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Author Topic: Scent Control Debate  (Read 13152 times)

Offline boneaddict

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #15 on: September 28, 2017, 11:00:29 AM »
 :yeah:   Minus the smoking part, I don't smoke.   

Offline bigmacc

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #16 on: September 28, 2017, 11:12:59 AM »
Scent control is a billion dollar business! Biggest ripoff in the world.   The one thing you cannot hide is your breath.  If you dont have wind in your face, then you had best move to get it in your face no matter what..  I have 30 years hunting experience and never try to COVER up my scent.  Oh and I smoke whenever and where ever. 


I never clean my clothes in anything but regular laundry soap, srand around the fire in my hunting clothes, chew gum, smoke, wear deodorant and so on amd so forth. 

I have been involved in 100 plus elk kils and probably twice that in deer kills.  Get that wind in your face and you will be fine..  I do agree to try and limit unatural scents, but there are far better hunting things to spend money on..

I 100% agree with rt, I,m not a smoker but I pretty much go about my hunting trips the same way and I've been doing it for over 50years, the family for over 100 years, been very successful. "Keep the wind in your face and if its not you better get it there!" This was pumped into me from the age of 5, and yes, lots better "hunting stuff" to spend my money on... :twocents:

Offline Skyvalhunter

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #17 on: September 28, 2017, 11:17:17 AM »
what do you smoke Wacky Tabacky?? :chuckle:
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Offline OutHouse

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #18 on: September 28, 2017, 11:21:21 AM »
I use the scent control products and have seen them work as advertised. For those commenting about breath that is a tough one to control. However, there is an easy fix to that. Breath through your nose. Sure there's scent coming from the lungs but not nearly as much coming from the bacteria filled mouth. Whenever I am close to deer I make sure to breath exclusively through the shnaaz.

Of course, using the wind to one's advantage is the best bet but like someone else said, that's not always possible. I think if you're gonna use the products you have to use all of them. I de-scent everything I possibly can, then let everything sit outside to soak up the woods smell. The last two deer I harvested were shot with my scent carrying directly toward the animal (bow and muzzy). One from a few years ago was with a group of 5 other bucks and none of them alerted to me. Can't speak for everyone else's experience, but for me I know without a doubt those products work if applied properly.

Offline 92xj

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #19 on: September 28, 2017, 11:35:10 AM »
I dip alfalfa
"If you have to be crazy to hunt ducks, I do not wish to be sane."

Offline BULLBLASTER

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #20 on: September 28, 2017, 11:59:26 AM »
I think that the scent control products can help to a point. I do a pretty rigorous scent control protocol before I climb into a blind or stand hunting Whitetail's. If I am backpacking or hiking enough to break a sweat, then all the products are usuless.
I also won't sit in my whitetail stands with a bad wind. No matter what scent control you do with sprays or wips or detergent it won't eliminate all of your odors. But if it helps a bit and can buy me a few seconds that may be just enough to seal the deal.

Offline fishnfur

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #21 on: September 28, 2017, 01:11:18 PM »
There are times when you just can't use the wind to your advantage. 


.......Any pattern a hunter can predict about an animal is a huge advantage.  I'd do my usual and post a corroborating/example story or two but am giving away too much hard learned info already!


Quit being a tease Okanagan.  Give up the goods!
“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”  - Will Rogers

Offline fishnfur

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #22 on: September 28, 2017, 01:38:59 PM »
... an interesting idea from last year came from one of the members who mentioned that he could walk through the woods in his (loggers) work clothes which were covered in bar/chain oil and not startle the deer he encountered. 

Western WA commercial forests are literally covered in the stuff.  Questions remain whether those deer:

1) associate the smell of the oil as normal non-threatening smell
2) associate the smell of oil on people in the woods to mean they're not out there hunting for deer
or 3) have their olfactory senses overwhelmed by the smell of the oil

Does any of this matter?  Is bar and chain oil an effective scent control?  How would your spouse like it if you came home smelling of oil instead of deer urine?  :yike:

Also, has anyone researched the science behind scent?  I have tried.  The best explanation I've seen was that scent particles literally fall off us as we walk through the woods.  Perhaps it is dead skin cells or some such thing, but the fact that a deer can smell that you walked down a trail (and touched nothing) hours or days after the fact tells me that there's something to this idea.
“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”  - Will Rogers

Offline boneaddict

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #23 on: September 28, 2017, 01:47:57 PM »
I think Mythbusters answered this pretty well. They had a guy in a protective suit and boots and everything. The dog smelled him easily. I have heard (for bear hunting at least) to chew mint gum. That hasn't worked so far this year haha. I used to bag my clothes up with vegetation and use special detergent and dryer sheets. I think I felt more confident but I don't think I was fooling anyone or anything else.

