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Anyone use John Eberharts scent control methods?

Bowtech12 said:
Just wondering if anyone has used a scent control system and how would you rate your deer encounters before and after
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A little re focus to the OPs questions.

To sum up. I use to do more than I do know. I do find I get pegged easier doing less than when I did something. I didn't go full John E. But use to shower and change and store in bins. At this stage in my life I am not fully committed to the extra work to get there. When the kids are bigger and I have more time to focus on it I can see my self doing more again. I think it helps and if your serious enough it's worth it. But I did personally notice a difference.
 
i think deer, just like dogs, have different personalities. Some deer may freak out given the smallest “off” signal they pick up. Others may be totally cool and indifferent.

Because we cannot really study deer and have no replicated knowledge base about their scenting capabilities, my position might be something like: the best we can say about any scent control regiment is, it either works for me or it doesn’t.

That being said… If there were any few things I’ve observed as helping my game, personally, I think storing my hunting clothes and equipment outside, with baking soda and damp-rid, and only using baking soda to wash them is a big one. I will also G.I-bath with baking soda dissolved in water before hunts. If I can full-on shower before that, I will. Or the night before. Theory there being that as sweat is excreted, it immediately contacts residual baking soda and is neutralized. I got that from Warren Womack.

I prefer a DIY style and that, while not perfect, has helped me.
 
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Almost all things respond to the law of diminishing returns, meaning you do the easy things with the highest bang for the buck first then you are just chasing the last few percentage points as you do more and more costly and exotic stuff

Same reason why a $40K car is more similar to a 60K car than it is to a 20K car (that first 20K increment from 20K to 40K can really improve some things, the next 20K increment not as much and you get stuff like a first aid kit built into the trunk or something)

I'm not gonna get naked in a van down by the river even if it raises my odds of killing a mature buck by 5% that day
 
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i do some of what he does, but to do all is just too extreme and too time consuming for me. we all know and its been hammered over and over that we will never beat a deers nose, but i do believe we need to try and reduce it as much as we can and pay attention to the wind. Dan Infalt doesnt do half of what John does and he looks like someone that probably smells like a pack of cigarettes and slight BO but hes just as accomplished and lives by playing the wind.
 
If there was a magical pill that I could take to make me have no smell at all and an AI hunt app that told me exactly when and where the perfect spot was to kill my dream buck… I don’t think I’d want em.
 
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This may seem off the beaten path but stick with me. I wasn’t lucky enough to grow up in a family of hunters. My grandfather passed when I was still to young and not very interested. So that being said my only influence on deer hunting was never there to teach me and man did I have a go at it for a long long time. Eventually things clicked and I started seeing deer outside of just being lucky. Before I switched to saddle hunting I utilized some of John’s (very generously spread IMO) info and that helped then came saddle hunting when I really applied his tactics. A few years ago I switched to all scent lok and being as tight as possible on my scent regimen. (Not shaving my face) but I care for my scent lok as they say to. It’s stored air tight it’s not handled in the house or worn in the truck etc etc…. My deer sightings have sky rocketed now do I owe all this to what I’m doing because of what I’m wearing? Or how I keep clean? Probably not obviously as a hunter matures they learn and you put your self where the deer are BUT I will say the last 3 deer I have shot were completely down and wind and one of them I played with and threw some milk weed out as it blew directly into her. Everyone has their opinions everyone has their superstitions and every one has their doubts but I will forever hunt the way I am now. It takes all the worry out of it for me. I’ve been on the verge of hanging it up and John’s words truly changed that for me
 
I think there are a couple of things that routinely get left out of the discussion by John and other. Geographic location and where you hunt seldom seemed to be mentioned in these discussions but they both have a huge amount of relevance. In the south unless you can park or be dropped off within a hundred yards of the tree, you are going to be sweating before you are hunt ready more times than not. It's hot or at least warm for a big majority of our season. Compound that if you hunt public and are also having to walk a fair distance to your spot. Does a fanatical scent routine work or help? Absolutely it does. Is it reasonable to think it will work for everyone? Absolutely not. I dont care if we are talking about John or anyone else that promotes a detailed scent routine, if I hike you into a spot 2 miles deep in mid Oct when it is 78 degrees, you are not getting in the tree without sweating. Even if you changed your full suit and washed at the base of the tree, you still gotta climb and you're going to get hot, period unless you are some sorta non sweating mutant freak.
 
BTaylor said:
I think there are a couple of things that routinely get left out of the discussion by John and other. Geographic location and where you hunt seldom seemed to be mentioned in these discussions but they both have a huge amount of relevance. In the south unless you can park or be dropped off within a hundred yards of the tree, you are going to be sweating before you are hunt ready more times than not. It's hot or at least warm for a big majority of our season. Compound that if you hunt public and are also having to walk a fair distance to your spot. Does a fanatical scent routine work or help? Absolutely it does. Is it reasonable to think it will work for everyone? Absolutely not. I dont care if we are talking about John or anyone else that promotes a detailed scent routine, if I hike you into a spot 2 miles deep in mid Oct when it is 78 degrees, you are not getting in the tree without sweating. Even if you changed your full suit and washed at the base of the tree, you still gotta climb and you're going to get hot, period unless you are some sorta non sweating mutant freak.
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You could get Skunky :)

Skunky - | Official Site | As Seen On TV

www.getskunky.com www.getskunky.com
 
GeoFish said:
You could get Skunky :)

Skunky - | Official Site | As Seen On TV

www.getskunky.com www.getskunky.com
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I guess that would be an option. I started using the nose jammer wipes this past season and they helped. Still got smelled a few times that I witnessed but they were all soft bumps like @Allegheny Tom was talking about. They for sure picked up scent, some even changed course but without all the stomping and snorting that would normally go along with getting scent busted. Some deer I completely got away with them being straight downwind including some that bedded less 75 yards and when they got back up just fed off past me, just not in bow range. Ground scent wise I watched a couple stop and smell plants I brushed against getting to the tree. They for sure smelled me and/or the nose jammer smell but those deer showed no additional reaction other than they for sure smelled the contact. Didnt change course and no change in demeanor. I am firmly in the camp that nothing scent control wise is perfect but I do think there are things that help.
 
