Back in the day, I would buy a jug of hunters laundry detergent, no brighteners or perfumes. I'd bathe with Ivory soap (99.44% pure)

I didn't wear 'charcoal impregnated' clothing, or spray down with fancy scent killer stuff. Kept my boots rinsed off, sometimes with baking soda solution. Kept my hunting clothes bagged and aired out.

And I saw deer, plenty of them, at close range.

No 'ozone generators' needed.

Nowadays it seems like hunters are obsessed with that nonsense.

But here's the thing. I can remember that one of the great bowhunters, possibly Miles Keller, poined out that totally scent-free zones were un-natural and alarming to the deer. He used (and I believe sold) a product that was the scents of small animals, which would indicate 'safe place' to other critters, like deer or bears.

Are hunters today over-doing the scent-free thing?

Maybe going back to fox and skunk scents, in moderation, might not be such a bad idea.

There is no such thing as a scent free zone in the woods. If you get up wind of them they can ALWAYS smell you. Now, depending on the intensity of your scent and their reference to your particular scent, that will determine when, if and how they react to it.

My theory is to reduce my scent signature as best I can to maybe make them think I'm 200 yards away and not 40....maybe.

About the only "cover" type scent I use is to store my hunting outerwear in a plastic tub that has a cachet of dried leaves in it so it smells like a fall woods. That's about as best as I think you can do.

Yup, I've used the plastic bins to store and transport my hunting duds for years. I have cheated and used the spray cover scent, don 't bother any more. Clean as possible, & watch the wind.

They have never been able to do testing on deer to see how well they actually smell. They have done extensive work with out K9 friends though. They do know however, that a deer can have up to 30% more olfactory reseptors than dogs. Now going back to the testing on dogs,it is know that dogs can small 2 chemical consentrations in a trillion. Think about that for a second. Actually let me put that into seconds. A million seconds is 11 1/2 days. A trillion seconds is 31,500 years. Now you may think your scent control is good, maybe even great, but if it is only 99%, that other 1% is still a flashing bill board to a deer. I know people will say, "but I have had deer walk right into my scent trail at 10 yards and they never smelt me. Yeah me too. Deer will do some dumb things some times just like people do. Just say'n.

Trouble is with anecdotal observation of our scent is that we cannot see our actual scent to know the deer are in/not in our scent trail. Those selling scent killers or worse scent covers count on this as prove their product works.

I used to be pretty fanatical about being as scent free as possible, taking showers with ivory soap.baking soda in rubberboots etc. Today..not so much, i just try to stay upwind. As long as you breath your body is producing scent i think, and breathing may be the problem, how do you make your breath scent free.? I used to try, brushing with baking soda and chewing chlorophyl gum. Your morning coffee will defeat it all. Sandy

" My theory is to reduce my scent signature as best I can to maybe make them think I'm 200 yards away and not 40....maybe. "

Good thinking! Around here deer are used to 'human' smells, everything from vehicle emissions to dog walkers on nearby roads. In more isolated spots they're less acclimated to our presence.

That's all you can do is dilute it or (MUCH BETTER) don't let it go their way.

The "Scent-=Free Zones" strike me as a crock of hot BS cooked up to sell a product. I don't care HOW clean you can get - you're not going to vacuum up the scent of every other other living, non-living and formerly-living thing in the woods.

Best you can do is minimize what you bring in with you.

Some folks - even a few guys who know their stuff - like cover scents and/or attractants. Sounds like Nose-Jammer is just a potent cover with a scent that raises their curiosity more than their defenses.

OK, well.....

I dunno. If I use a product that that tips the scales and I'm able to punch a tag, what have I learned? And were would I have been without it?

Just depends what you want out of the experience, I guess...

Still use cover ,but when the wind is not in your favor they will still smell you.

Best scent control I've ever used since I started hunting is this, hunt down wind.(period)

Longbow1, can I buy that at Cabelas?

It is impossible to have a "Scent free zone" if that is what Miles Keller stated. EVEN IF you could rid yourself of all of your scent, the surrounding area will still have its scent that is normal for that area, it would not be scent free, there for not spook deer. Woods Walker has it right though, you want YOUR scent stream to as faint as possible, to make it appear you are not as close as you are if they would happen to cross your scent stream. Your body continuously put off water vapor, oils through our skin, and if in no other way when we breath. It may vary in the amount, but it still does, that vapor carries our scent. Why do you think we take baths daily? Lets face it we all stink :'). We may use soaps, clothing, ozonics to help reduce our scent forming bacteria and use other items to help mask our scent, but there is nothing other than being in a sealed plastic bag while hunting that will get rid of/hide all our scent. Even then the plastic bag will fog up from the water vapor we produce. While I am on it, if Ozonics works as well as they say it does. Why do to they all go through they same process, using all the other "scent killing" soaps, laundry detergent, clothing, and sprays they did before they started using Ozonics? I know, I know somebody has to pay for their "Watch me,I am the Expert" hunting shows. DANNY

Yup, the wind has everything to do with it.

