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Hold your Breath

I may be wrong, but I believe what John E says is that dogs are following ground disturbance mostly. When anyone walks across the ground, they break blades of grass and disrupt dirt. I'm sure everyone here knows the way a fresh cut lawn smells, and what freshly disturbed dirt smell like. That is the smell the dog is likely tracking, just on a much smaller scale than a whole yard of cut grass or a big hole dug out of the ground. It can smell the broken grass blades and disruptions of dirt.

I think he makes the point that anyone can follow a track made by someone walking across a lawn covered in dew. The footprints in the grass are highly visible. To a dog, those footprints are going to glow with odor from broken grass and disturbed dirt. Assuming scent free rubber boots, would a deer spook over that disturbed grass and dirt smell. Maybe. Maybe not.
 
I may be wrong, but I believe what John E says is that dogs are following ground disturbance mostly. When anyone walks across the ground, they break blades of grass and disrupt dirt. I'm sure everyone here knows the way a fresh cut lawn smells, and what freshly disturbed dirt smell like. That is the smell the dog is likely tracking, just on a much smaller scale than a whole yard of cut grass or a big hole dug out of the ground. It can smell the broken grass blades and disruptions of dirt.

I think he makes the point that anyone can follow a track made by someone walking across a lawn covered in dew. The footprints in the grass are highly visible. To a dog, those footprints are going to glow with odor from broken grass and disturbed dirt. Assuming scent free rubber boots, would a deer spook over that disturbed grass and dirt smell. Maybe. Maybe not.

His post regarding that is what I linked before.

A few posts up.
 
One of the things that will really put out a scent trail is your boots when you are walking in. It doesn't matter what you do to the outside of your boots, with every step you take you are pumping out aromatic foot odor. Most boot interiors will have an odor from wearing them. If you have toe cheese it will be really bad.
 
One of the things that will really put out a scent trail is your boots when you are walking in. It doesn't matter what you do to the outside of your boots, with every step you take you are pumping out aromatic foot odor. Most boot interiors will have an odor from wearing them. If you have toe cheese it will be really bad.

you make aromatic foot odor....sound so nice

related to this, one of my best purchases has been a boot dryer

i put my boots on there after every use because drying the sweat out quickly greatly (like factor of 10) reduces odor in the boot

i remove any insole prior to this and lay the insole out to dry

also, before and after season, i hand wash the inside of all my boots with warm water and a squirt of blue dawn (maybe should use the same stuff i bought for my goretex jackets) and rinse really well and then dry in the boot dryer all day.....i shake the boot and let it sit upside down for a bit before putting on the dryer in order to get the loose water out so it doesn't drain onto the dryer too bad

also, i wash any insole separately the same way and set it to the side to dry (less nooks and crannies in the boot)

i can say that my hiking boots actually smell much better than my regular shoes that don't get the spa treatment....and aromatic foot odor is barely detectable on boots several years old
 
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Please read post 73. I did my own dog test. Try it your self.

 
What John E says here at first is mostly legit


but then he goes off the rails regarding the helicopter and such (making it seem impossible to test something.....and he is a very literal person......thinking that you can only test something in the EXACT same way that it is used.....this is obviously false)

This is the post I was referring to in my previous one.
My impression was that the dog was actually smelling the guy in the blind and not following his scent trail but I can’t really know for sure.
 
you make aromatic foot odor....sound so nice

related to this, one of my best purchases has been a boot dryer

i put my boots on there after every use because drying the sweat out quickly greatly (like factor of 10) reduces odor in the boot

i remove any insole prior to this and lay the insole out to dry

also, before and after season, i hand wash the inside of all my boots with warm water and a squirt of blue dawn (maybe should use the same stuff i bought for my goretex jackets) and rinse really well and then dry in the boot dryer all day.....i shake the boot and let it sit upside down for a bit before putting on the dryer in order to get the loose water out so it doesn't drain onto the dryer too bad

also, i wash any insole separately the same way and set it to the side to dry (less nooks and crannies in the boot)

i can say that my hiking boots actually smell much better than my regular shoes that don't get the spa treatment....and aromatic foot odor is barely detectable on boots several years old
Boot dryers are mandatory for minimizing interior odor.
I also run O3 in them before each hunt.
And I apply antiperspirant deodorant from the knees down to my toes after my pre-hunt shower.
As long as I don't brush up against foliage on my approach, deer show zero alarm when they cut my trail. I do believe they detect my ground disturbance but they don't equate it with a human.
We can debate whether downwind deer will detect our odor, but I am 100% certain that we can eliminate residual ground odor.
 
A boot dryer is on the short list for me soon. I overtopped one set of my rubber boots last week scouting so I'm getting the one my father in law had and I hope it still works. If not, I'll be buying one.
 
A boot dryer is on the short list for me soon. I overtopped one set of my rubber boots last week scouting so I'm getting the one my father in law had and I hope it still works. If not, I'll be buying one.

