spinejourna..._Rub_versus_Traditional_Hand_Scrub.95581.aspx

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...olled-trial/5FC2976C01821E9E2AD39D48177AC301#

http://jccnursing.com/en/articles/8255.html


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