Unless you walk around in a bubble and breathe into a tube you will never be sent free. As been said use the wind.

What Myles did was use a scent post. its a trapping trick, one that I still use. Myles had his own scent paste made up, by who I do not know. However from trapping supply house you can get a good quality, glandular curiosity lure.

Myles would put the paste on a rock or stump. the idea is to get critters to pee on it. so while all critters like to mark it, you now have a natural odor in the area, and one that does not sound the alarm bell

A buck is like a dog, he is going to mark his spots, I am sure, so there is a good chance, the buck will also take a second to pee on the spot, and there is your shot.....

not fool proof, but a good tactic

check out cross creek soap and lotion. I use it,,,,, it was developed by a trappers wife, to reduce odors and take care of his hands,,,,,,,, good stuff.... made in Wis

I must be a odd ball because I don't use any scent control other than taking a.shower before hunting. I had 3 deer within 10 yards of me last time I was hunting and a button buck within 4 yards. No camo except my face mask and gloves hunting off the ground. Khaki pants and a brown plaid shirt washed with regular laundry soap. Had the right.breeze.

DanaC. In our old days we didn't have what you used in your old days, so maybe we thought you were overdoing it also. ;) Context. Anyway, you will never convince someone that a product isn't helping, if they killed a deer while using it. Doesn't matter if they used the wind right, they will give credit to the Magic Antistink instead. So they contribute much more to the economy than those of us who think otherwise. Confidence is everything when you're bowhunting, so maybe it does help in that aspect.

Best to just save your breath, which may have been just cleansed with mint gum that is manufactured specifically for scent control and costs ten times more than Wrigley's Spearmint.

Thanks George, you just made my 65-next-month, recovering-from-prostate-surgery carcass feel young again ;-)

I smoke cherry blend in my pipe to and sometimes in my stand . Deer love it !!!!

B Arthur,

Yes you can buy "it".

Just get a big shop fan and a generator with 500' of extension cord. Place the fan right in front of your blind and blow the wind away from the area you are overlooking. Note: not recommended in January for you boys in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Canada. Note 2: may affect arrow flight.

Scott

I don't do it simply because it doesn't work. It's all crap.

Best thing a hunter can do is wash his clothes, take a shower and stay away from the gas station or burger joint before going into the woods. Then, try to hunt into the wind. All just basic stuff. Everything else is a gimmick to get your money.

Its not scent that effects an animal its movement. You can be a skunk but if you move your busted.

Think of it like this you get in and out of your vehicle that scent in it on the seats no getting around it so just how scent free do you really think we can get?

Codjigger stated what I normally do...as long as we are breathing we are emitting gallons of air a minute drenched in human scent.

The air goes in an out of the lungs...chloropyll pills and gum go in the stomach...so the lung and bronchial tubes have a scent that is human and not masked.

I am like NY Yankee...take reasonable measures to reduce scent, especially strong ones like gas and play the wind.

I pay a great deal of attention to making sure my clothing is not reflecting UV light...I experimented with that for seven years when I lived on 200 acres and approached deer daily.

They see untreated clothing very well, especially early and late in the day.

Sent control is important, wind direction is the oldest form of sent control.

Used to smear on persimmons and smell like a fruit stand, or use red cedar and smell like a cedar closet. Seems like from the recent posts the last few months, I should've kept my head up, eyeballs to the wind, and kept on hunting (without wasting my time).

Hunt the wind, your body openings all stink like hell and cannot be changed.

With gasoline I don't even worry about that anymore (other than I can't stand the smell of it). Where I hunt on public land there are Natural Gas and Oil Wells multiple places. Deer get it on their hooves walking by them. DANNY

I remember years back, a friend of mine sat in an apple tree, maybe 8 feet up, smoking a cigarette. Deer came by upwind, he parked his cigarette, shot the deer, then finished his smoke.

Wind direction is your best friend but simple cleanliness never hurts.

get an ozonics and be done with it.

I like things simple. I do zero scent control other than playing the wind. I have no idea if I get busted more or less than when I tried to be scent free. Doesn't seem like it but it's impossible to know. I do know it's a lot less hassle and more enjoyable to forget about it.

Deer not reacting might be due to not smell or simply not reacting. I know I have had deer downwind in a gentle breeze perfect for drenching them in my scent and sometimes they just appear to not care. If I was using some product or method it would be tempting to believe that was what made the difference.

Over the past 15 years I’ve put less and less effort into trying to be scent free. It started with me when I started bow hunting elk 15 years ago. No possible way to control your level of odor while packed in and your body and clothing are absorbing odor from everything you come in contact with...I get the same reaction if I get the wind wrong 10 min. Or 10 days into the hunt.