No, you chew bacon 🥓

Offline tonymiller7

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #24 on: September 28, 2017, 03:38:13 PM »
Tried nose jammer once, and I spooked every whitetail deer that got even remotely close to me.  The smell of that crap is way too strong.  I found it to be a total detourant.


Thanks, I'll check 'em out.  In the mean time .........

Offline CJ1962

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #25 on: September 28, 2017, 04:36:38 PM »
I wonder if deer smell that way.  If so, all of the cover scents would be completely worthless.

According to the pod cast deer sense of smell is like a dogs.  So if you use a cover scent they smell the cover scent and you.  If you spilled gasoline on yourself, they would smell gasoline and you.

Offline CJ1962

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2017, 04:41:25 PM »
I think Mythbusters answered this pretty well. They had a guy in a protective suit and boots and everything. The dog smelled him easily. I have heard (for bear hunting at least) to chew mint gum. That hasn't worked so far this year haha. I used to bag my clothes up with vegetation and use special detergent and dryer sheets. I think I felt more confident but I don't think I was fooling anyone or anything else.
They talk about this as well in the podcast.  Discovery took the show down from their website based on a threat of lawsuit from Scent Locker.  They also talk about a lawsuit that Scent Locker won (on appeal) against some hunters from Minnesota.  And a study that Rutgers University as part of that lawsuit.

Offline Okanagan

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #27 on: September 28, 2017, 05:03:04 PM »
The last two deer I harvested were shot with my scent carrying directly toward the animal (bow and muzzy). One from a few years ago was with a group of 5 other bucks and none of them alerted to me. Can't speak for everyone else's experience, but for me I know without a doubt those products work if applied properly.

I have shot a lot of game downwind of me, where I wanted them to be, with bow and rifle.  I don't use scent stuff and don't bother with my super clean natural scent efforts anymore. This is getting into the tease stuff that fishnfur ribbed me about.   :)  I'm not saying that your scent control did not work, merely that there may be another explanation for shooting an animal directly downwind other than that he did not smell you.  The fact is that you shot it downwind of you. The hows and whys and whether the animal could or did smell you are speculation, including my comments.

Re scent of oil, gasoline and loggers:  a faller friend on the Peninsula told me that every day when he fired up his chainsaw several blacktails showed up, including some bucks, and they followed him around to get the moss that grows in treetops.  Deer love it, and a faller serves it up more consistently than wind storms do.  A faller on the east side Okanogen many years ago told me the same about mule deer in one place he worked.  That's a sometimes thing with loggers and fallers, not always.

 

Offline Stein

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #28 on: September 28, 2017, 05:03:46 PM »
I wonder if deer smell that way.  If so, all of the cover scents would be completely worthless.

According to the pod cast deer sense of smell is like a dogs.  So if you use a cover scent they smell the cover scent and you.  If you spilled gasoline on yourself, they would smell gasoline and you.

That's what I figured, the nature equivalent of someone dropping the bomb and then spraying spring lilac over the top of it.  Nobody is fooled.

Offline Seabass

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Re: Scent Control Debate
« Reply #29 on: September 28, 2017, 05:30:41 PM »
The assumption that an animal downwind of you is going to have your scent blow directly into a place he can smell you is purely assumptive. When I'm in my stand and bored enough to jab a broad head into my jugular; I will often times pick out fluff from my fleece and let it ride the wind....tracking it as far as I can see it. It's amazing where that fluff will end up.

Obviously scent is going to spread the farther away it gets, it will also dissipate, fluff doesn't spread but it always amazes me where it ends up even when it seems that it would obviously go one way or the other.
Being elevated changes everything as well...so there is that to consider as well.

 


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