afternoon everyone, new to the forum and had a question. On of my most prime spots next year is gonna have me in a jam next year as it’s gonna be corn in the field and the farmer is usually relatively late in getting crops out. Has anyone found a way to control scent enough that wind almost becomes a non factor. I’m open to saddle and climber hunting which I’ve done in the past but if I play the wind it almost take me out of the equation of where the deer travel. My main hang up with the corn is it’s by a bedding area and I don’t want to spook out the deer with a bad wind.
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Scent control
- Thread starter Gwillitts
- Start date
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Early in my hunting career, I got blown frequently when bowhunting. I was never good at playing the wind. In my area, even if we have a predominant wind direction, the actual direction with the eddies and swirls and such make it very difficult for me to play the wind.
I began to focus on scent control. I wash all of my hunting garments in one of the no-stink soaps. I then put them in a sealed rubber maid container so they don't pick up smells. Rubber boots are a must. They all go into the back of the pickup. My hunting gear is based on coveralls as they have fewer places for scent to escape. I also wear a carbon suit under it. I think some of the latest science show it does not work the way it is marketed in terms of absorbing and holding scent, but it does block scent. I wear it as a head covering as well. We lose a lot of heat and scent from our head.
The next step is personal hygiene. I shower before the hunt again using a non-scented body wash. I put on clean street clothes, not hunting clothes.
Hunting location is important. Deer smell all kinds of things at all kinds of concentrations, including humans. They have the ability to "see" scent much like we use vision. They have many more olfactory sensors as well as percent of brain dedicated to this task than humans. Deer don't head for the hills when they smell human. It is when that smell is some place it shouldn't be in a high enough concentration that it reaches a danger threshold.
If you are walking miles into the woods away from all human activity, it takes a lot less human scent to reach the danger level than it does for suburban deer that encounter human scent on a daily basis. It is not really "human" that deer are smelling. It is the excrement of bacteria that lives on our bodies. By showering very good with soap we remove the bacteria, we just don't want to add artificial scents from scented soap. So, if you have to walk miles, you are going to work up a sweat which is a great medium for bacteria to multiply.
So, I like to find hunting locations where the walk from my truck is short. If I had hang a stand ahead of time, that is preferable to the exertion with a climber. I remove my street clothes (also washed in non-scented detergent) and put on my hunting clothes where I park. I walk in very slowly trying to reduce any exertion. I wear rubber boots with my coveralls tucked in them and try not to touch anything on the walk in.
One thing I have found that helps is battery operated clothing. In my area, it can be 70-80 degrees in the afternoon walking in and 50 or less by sunset. Battery heated clothing allows me to dress light for the walk in, but keeps me comfortable after sunset.
Just keep in mind, you won't eliminate all scent. The objective is to reduce the amount of scent that escapes into the air, so the concentrations are so low that they don't trigger a danger response in deer.
I am much less fastidious when it comes to scent when gun hunting. It is when you need to have deer inside 20 yards that you need to pay attentions to all the details.
I began to focus on scent control. I wash all of my hunting garments in one of the no-stink soaps. I then put them in a sealed rubber maid container so they don't pick up smells. Rubber boots are a must. They all go into the back of the pickup. My hunting gear is based on coveralls as they have fewer places for scent to escape. I also wear a carbon suit under it. I think some of the latest science show it does not work the way it is marketed in terms of absorbing and holding scent, but it does block scent. I wear it as a head covering as well. We lose a lot of heat and scent from our head.
The next step is personal hygiene. I shower before the hunt again using a non-scented body wash. I put on clean street clothes, not hunting clothes.
Hunting location is important. Deer smell all kinds of things at all kinds of concentrations, including humans. They have the ability to "see" scent much like we use vision. They have many more olfactory sensors as well as percent of brain dedicated to this task than humans. Deer don't head for the hills when they smell human. It is when that smell is some place it shouldn't be in a high enough concentration that it reaches a danger threshold.
If you are walking miles into the woods away from all human activity, it takes a lot less human scent to reach the danger level than it does for suburban deer that encounter human scent on a daily basis. It is not really "human" that deer are smelling. It is the excrement of bacteria that lives on our bodies. By showering very good with soap we remove the bacteria, we just don't want to add artificial scents from scented soap. So, if you have to walk miles, you are going to work up a sweat which is a great medium for bacteria to multiply.
So, I like to find hunting locations where the walk from my truck is short. If I had hang a stand ahead of time, that is preferable to the exertion with a climber. I remove my street clothes (also washed in non-scented detergent) and put on my hunting clothes where I park. I walk in very slowly trying to reduce any exertion. I wear rubber boots with my coveralls tucked in them and try not to touch anything on the walk in.
One thing I have found that helps is battery operated clothing. In my area, it can be 70-80 degrees in the afternoon walking in and 50 or less by sunset. Battery heated clothing allows me to dress light for the walk in, but keeps me comfortable after sunset.
Just keep in mind, you won't eliminate all scent. The objective is to reduce the amount of scent that escapes into the air, so the concentrations are so low that they don't trigger a danger response in deer.
I am much less fastidious when it comes to scent when gun hunting. It is when you need to have deer inside 20 yards that you need to pay attentions to all the details.
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
“Playing the wind” is a misnomer, it’s more like the wind is playing you. It depends on many factors. Wind speed, terrain, vegetation (as in timber or out in the open), and even the temperature are all factors. For instance, one of my stands is a little uphill from my food plot. My favorite time to hunt it is on a brisk NW wind, about 10/15 mph. That’s great until just before dark, then the wind lays and the lowering temps make my scent start rolling slowly downhill. I’ve confirmed this a couple times when does were present. At first they just look in my direction, then the older ones start getting nervous and shifting, then they are gone. Luckily I can get out of that stand if deer are not too close and exit without scaring them if they haven’t smelled me. When the wind lays now I just get out and go home, I don’t want to scare them too many times. Been there, done that, and it ain’t good.