If you are a trestand hunter during the rut how do you control where the wind is carrying your scent to? The deer come from any direction and where I live the wind direction changes every 5-10 min.

IMO, you are not any more scent free with a 500 scent lock suit than a set of regular clothes that you just pulled off the cloths line. Whole bunches of stuff out there nowadays that we are paying big $$$ for that we don’t need to be successful hunters.

Here's another note have you ever seen this happen that scent didn't mean a thing to an animal? I have on plenty of times and mature big bucks also but then on some it means everything.

rubber boots stink also and just because they are rubber don't mean they are scent free.

Sometimes you can do everything right and not be enough and other times break all the rules and wonder how other than just meant to be?

“Its not scent that effects an animal its movement. You can be a skunk but if you move your busted.”

Ya know, Glenn, you’ve said a LOT o’ stuff over the years that I couldn’t agree with (simply because I know it not to be true), but that one has to be right up at the top.

Pretty much stopped all the "descenting" stuff several years ago for a couple of reasons: 1) the incessant worrying about "controlling" my scent via clothes etc. made it seem too much like work. 2) Between a rifle and a bow I've killed more than a few bucks; never killed one downwind of me. The biggest bucks I've killed were ALWAYS upwind or side wind all the time. On days that my wind wasn't perfect, I don't see much or anything regardless of how "scent free" I am. 3) I can't bring myself to give money to the horse*^_t producers of scent killing products simply because of the ridiculous commercials interspersed on hunting shows. 4) Indians didn't need it, why should we? If we have a fire going I'll stand in the smoke for a bit, worked for them. Here's my new scent regimen: 1) I wear merino wool undergarments. They don't smell too bad even after a few days hunting. 2) I try very hard to let wind direction and the awareness of it be a constant while I'm moving. 3) I now tend to place my stands higher up terrain wise. I love black spruce swamps but only if it's relatively flat for a good distance to keep a steadier wind. Low, narrow places mean swirling winds, therefore I'll opt to sit higher up the hill where it's more predictable.

One never forgets one's first love or first buck.

As for that buck, with archery gear, it was when I was a youngster who'd hunted hard for the first 7 weeks of the Wisconsin early season.

Now on a Wednesday evening of the final week, with daylight savings off and an early sunset, I set out right after work for a final hour sit.

With no time, I climbed into my tree wearing my steel toe work boots, the blue jeans I'd worn that day at work, and pulled on my WWII pattern camo jacket.

I basically smelled of grinding dust, smoke, and a burnt E-7018 low hydrogen welding electrode.

The wind was good though, and a half hour later I'd arrowed a year and a half old 5 point whitetail.

I still have that mighty rack mounted on a plaque.

Wish I still had the jacket...lol.

I've also had a lot of experience with scent shield type sprays. When scent Shield first came out I saw a test of human sweet and then they sprayed and was sold it simply just wiped the smell out when they sprayed . I been using it ever since and spray everything especially when all sweated up. I seen guys all smoked up and have good success. I attributed to this guy just being lucky. He was always lucky on most that he touched. He smelled like a skunk too.

I seen other guys come out of their body shops and climb in trees and no scent problems smelling like skunks.

The deer's we hunt in my areas are used to smelling people and farmers and people walking dogs around the wood lots. Different deer's. No wilderness deer just wood lots.

GF & linecuter beat me to it. If you are 100% sent free you didn't create a sent free alarming zone. The rest of the woods is still there.

Stay as clean as possible and work the wind. Sent free and cover scents are hard to prove because you can't see the wind. In a tree your sent may be going over them at 10 yards but alarming them at 50. Sent swirls and travels up and down.I believe being up high and exposed to the breeze, spreads your sent over a wider area but is probably better up close.

Where most of us hunt,they grow accustomed to vehicles,machinery,smoke, Bar B Q and lots of things. Just don't carry it into their bedroom. Pay attention to your surroundings and keep it natural.

A common fallacy is thinking they can't smell more than one thing at a time. Cover scent--your sent is still there.

Breath and sweat changes somewhat with what you eat. Right? I have read that ungulates can sent carnivores. Hard to prove but makes sense. Keep scent down as much as possible.>>>----> Ken

On a positive note about scent blockers. Scentlok clothing production is moving back to the USA. The production and company HQs is being built just 10 miles down the road from my home. The original owners moved production to Mexico.

I don't use anything but a shower once in awhile. I do hang my clothing outside in the fresh air when not raining but nothing else. I hunt the wind.

HEY NOW LETS NOT FORGET HEC'S SUITS EITHER. Yes I got one. I forgot about my underwear also. Its warm and protective on them evil tics.

I had birds walk close like step over me also.LOL

Hey guys, if you smell like a dead rotting animal you will attract all the bears you want.

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