The boot dryer is one of my most valuable pieces of gear. I keep mine in a room dedicated to hunting. Every night my boots go on the dryer and I run an 03 machine
 
I will have a boot dryer soon.

I think the whole deer sense of smell thing is oversimplified to a great degree. First off, though much better than the average human, I don't believe all deer have an equal sense of smell, just like all humans don't have an equal sense of smell. Some people have a highly developed sense of smell. so much so, that they earn a good living working for perfume companies. Some humans have a terrible sense of smell. I know I guy who has completely lost his sense of smell due to covid. Hopefully he will get it back at some point. I'm sure we have all experienced a head cold where we could not smell a thing. I'm sure this happens to deer too, especially in winter. This past season I did a European skull mount on a buck that a friend killed. When boiling the head, I realized the buck's nasal cavity was filled with what I assume were bot fly larva. It was really disgusting. There were dozens of inch long pencil diameter worms in that buck's nose. That could not have done anything for his sense of smell.

I also firmly believe that different deer have different levels of tolerance for human odor. Deer that live near human habitation are much more forgiving of human odor than deer who never smell a human outside of hunting season.
 
I will have a boot dryer soon.

I think the whole deer sense of smell thing is oversimplified to a great degree. First off, though much better than the average human, I don't believe all deer have an equal sense of smell, just like all humans don't have an equal sense of smell. Some people have a highly developed sense of smell. so much so, that they earn a good living working for perfume companies. Some humans have a terrible sense of smell. I know I guy who has completely lost his sense of smell due to covid. Hopefully he will get it back at some point. I'm sure we have all experienced a head cold where we could not smell a thing. I'm sure this happens to deer too, especially in winter. This past season I did a European skull mount on a buck that a friend killed. When boiling the head, I realized the buck's nasal cavity was filled with what I assume were bot fly larva. It was really disgusting. There were dozens of inch long pencil diameter worms in that buck's nose. That could not have done anything for his sense of smell.

I also firmly believe that different deer have different levels of tolerance for human odor. Deer that live near human habitation are much more forgiving of human odor than deer who never smell a human outside of hunting season.

Absolutely. Variability has to exist.

Folks tend to emphasize a buck learning as they age too much in comparison to certain traits and locations making a buck more likely to live until they are mature.

For instance, maybe the brave deer all get killed their first rut, and the remnant we hunt might be timid and with a good sense of smell.
 
This past season I did a European skull mount on a buck that a friend killed. When boiling the head, I realized the buck's nasal cavity was filled with what I assume were bot fly larva. It was really disgusting. There were dozens of inch long pencil diameter worms in that buck's nose. That could not have done anything for his sense of smell.

This is interesting. It would make sense that bot fly larvae could damage a deer’s olfactory abilities. So, if this is true, then regions with prevalent bot fly infestation would have lots of deer with a poor sense of smell and regions without them would not. This thread has inspired another academic thesis topic.
 
I wear a Scent Lok coat when hunting, along with Scent Lok thermals. I only bought Scent Lok because I waited for really good deals and I had gift cards from my in-laws for Christmas(better than socks). That's pretty much my scent routine.

I saw the buck I killed this year on two different days from the same tree. The first hunt I saw him my wind was blowing right towards him. He smelled me, spooked, and went and stood about 50 yards away in the safety of some cover, looking to see if he could figure out where the scent was coming from.

A week later he came into the same area, while I was hunting the same tree, but my wind was blowing away from him. He stayed calm the whole time and presented a quartering away shot at ~30 yards. Which I took.

I didn't wash my clothes in any scent eliminating detergent, wash with scent free soap, or spray any of my clothing or equipment with scent killer before the hunt. I just went about my day as normal - ate as normal, brushed my teeth like normal, showered like normal, put on deodorant like normal. That settled the argument for me.

Ultimately I think wind and thermals makes up 95% of scent control, with all the other items only contributing 5%.

Law of diminishing returns - all that other stuff isn't worth it for me. Maybe for another hunter, but not for me.
 
This seemed like a pretty good test of a variety of products but they never did a scent lok suit.

This test could have been so much better if it was done in cooler weather. Dogs aren’t at their prime working in the heat, and sweating that much isn’t realistic either.
 
This is interesting. It would make sense that bot fly larvae could damage a deer’s olfactory abilities. So, if this is true, then regions with prevalent bot fly infestation would have lots of deer with a poor sense of smell and regions without them would not. This thread has inspired another academic thesis topic.
I can't see how those larvae could not have at least temporarily clogged that buck's nose up, impairing his sense of smell. I would not be a bit surprised if he would not have suffered permanent damage from them had he not been shot. Do they feed on the buck's nasal tissue to grow to maturity? His sense of smell or a lack thereof did not play a role in his demise since he was shot at about 100 yards with a rifle. It would have been more of an interest to me had he been bow killed. I would have pressed my friend for wind details.
 
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