During my 25 years of bowhunting I hunted mostly open country in Central Texas where it was pretty flat, just a few humps and ridges. The tallest trees were bull mesquites and not many of them were where I wanted to hunt. The tallest mesquites where I did want to hunt were about 12/15 tall but you could do pretty good at camoing yourself with a ten foot tripod and some military camo as a backdrop. Some of my sets looked like crap but I arrowed lots of deer from them in the 18 years I leased that place. The kicker was, the wind was reliable. If it was coming out of the SE, you could depend on that for your entire sit. The bad part was, in some spots, deer could come from any direction so we had to change some sets and limit ourselves to the places where we could know within reason where deer were apt to come from. Mostly it worked, once in a while it didn’t, but there were so many deer it didn’t hinder our hunting much. Where I hunt now, in East Texas, you can’t depend on the wind much so I use an Ozonics unit and hunt from an enclosed blind. Some folks say they don’t work, but they have proven to me that they do. Deer, and most importantly, hogs and coyotes have all come in from straight downwind of me and never reacted. I don’t believe they help much in a tree though.
Scent control is a many faceted thing, some of the things Jack mentioned were also in my regimen for scent control. I think the best thing you can do if the wind is squirrely is brush in a popup and hunt out of it……after you do the scent control stuff Jack was talking about. The carbon suit would be a non starter here, it’s usually 80* during bow season.
During my 25 years of bowhunting I hunted mostly open country in Central Texas where it was pretty flat, just a few humps and ridges. The tallest trees were bull mesquites and not many of them were where I wanted to hunt. The tallest mesquites where I did want to hunt were about 12/15 tall but you could do pretty good at camoing yourself with a ten foot tripod and some military camo as a backdrop. Some of my sets looked like crap but I arrowed lots of deer from them in the 18 years I leased that place. The kicker was, the wind was reliable. If it was coming out of the SE, you could depend on that for your entire sit. The bad part was, in some spots, deer could come from any direction so we had to change some sets and limit ourselves to the places where we could know within reason where deer were apt to come from. Mostly it worked, once in a while it didn’t, but there were so many deer it didn’t hinder our hunting much. Where I hunt now, in East Texas, you can’t depend on the wind much so I use an Ozonics unit and hunt from an enclosed blind. Some folks say they don’t work, but they have proven to me that they do. Deer, and most importantly, hogs and coyotes have all come in from straight downwind of me and never reacted. I don’t believe they help much in a tree though.
Scent control is a many faceted thing, some of the things Jack mentioned were also in my regimen for scent control. I think the best thing you can do if the wind is squirrely is brush in a popup and hunt out of it……after you do the scent control stuff Jack was talking about. The carbon suit would be a non starter here, it’s usually 80* during bow season.
weekender21
Well-Known Member
You can reduce impact…maybe. Eliminating scent to the point it’s a non factor is not possible.
Good listen if you’re interested in scent and a deers ability to smell you.
podcasts.apple.com
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good listen if you’re interested in scent and a deers ability to smell you.
The Truth About Scent - How to Apply It!
Podcast Episode · The Southern Outdoorsmen Hunting Podcast · 12/22/2021 · 1h 10m
podcasts.apple.com
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
weekender21
Well-Known Member
Same guest, more recent podcast
podcasts.apple.com
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
598 - EVERYTHING You Need to know about SCENT with Tom Brownlee
Podcast Episode · The Southern Outdoorsmen Hunting Podcast · 07/08/2024 · 1h 22m
podcasts.apple.com
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
I went from being blown on a regular basis where getting a deer into shooting position/distance was very rare, to the point where I might get blown every other season. That doesn't mean deer don't smell any human scent from me. It does mean that they are not having a negative reaction to what they smell most of the time. Any deer I did get in bow range in the past were very skittish. Since scent control, they are generally feeding calmly. They still have the general "it's hunting season and there are people in the woods" anxiety, but not the proximate "what was that!" edginess.You can reduce impact…maybe. Eliminating scent to the point it’s a non factor is not possible.
Good listen if you’re interested in scent and a deers ability to smell you.
The Truth About Scent - How to Apply It!
Podcast Episode · The Southern Outdoorsmen Hunting Podcast · 12/22/2021 · 1h 10m
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
It is my opinion that when you do your due diligence concerning scent control that if the deer smells you it thinks you are not very close to it. Does are notorious for knowing you are approaching but wait until they see you to run. I’ve had it happen many times. They are curious IMO. Mature bucks, not so much. Hogs and coyotes, not a bit. I have game camera evidence of that.
Scent control or just not hunting when the wind is not in your favor is a fact of life that some hunters ignore to their detriment. As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know”, you could also say “You don’t know what you scared away when you walked into your stand with the wind at your back”. 
If you scare them enough they will eventually avoid the area that scared them.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Once again, I think the big picture matters. In many of the places I hunt, deer are bedded during the heat of the day. Even mature bucks, won't give themselves away until they identify danger. Otherwise, running away may take them right into danger. A deer that picked up a small amount of human scent at 3pm and stayed bedded out of my sight, doesn't have the capacity to know where I am at sunset when it starts moving.It is my opinion that when you do your due diligence concerning scent control that if the deer smells you it thinks you are not very close to it. Does are notorious for knowing you are approaching but wait until they see you to run. I’ve had it happen many times. They are curious IMO. Mature bucks, not so much. Hogs and coyotes, not a bit. I have game camera evidence of that.
I will agree, scent control is certainly not absolute, but my bowhunting harvests increased significantly from when I had no scent control and tried to play the wind and I changed to fastidious scent control and mostly ignoring the wind.
