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John Eberharts Scent Control

kenn1320 said:
According to that article Ricky posted, a deer can smell in parts per million levels. Your scent might be spread out, or less dense in the air, but a deer knows the 1 molecule it just smelled is recent enough to be alarmed.
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That's not how it works. A molecule is a molecule. The strength/intensity of a smell is dependent on how many molecules the olfactory receptors pick up. Deer have amazing noses but, I seriously doubt they can pick up a single odor molecule. If they could they would be smelling people four county's over.

"The perception of odors, or sense of smell, is mediated by the olfactory nerve. ... Odor sensation usually depends on the concentration (number of molecules) available to the olfactory receptors. A single odorant is usually recognized by many receptors."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor
 
If scent control products really worked, I’d creep right up to deer in the bed and kill them with an axe.
 
Read the article John Eberhart just posted on my behalf entitled “Joining the Swinger’s Club”... I adopted John’s scent regimen back in 2006 and have never even looked at wind direction since. I’ve also killed all of my biggest bucks since then. John has a wall full of proof as well.
 
If I believed scent control is 100%, then I would buy some cell cameras and place them in buck bedding on a peninsula. Sneak into a preset that's 75 yards from his bed. Who cares if I'm directly up wind, that's a dead deer. Even if you don't do that, a deer's pattern for bedding is wind dependent a lot of the time, why wouldn't you care about wind?

Sorry, but when somebody says something works 100% of the time, it's going to trip my BS flag.

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I personally believe John's approach of focusing on things other than the wind is correct, but likely for the wrong reasons. I always got a kick out of guys that say they NEVER hunt without the wind in their face. Give me a break. Even Drury's suggest they'll 'bail on a hunt' if the wind becomes unfavorable. Well, where I hunt in Southern Michigan, the predominant west wind is only about 35-36% of the time (which means it actually comes from other directions MOST of the time)! I pulled information from the local airport one year. I looked at the wind information for the 3 month hunting season, 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening (hunt and pre-hunt times). This weather was tracked in only 15 minute intervals (so only 4 readings per hour; the wind likely changed even more than this limited data showed). The wind was NEVER consistent for an entire hunt, and it changed pretty much constantly throughout the hunt. I think a lot of guys (including both scent control freaks and people that use ozonics in the field) are fooled into believing they are not getting busted due to their scent control regimen. I think their scent is NOT hitting the deer they see. I think it's going over the deer or eddying into a direction once it leaves the tree that is not obvious to them. So I'd say consider the wind wherever possible, but don't kid yourself - with or without extreme scent control. YMMV
 
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Dakotablues said:
I personally believe John's approach of focusing on things other than the wind is correct, but likely for the wrong reasons. I always got a kick out of guys that say they NEVER hunt without the wind in their face. Give me a break. Even Drury's suggest they'll 'bail on a hunt' if the wind becomes unfavorable. Well, where I hunt in Southern Michigan, the predominant west wind is only about 35-36% of the time! I pulled information from the local airport one year. I looked at the wind information for the 3 month hunting season, 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening (hunt and pre-hunt times). This weather was tracked in only 15 minute intervals (so only 4 readings per hour; the wind likely changed even more than this limited data showed). The wind was NEVER consistent for an entire hunt, and it changed pretty much constantly throughout the hunt. I think a lot of guys (including both scent control freaks and people that use ozonics in the field) are fooled into believing they are not getting busted due to their scent control regimen. I think their scent is NOT hitting the deer they see. I think it's going over the deer or eddying into a direction once it leaves the tree that is not obvious to them. So I'd say consider the wind wherever possible, but don't kid yourself - with or without extreme scent control. YMMV
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Check out some of the personal weather stations (PWS) on Wundermap. Many of them show rapid fire updates (every couple minutes or so) and you can view history for the previous hours. Guys might be surprised how often the wind changes...in some cases.

But erratic wind usually happens in low pressure areas like leeward slops or tight valleys.

Learning how PREVAILING wind behaves in relation to terrain and structure will go a long way toward making the right decision on which stand will have the most stable wind.

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GCTerpfan said:
That's not how it works. A molecule is a molecule. The strength/intensity of a smell is dependent on how many molecules the olfactory receptors pick up. Deer have amazing noses but, I seriously doubt they can pick up a single odor molecule. If they could they would be smelling people four county's over.