BTaylor said:
I think there are a couple of things that routinely get left out of the discussion by John and other. Geographic location and where you hunt seldom seemed to be mentioned in these discussions but they both have a huge amount of relevance. In the south unless you can park or be dropped off within a hundred yards of the tree, you are going to be sweating before you are hunt ready more times than not. It's hot or at least warm for a big majority of our season. Compound that if you hunt public and are also having to walk a fair distance to your spot. Does a fanatical scent routine work or help? Absolutely it does. Is it reasonable to think it will work for everyone? Absolutely not. I dont care if we are talking about John or anyone else that promotes a detailed scent routine, if I hike you into a spot 2 miles deep in mid Oct when it is 78 degrees, you are not getting in the tree without sweating. Even if you changed your full suit and washed at the base of the tree, you still gotta climb and you're going to get hot, period unless you are some sorta non sweating mutant freak.
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Absolutely. It is hot and humid early season, heck half the season sometimes and I have been in shorts on Christmas day. When it is hot, I wear the lightest weight scentlok pants I can and rubber boots on the bottom and just a regular dark brown or black polo on top or a brown or green Tee shirt. I carry the lightest weight scentlok jacket in with me in my pack. Once I am at height and get cooled off, I put on the jacket and drop-down face mask and gloves. If it is a morning hunt and I get sweaty I will change out of the Tee shirt and shirt back at the truck and put them in a bag and put on a fresh shirt.

If I am mid-day scouting I change into scouting clothes. When I get back before the evening hunt, I will usually just do a quick wash down with baking soda and water (heard about this from Mr. Womack) and then dress for the evening hunt.

Early season I have also started leaning more heavily on the Packseat and my ground game. A good way not to get sweated up climbing a tree in 100 degree heat and 98% humidity is to not climb the tree.
 
i think some guys are seeing these soft bumps and not even realizing they got busted and thinking their regimen is working and something else happened...I had a doe coming into my spot season before last and was on point to come right to me but she stopped about 45 yards from me. She wasnt super alert, she would put her head down for a bit,lift it up with ears up and then go back down. she did this just a couple of times never looking in my direction. She looked up one more time and decided to simply turn around and go back where she came from. she didnt bust outta there, she just walked away. My wind was good that day but i do believe she scented me on the ground from my entry,not enough to be 'oh sh**, i gotta get outta here, but enough to know i just need to go somewhere else today. It would be easy to assume she never knew i was there based on that interaction, but the truth is she knew something wasnt right.
 
Dmathews87 said:
i think some guys are seeing these soft bumps and not even realizing they got busted and thinking their regimen is working and something else happened...I had a doe coming into my spot season before last and was on point to come right to me but she stopped about 45 yards from me. She wasnt super alert, she would put her head down for a bit,lift it up with ears up and then go back down. she did this just a couple of times never looking in my direction. She looked up one more time and decided to simply turn around and go back where she came from. she didnt bust outta there, she just walked away. My wind was good that day but i do believe she scented me on the ground from my entry,not enough to be 'oh sh**, i gotta get outta here, but enough to know i just need to go somewhere else today. It would be easy to assume she never knew i was there based on that interaction, but the truth is she knew something wasnt right.
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I soft bumped several deer this past season and really started making a tactic of it while ground hunting. I slowly walk along until I bump a bedded deer out of a brush pile or a blowdown and then drop down and make some turkey calls and scratch some leaves. When I feel they are out of eyesight of me I slip over and set up right where they were. I've had them return to the spot within five minutes and circle the spot almost 360 degrees and not alert to scent.

One related idea that really hit me this season was the realization of how many deer I am probably educating by simply climbing. I had several occasions this past season where deer were inside of 25 yards of me within 5 minutes or less of being at the spot. 2 caught me playing on the phone since I thought I had more time to get settled. Any climb, any method and I would have been seen. If I had just sat down and been still immediately, I feel pretty confident a few more deer would have taken a ride in the truck.
 
JE's scent control is extreme. As are his other methods. I don't see many other hunters getting in the tree 2 hours before daylight, hunt 30' high, and have 40+ tree locations pre prepped. If that's what it takes in his area to get the job done on mature bucks, then that's what it takes. It obviously works for him. Do you need to do all of that? Not sure. There are plenty of really good hunters out there that are successful that doing things different. Some of them in his same state. (Andy May). I'm sure their methods differ. At the end of the day, they are all successful. I'm sure the key is that all of these guys are doing lots of prep work before the season. I do think that if a guy were to go "all in" on JE's scent control, he would see results. Most guys just aren't willing to do it. Myself included. I do practice some scent control but mostly I play the wind. I try to have lots of spots for different winds, AM hunt, PM hunts etc. I currently have 35 trees prepped. I prepped 2 this weekend. Some will never get hunted. I'm just waiting for a big buck to show up there and the right conditions. I'm a firm believer that You get what you put into it. You have to do the prep work work. JE works hard at his scent control. His efforts pay off w/ less time in the tree and more time in preparation. Prep work is essential whether it's before the actual hunt or before the season. As an example, 2 years ago my partner and I had good results. The 1st 10 hunts resulted in 2 big bucks down, a big buck seen, or a mature rack buck within range. Some guys will sit for years and never even see a big buck let alone kill one. Hunt smarter, not harder!
 
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