The Hunting Beast

i dont care about soap so much as i do the wind, i play the wind. i dont care about camo anymore and will tote the brightest arrows i can find (hot pink). i will never educate ANY deer on purpose, i dont see the point. those young deer will become old deer if we dont killem, they will get educated sooon enough without trying

dreaming bucks wrote:But don't you worry about educating those young bucks where you hunt too ? I mean if they do indeed have a memory of WHERE they have ran into danger, they might not come through where they ran into you once before...

Not really because most of them get blasted anyway, I figure if I can educate them a little when they are young they might have at least a little chance (small) to survive the rifle season. Any buck that lives to be mature on the public land I hunt is a survival machine anyway so I will have to be at the top of my game to take him.

Like I said I would never do this near a buck bedding area. I hunt a few spots that are usually dedicated to doe hunting, so I am not to worried about educating them about me because they will likely be living and bedding in a different areas when they are older.

BowtechHunting wrote:My idea of scent control is to keep the buck from smelling you based on the wind, and carefully thinking about where you walk... I believe Andrae is on the same page. When I have time, I shower and wear clean clothes. Although I don't think it matters much.

Dan I remember you saying in your "Hunting Public Marshes" video, that you have limited time to go through today's modern ritual of scent elimination (shower, soap, carbon suit, carbon, underwear, carbon this, carbon that, spray, brush your teeth in carbon toothpaste, until you pee carbon...) With all that said, Andre and yourself still are able to harvest brutes each year. I've never been to crazy with all the scent control myself to a extent. I just hunt with the wind in my favor and avoid getting too sweaty walking to my stand. I think that is your tactic correct? And only hunt him with a perfect wind, if your lucky.

Yes... But only hunt "the Perfect wind" is not really true. I sometimes hunt on iffy winds and do my best to position myself to keep it from getting to the buck...

Ninja said

How I enter and exit my stand is very important also and this is why I practice scent control.

Right on Ninja!

I am nearly anal on scent control. Not necessarily carbon suits but CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN. I try to be even more anal on the wind. But that is for deer while in my stand. The scent control is for to and from.
Think about how a deer's nose works. It's parts per million. Any reduction in particulates is going to help. Not ELIMINATE but help.
I see the results. I have hunted the same 80 acre parcel over 30 times in a year and scored on a targeted buck on the 14th of Nov. And that's just one example.
Sorry Ninja. It was private land.

I would think that a deers reaction to scent varies with how old he is, how hard he has been hunted, time of year etc. and probably most importantly human presence on the land.

I also think that these more "mature" bucks will tolerate some human scent in their area. They simply won't bed in a place where they don't feel secure - meaning that they pick that bed where it gives them an idea of how predators (humans, wolves, whatever) are approaching. I think they get big by knowing when to hunker down and wait it out rather than head for the hills. I also think most of us have been watched or watched via scent many, many times by educated bucks.

In the areas I hunt human presence is a definate. I won't get to a place in the marsh where another human hasn't walked, it might be rarely but I garantee someone has walked past that buck bed at some point.

That being said, I used to use scent control but I don't anymore. I don't use anything, typically I dress in the house or wear the pants that I wore to work. Basically I do all the things that you're not supposed to do. What I do is to pay as much attention to my walking scent trail as I can...I think that's as important as wind carried scent. I also play the wind carried scent as it relates to the direction or specific bed I feel the deer will be coming from. I can't control if deer come in from another direction so I don't take it into consideration, if it happens (and has) I try to make the best of it.

On a related note: Dan said something about playing an iffy wind, I been thinking about that too. Pushing it close to getting busted, for example: if the wind is coming out of the straight west I would come in from the North and push in to a spot just to the side of the bucks bed. If the wind shifts even 5-10 degrees to the south I am screwed. Seems like this is the only way to hunt some of these beds.

I was thinking about this topic yet again the other day. Heres something I came up with that could actually make sense. Most of these products such as sprays and such contain peroxide and baking soda. Whats to say once that drys its not laying out more scent than without it. Its falling off you too and just because we cant smell it doesnt mean that they cant.

I don't think that they eliminate my scent but even if they reduce it a little it's going to help. When I'm hunting my private spots that I hunt multiple times a year I make sure my clothes are aired out and I shower before I go. When I get out of truck I take my clothes out of the tote and change. My belief is if I'm going to be able to hunt a spot maybe 5-8 times I need to keep my scent control to a max. On public spots I play the wind more than relying on scent control because I'll only be there once or twice.