"The perception of odors, or sense of smell, is mediated by the olfactory nerve. ... Odor sensation usually depends on the concentration (number of molecules) available to the olfactory receptors. A single odorant is usually recognized by many receptors."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor
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When you walk is there more molecules with each step? My point is a deer can tell age of said molecule(s) not just theres lots so it must be fresh or few so must be old. The molecules must age or deer would be afraid of scent that was days old. My dog would run rabbit tracks from days ago, or run fresh ones backwards if they didn't age. Has nothing to do with how many.
 
kenn1320 said:
When you walk is there more molecules with each step? My point is a deer can tell age of said molecule(s) not just theres lots so it must be fresh or few so must be old. The molecules must age or deer would be afraid of scent that was days old. My dog would run rabbit tracks from days ago, or run fresh ones backwards if they didn't age. Has nothing to do with how many.
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Dogs can tell how old a track is not because molecules smell less strong with age but, because as time passes more molecules diffuse into the air, reducing the concentrations of them. Also, some scent molecules can break down into their components which makes them no longer smell like whatever it was that left them.

Take tracking, for example. Deborah Wells and Peter Hepper of the Animal Behaviour Centre at Queen's University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, showed in one study that dogs brought in at right angles to a trail recently walked by a person could determine the direction that person took from as few as five steps. In other words, the first step in the direction the person walked has a little less odor than subsequent steps, because its odor molecules have begun to diffuse into the air. "I find it really astonishing, kind of mind-boggling, that they're able to detect such minute odor discriminations," Horowitz says.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dogs-sense-of-smell/
 
redsquirrel said:
Dudes. It's not even the new year and I'm getting sick of the scent control banter. We have a long offseason ahead of us.
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Sorry @redsquirrel, I was typing that last post and didn't see your post before I posted. :oops: I'm not necessarily posting to change anyone's mind. I just find it a fascinating topic. I think it stems from the time I spent as an organic Chemistry major before I realized I didn't want to spend my life in a lab.
 
GCTerpfan said:
Sorry @redsquirrel, I was typing that last post and didn't see your post before I posted. :oops: I'm not necessarily posting to change anyone's mind. I just find it a fascinating topic. I think it stems from the time I spent as an organic Chemistry major before I realized I didn't want to spend my life in a lab.
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I enjoy the science too. I just hate the bickering. It's probably the most contested topic in hunting. Outside of tethrd delivery dates obviously.
 
Ya'll think scent control an Tethrd dates are controversial? I'm on a scout/hunt trip right now and while I guess I'm sitting "in" my kestrel, my behavior is highly out of character.

This wasn't on HuntStand. Thought I was off the parcel for a second!
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redsquirrel said:
I enjoy the science too. I just hate the bickering. It's probably the most contested topic in hunting. Outside of tethrd delivery dates obviously.
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This is the only site I would even attempt this discussion on. There's a lot of different opinions but everybody is at least respectful, there's no references to people's intelligence or name-calling like I have seen on other sites.

I think it's a topic we will never truly know the answer to and the only people that I know for sure are wrong are the people that say they 100% for sure know the answer on either side of the debate.
 
Sorry Red but if you think this is bickering, you should follow this topic on some other forums....yikes.
I have to say that this place has the most courteous posters I've encountered.
Do we have different opinions on how to do things? You bet. But those opinions are what gets us talking and thinking.
For the most part, discussion preceeds the mother of invention (and I will add that it leads to discovery and new tactics).
I love this topic and I love discussing it and brainstorming with you guys...even IF the rest of you guys are completely wrong!


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I don’t hunt field edges or anywhere deer will be near me for a long time. The perfect spot for me is the deer is in my stand area no more than a few minutes or so. I hunt pre-rut / rut for the odds of big buck moment.so I try catching deer moving through an area I can somewhat control or exit quickly if thermal lift and wind swirl is really bad that day.
For me the wind is my system on how I locate bucks working the down wind side of known bedding areas using the funnel in that area to get the buck where I need them. Does the wind shift yes but with that days prevailing wind the odds say at the moment of time needed to close the deal it’s in my favor . With the buck working through so fast odds say I’ll get a chance before he detects My scent.
If you hunt over bait sites , acorns or field edges where deer stay for very long periods of time a wind shift is going to get you busted. So I’m sure my way of hunting wouldn’t work there.
 
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