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Tide for cover sent

wyetterp said:
Shoot. I forgot about the uv brightener. Are they in tide too? I don't have a uv light to tell. Gotta go look it up. I am a believer in uv.

Okay I'm back... Regular tide is full of uv brighteners. But... They make one called tide pure clean that's all natural & no uv brighteners.

I'm gunna give it a whirl.

Especially now that I can't seem to find bacon soda in stock anywhere. Makes scents though!
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beyond the fact that deer are curious, (Ive seen a young deer sniffing cigarette butts left by another hunter) i cant imagine that using tide is a good strategy for hunting mature deer. If I were to use a cover scent, and I dont, it would be deer/racoon urine, or I would possibly try smoking my clothes by the fire.. but I feel like being scent free and playing the wind together are all you can do.. I think noticing more deer is purely coincidence or confirmation bias. if it works, start bottling tide and selling it for big bucks!
 
krub6b said:
How urban an area do you hunt? Is there a farm house nearby that could be a source of Tide smell? Deer, animals in general, are less frightened or things they are familiar with so if the deer heard you are hunting is habituated to Tide than they may not view it as a threat
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I don't urban hunt much. I mostly hunt remote wilderness. That's what gets me about it. She washed them one time & the next day was hunting a 10,000 acre preserve that a untouched island dating back to the natives. That was a time when I was seeing them way more then normal & had the one come straight down my path & right under me. That's the time it really got me wondering cause I was kinda mad driving the boat out & smelling like a Lilly. Thought I was done for.
 
jonkytron said:
beyond the fact that deer are curious, (Ive seen a young deer sniffing cigarette butts left by another hunter) i cant imagine that using tide is a good strategy for hunting mature deer. If I were to use a cover scent, and I dont, it would be deer/racoon urine, or I would possibly try smoking my clothes by the fire.. but I feel like being scent free and playing the wind together are all you can do.. I think noticing more deer is purely coincidence or confirmation bias. if it works, start bottling tide and selling it for big bucks!
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They are curious for sure. The mature deer are why I'm debating it the most. The two nicer bucks I shot didn't appear to be as skittish as normal. That's why it's sticking with me & got me wondering.

Idk. I know I'll fill my freezers either way. I'm gunna try it for a bit & see if it's just a coincidence or might have a calming, curiosity effect.

They say the flavors are..
lily, jasmine and rose with warm wood tones and pine bud.

Maybe it's the pine bud
 
I'm in. I would love to see a gain vs tide challenge. Dryer sheets are allowed. I'm gunna get a head start this to figure out what team I want to be on.

Y'all set the rules & I'm in. Heck might even try putting dryer sheets all over like the old scent wafers. Who needs a leafy suit! I know someone on here can show me how to dyi a leafy suit made from dyed dryer sheets.

God I love this place.
 
Not to go off on a tangent with this but in farm country, where there is a lot of manure being spread every day…… that’s a great calming scent that deer smell all the time. I used to walk right in cow patties on my way to some stand locations to help cover my ground scent. I still walk in deer pellets if I see piles of them enroute to where I’m setting up. Not many small dairy farms around anymore though unfortunately.
 
Deer are adapted to be wary of predator-related scents. Our BO fits the bill. But are deer smart enough to associate a flowery smell that doesn't fit the usual flower smells in the woods as related to humans? I don't know. it seems a chunk of hunters think deer are super dumb and another chunk think they are super smart (smarter than a highly trainable border collie....with the ability to think abstractly and reflect over their life's experience to draw patterns). I don't know where they actually lie on that spectrum.

Has it been studied? I've heard that it is different so deer won't like it. Could a deer ever explore any new areas if they were that afraid of things that they haven't smelled before?

I think some of the stuff that hunters do is to keep us busy in relation to our hobby and also to give us the feeling that we are gaining an advantage.

I use hunter scent free soap mostly because of the fear that I'll hurt my hunts otherwise (based mostly off of the culture of using scent free stuff). And I'm going to wash my clothes anyways (so might as well use the stuff that puts my mind at ease) and the price difference between Tide and Scent Killer over a season is small enough that I don't notice it.
 