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jlh42581 wrote:I was thinking about this topic yet again the other day. Heres something I came up with that could actually make sense. Most of these products such as sprays and such contain peroxide and baking soda. Whats to say once that drys its not laying out more scent than without it. Its falling off you too and just because we cant smell it doesnt mean that they cant.

Baking soda and peroxide do not scare deer... Neither does clothes scent, and maybe not even human sweat... The thing that spooks deer is the millions of dead skin cells that shed off your body constantly. Nothing can mask or stop that.
Reduce it? Sure... But our skin cell scent to a deers millions of times stronger nose and there vomernasal organ is the equivalent to our nose of being sprayed by a skunk. Wiping off the skunk spray with a dry towel will reduce it, however even reduced its going to make little difference when you get up wind of your wife. She is going to smell you and notice it immediately.

Research shows that deer have up to 297 million olfactory receptors in the nose, plus a vomeronasal organ (that detects scents/odors) in the roof of their mouth. Dogs have up to 220 million olfactory receptors in the nose, plus a vomeronasal organ. Humans have up to 5 million olfactory receptors in the nose, but no vomeronasal organ.

I would say not only does a deer smell 27% better than a bloodhound, a deer is also a wild animal that depends on survival thru its nose. It uses its nose to detect tiny food particles under deep snow and at great distances so as not to starve. A deer also depends on his nose to detect predators that want to kill it. His beds are put in position to smell approaching danger... They also use there nose to find receptive does... I would venture to say they depend greatly on there nose on a day to day basis....Or maybe I should say minute to minute...
A domesticated dog on the other hand is not being hunted, does not get to chase around for females, does not live totally based on his nose...Me? I would rather try to fool the dogs nose

[bbvideo=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXp3kv8fs_0[/bbvideo]

I could not find a link to the entire show, but found this link to the questions after the show Mythbusters did proving that you could not fool a blood hounds nose with anything. Reduction did not work...

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbus ... f-the-dog/

I quit using scent control a few years back. Now hunting is more fun than ever because I don't worry one bit about using the wrong soap, wearing leather boots, wearing my camo to a restaurant etc. All I have to concentrate on now is wind direction, entry, and being quiet!

GRUD wrote:I quit using scent control a few years back. Now hunting is more fun than ever because I don't worry one bit about using the wrong soap, wearing leather boots, wearing my camo to a restaurant etc. All I have to concentrate on now is wind direction, entry, and being quiet!

This is me too, don't miss it. Kind of took the fun out of hunting for me so I am happy to hunt the wind and the beds. Under certain circumstances I think it might help a little but I just don't want to bother any more.

Dan I am with you on the skin thing. I was just thinking from the standpoint that i posted it might be more along the lines of throwing gas on a fire thats already burning. I think most of us agree that deer can and do remember bad situations, hence why in high pressured areas something like blind rattling is pretty much not even considered. How many times before a whitetail shows up at someones stand who happened to get in there for whatever reason and now busted that guy smelling peroxide and baking soda in addition to his skin cells before he associates those things with danger?

I fully understand how powerful their nose is and I dont think you can beat it in any way.

jlh42581 wrote:Dan I am with you on the skin thing. I was just thinking from the standpoint that i posted it might be more along the lines of throwing gas on a fire thats already burning. I think most of us agree that deer can and do remember bad situations, hence why in high pressured areas something like blind rattling is pretty much not even considered. How many times before a whitetail shows up at someones stand who happened to get in there for whatever reason and now busted that guy smelling peroxide and baking soda in addition to his skin cells before he associates those things with danger?

I fully understand how powerful their nose is and I dont think you can beat it in any way.

I agree to a point... I think if they smell the baking soda and peroxide, they are probably also smelling the human skin cells, so it really don't matter if the chemical scent spooks them...

I think a lot of people would raise an eyebrow if they new that a lot of my bucks were shot while i was wearing my oily nasty work clothes right after work.

Hmmm, maybe machine oil is a buck attractant ? Just kidding.... lol

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Great conversation here. I would agree that carbon suits and sprays can't stop scent but I hate the smell of perfumes, soaps and such, so I try to buy unscented deodorant and soap year round just for that reason. But even those have some stank to them too. I used to waste a ton of time and money with so called scent free products, that I wouldn't let the old lady wash my hunting clothes. That back fired and she then thought I should help with the laundry. With that said for some OCD reason I still try to use scent free uv free detergent but I certainly don't stress over it. Like Dan says "there is no magic pixy dust"
I have hunted in clothes after cutting trees without a shower covered in gas oil and sweat and had deer come in because I Played the wind. I think hunters for the most part a gear freaks and we play into the hands of snake oil salesmen....

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