Cover Scents

[Wlog]

I don’t think ground scent only comes from boots. Your breath, sweat, skin, dandruff. All this stuff is falling from you wherever you go. I’ve experimented with lots of different ways to be scent free or have less scent with poor results. I can remember the day I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I was wasting lots of time and money and it was liberating to ditch all of it and just be smarter about where I walk and which way the air currents are moving.

I used to wash my rubber boots, keep them in their own container, wash “scent proof” clothes, shower every hunt, and on and on with this whole ritual. Everytime I got busted with ground scent or winded I would figure that something wasn’t clean enough and I’d start searching for more things I could do. It was an endless cycle. I listened to everything every “expert” said and tried my best to follow everything to a tee.

One day I’m sitting in a tree and two young does came running across a field from the other side of the farm half a mile away. They were spooked by something on the other side of the farm and were nearly full sprint when they hit my ground scent. They stopped on a dime and turned around and headed back the way they came. I was so ticked off. All the money and time I spent on this scent proof routine and this keeps happening. I gave it up.

At times I thought it worked. Deer would go by downwind, deer would cross my trail. But sometimes it wouldn’t work. Once I quit using it all I got the same results. Sometimes they spook from my scent sometimes they do not.

I realize it’s not the same thing but ever wonder why, even when you feel scent free mosquitoes still find you immediately? If the mosquitoes can smell me why would I think deer can’t? Yes I know mosquitoes don’t smell.

[moondoondude]

Expose dirt, rub the soles of whatever I'm wearing in there something fierce.

Go through creek, do similar in the mud, gravel, or clay bank.

In places i constantly check cameras, I take the same path every time, in a way so a deer can come in and check it out. If they want to know that i was in there, great - they know to check the same places every time. I let them pattern me that way, and over time they become more and more comfortable with my pattern.

When it comes to hunting, I do the best to eliminate my foot trail by accessing wherever I'm hunting very carefully - kind of with the thought process of "if a deer goes there or comes from there, I'm screwed anyways" type of mentality.

If I'm hunting a specific buck and I have a season to plan, and i know that he's on a pattern where he will definitely get my foot trail, i regularly go in and out to where I'm hunting on a specific foot trail for him to be accustomed to it. On public, not going to happen. But on private, it has definitely worked in the past. This year, i even weedwhacked and trimmed my foot trail in there through a regeneration field, hoping he cuts the foot trail and follows it to me.

[Primetime]

Ive used nosejammer in the past on my boots and had multiple deer walk my exact same trail in right under my stand. ive never had any other type of scent do that. I think it probably hurt my hunting more than helped.