JAYBO said:
You got me on this one. I say trust your gut. Go 100% Tide detergent for a season and compare the results. I would be curious to know what you find out. Heck, I wouldn't mind trying it out in the off season during scouting.
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Easy way not to blow your season would be to set up a series of trail cams over salt or corn (if legal in your area) and have cams with no clothing hanging in a tree, clothing hanging washed in hunter soap, clothes with Tide.....and count deer seen on cam. The larger the sample sizes the better and of course don't rig your results by putting the Tide clothes setups in the best areas and the hunter soap one next to a porta potty.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
If those types of odors spooked deer, then there would never be a road kill on a busy highway because 90% of the vehicles are carrying occupants that reek of that crap.
If it spooked deer then you wouldn't have deer feeding on lawn shrubs 5 feet from dryer vents. I still try to be as odor free as possible and I especially despise the smell of laundry products but I'm more and more convinced that deer are not alarmed by incidental chemical odors in their environment. They live with these odors pretty much 24-7.
What does alarm deer is predator odor. Humans, coyotes, bear, etc, not chemicals.
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It would be maladaptive for deer to constantly be alarming at all unknown odors. They would be constrained to a much smaller area of the woods away from some resources, stressed all the time which would hurt their health long term, and also running away and using up calories unnecessarily.
 
My thoughts are one that they may be curious about a strong flowery smell and two they may associate a strong flowery smell with a food source like ripe persimmons or muscadines. However, if they can smell the laundry detergent then they should be able to smell the human wearing the clothes.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
My thoughts are one that they may be curious about a strong flowery smell and two they may associate a strong flowery smell with a food source like ripe persimmons or muscadines. However, if they can smell the laundry detergent then they should be able to smell the human wearing the clothes.
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I look at it as intensity of scent cone. If a deer really doesn't like a smell, then having less of it on you should make the scent cone smaller and/or less intense (especially at the edges).

Again, someone should be studying this academically (instead, it seems we're all spit balling a little).
 
wyetterp said:
Okay I know this sounds crazy but just bear with me with this one.

I know it's supposed to be a sin to wash your hunting clothes in fragrant detergents. I always make sure to only use bacon soda. But...I swear, over the years, when my wife occasionally sneaks & washes them in Tide, I end up seeing more than normal or when I do see stuff it often seems really calm. I've had them come directly on my paths & under me cool as a cucumber. Never skittish. Never had them blow at me from a distance just cause they smell me with it. I also know when I use baking soda & it's stupid hot out I can smell myself more than with tide in the clothes.

I'm starting to wonder if there may be something in tide that might have a calming smell & help mask/cover our own smell a little more. Maybe it makes us not perceived as threatening or something. I'm a believer that even if we wear a hazmat suit ducked taped up & sprayed down they're still going to smell us. But also know that some sents have a calming effect & can be perceived as less threatening. Evercalm for example.

So I'm considering actually just using a lot of tide to see what happens. I know this is hunting blasphemy, but I swear there's something to tide in particular. It's not going to get rid of my scent (as nothing truly will) but may actually work as a calming cover scent.

What do ya think? I know I'm crazy, but does anyone else have any experiences with tide in their hunting clothes?

Okay, doors open for the inbound jokes. That's fine, but I'm telling ya there's got to be something in tide. Maybe it's something deeply physcological with being born & raised a alabama fan or just a by product of my Alabama education. Whatever it is, I see more & they're typically calm when I see 'em. Two of my nicest bucks were while I was smelling all pretty in my leafy suit.
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Better move this to the Vendor section. Rumor has it the OP just bought a bunch of stock in Tide and is waiting for the Saddle Hunter Effect to run its course. :p

In other news, there will be a laundry detergent shortage soon...
 
We probably do not discuss it enough but within the different realms of scent, the age or relative strength of a scent would probably be more useful to survival than just being able to smell something different. We can sense proximity by our eyes and ears, deer can also sense or more accurately perhaps, measure "proximity" by smelling how fresh it is. Sometimes we can sense proximity through olfactory means but typically the scent has to be strong (skunk just hit compared to one two weeks prior as you drive over it). I believe It is all on a graduated scale. I believe deer are ultimately buggered when two or more scents are triggered. I have always assumed deer automatically bugger when smelling human but then again, I've walked by deer I know smelled me (I think) and certainly saw and heard me and still didn't blow out.. I thought it interesting recently to read Bill Winke's latest column in Peterson's Bowhunting on scared deer. He believes they will scare upon just seeing you as well with no mention of their sight or hearing triggered. I may be misinterpreting it though too.

I do try to keep my clothes clean and I wash in unscented shampoo and bar soap during deer season. It gives me confidence but I don't go nuts over either.
 
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