My best scent control year ever and this is all I did...

[DropTyne]

headgear wrote:
I almost hate to say this Dan but I don't tell everyone I know to buy your videos, only those who I feel are ready for it. Otherwise your great knowledge falls on deaf ears.

I am also with you guys on this one. A friend of mine bought the DVD's under my instruction. He just fell into the same rut and changed nothing. That idiot still doesn't get it. He's spraying scent spray, showering with "special" soap, I think he might even wipe his but with scent free toilet paper!

I think the most difficult thing facing most hunters that are younger is that in the era that I grew up in atleast hunting boomed into a cash cow for companies selling "pixie dust". It's easy for an influential youth to buy into this crap. Especially when you watch guys hunting highly managed private land knock down monster bucks using "special suits". These shows are not filming an actual hunting scenario most people will be faced with. I did at one point in time buy into the "special suit" phenomenon. Now I KNOW how much time I was wasting and how much wasted money I spent on that garbage that just made me a worse hunter.

Once I came to the realization it was a big ploy the hardest thing for me was breaking the habit. I still use a scentblocker suit sometimes because it is a nice set of camo, but it has not been "recharged" for a very long time and it has been washed in regular detergent. So now I have a super expensive set of camo, but I'm happy I learned my lesson. The next task was to rid my house of all the "magic sprays" I had laying around, I even caught myself looking for this stuff in my truck on opening day. When I found them I looked at it and tossed it to my buddy and told him to keep it. Commit to change and break the habit. I did and I am a much better hunter than I ever was before.

Can anyone here truthfully say a scent free something or other got them their big buck?

If you want to be a better hunter, break the habit, maybe use scent free detergent or soap if it makes you feel a little better. Just stop the ritual.

My .02

[DropTyne]

One other thing I was thinking about.....

What the is scent free anyways? It has to smell like something.

Maybe it's undetectable to the human nose, but it might smell like something to deer.

Until there is a doctor that can tranplant a deer nose onto a human we will never know.............

[headgear]

Good point Droptyne, I know every time I use to pull out the scent killer spray or shampoo I could certainly pick up some kind of "scent free" odor that was actually pretty strong. Maybe we just smell clean but we still smell.

[wmihunter]

i'm sad about the money i wasted on scent control clothing. however, I think it has some value especially during the rut. also, spraying down with scent killer can sometimes confuse a deer or make them think you crossed their trail the dayb4 rather than a few hours ago and thus make them feel a little more at ease-usually doesn't work with older animals though

[PASwamper]

Right on DropTyne, "stop the ritual". It became too stressful when I was doing the scent stuff with washing clothes and wearing different clothes to drive in and it was just a pain, forget that! That being said I don't use scented soaps, detergent, or deodorant when hunting season comes, and I wash my clothes and the bottom of my boots when its convenient. But now I actually pay attention to the direction of the wind and try to approach the stand correctly since I bought the videos. A good friend of mine does all the scent stuff and just doesn't understand it when a deer busts him and gets incredibly frustrated. He literally quit hunting one day when he got peanut butter on his clothes???

[Spysar]

I still think it's to your advantage to be as scent free as you can be.

I shower with scent free soap and shampoo. (scent free = soap that sosent have scent added, ie perfume, colonge.) I also like to have my clothes washed in scent free soap or tide free. I wear clothes that haven't been sweated in. Odor causing bacteria and sweat go hand in hand.

If you do these simple things, it will help reduce the strength of the odor you are producing.

Humans aren't able to smell that good, right? If you work with ten people with regular hygeine, you won't smell them. If one of the guys stops showering, and wearing the same clothes, you WILL notice a stink.

So I like to practice being clean. Me and my clothes. Not a ritual, just good hunting hygeine. I don't beleive in scent blocking clothes. And I know a deer will smell you if he gets downwind. I up my odds by being as scent free as I can.

[Spysar]

This year made me a believer that the only things that I can really do to reduce the chances that a deer smells me is to hunt the wind correctly and to not step anywhere I think a deer might walk. quote]

A simple fundamental of good hunting, hunt the wind.

But not stepping where a deer will walk dosen't leave you much room to move , as deer walk everywhere.

[dan]

I still think it's to your advantage to be as scent free as you can be.

I agree with Spy's statement, however its important not to buy into the advertising and believe you can use scent control as a crutch to hunt sloppy.
I am quite sure from my experiences keeping clean does very little to hide your scent from a deers nose. But it certainly does more good than harm. If a big buck gets a whiff of your wind stream from down wind no doubt he will notice it.
To a deer we smell like we have been skunk sprayed.... Scrubbing up with a dry rag after being sprayed by a skunk will no doubt reduce the amount of odor you give off, but as soon as you walk in the door the old lady is going to smell you...
Take a shower if you have time. Buy scent free soap if you feel like it.
Bottom line, hunting down wind, avoiding areas target deer will walk or smell you, and hunting with a plan conscious of wind is what will put antlers on the wall, not scent control.

[matt1336]

I stopped w/ the whole scent free routine this year. I had deer down wind of me this year just as much as I have in years past. The difference is that I realize that the reason they didn't bolt was b/c of thermals and/or their inexperience of being a deer that's being hunted.(young deer) In the past I would tell myself that my scent control efforts were working. This year proved to me that scent control does very little to help in my efforts to fill tags.