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Thought this was a really interesting podcast on scent

I think deer will tolerate some human scent. If it's below a certain threshold, they don't pay any attention, as it's likely too far away, or from a place where there is always human scent. They can smell the guy hunting a half mile upwind of you, they just don't care. Scent control methods don't 100% eliminate scent. They just reduce it to a tolerable level.[/QUOTE]


I think this is where ozone machines come into play. I’ve ran an ozonics off and on the last 3 seasons and can attest to it definitely working on either making the deer oblivious to my presence, or it makes the deer think I’m farther away than I really am. I’ve had a few deer come straight downwind and never knew I was there, but the majority can kinda sense someone has either been there previously or a person is in the area, but far away enough that they’re not threatened. Either way it helps give a potential shot opportunity that might otherwise not be there. The only negative is the noise they make…. Sometimes a deer will slip up on you without you knowing it.

When the guy said that smoke doesn’t work, that discredited him a lot with me.


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I wanted to believe in scent control. I’ve used the scent elimination sprays, and many of the other products. I even have examples of having deer come upon me from downwind (while wearing Sitka).

The problem I have with it is that nothing is definitive. We all have examples that are circumstantial at best and if it worked as well as the believers thought they’d be stacking deer at a rate they are not.

I tend to agree with the others that have said if you believe it works, and it gives you confidence than go for it. Confidence seems to be as important if not more so to hunting than scent control.
 
I've expressed my thoughts on this in the forum previously but its been awhile so I'll repeat them here. Full disclosure, I do wear Scentlok camo most of the time. Do I believe its going to make me invisible to a deer's nose? Not even remotely, for this reason I'm fully a play the wind hunter.
So why do I wear it? The bottom line is that I've found it to be good, quality made gear at a reasonable price that's generally very quiet. I've owned three sets of scentlok bibs and jackets over a 30 year span and never have completely worn any of them completely out and I hunt a lot and in some pretty tough on clothes stuff, lots of briars and berries. Most important though is the quiet. If its not quiet, I'm not going to wear it . . . bottom line.

However, do I think its possible that it may contain enough of my scent to maybe fool a deer 40yds away into thinking I'm further away than that? I foster some belief that may be possible. If you consider the amount of human scent presence in populated, small woods tracts or farms where deer are used to smelling humans then that fading of the scent may be enough to make it really effective for some hunters. Unfortunately that's not the type of environments I'm typically hunting in so I'm still all in on playing the wind. Fact of the matter is I typically only refresh my scentlok in the dryer twice each year, once preseason and once going into late bow season (if I remember).

The only equipment I take special scent precautions on are my rubber boots. I make it point to never handle them below the top two inches where I have to grab them to put them on. I also only wear them in the field. They stay in the bed of the truck, I put them on at the tailgate before going out hunting and take them off at the tailgate when I get back to the truck. No wearing them in the truck, in the camper, to the gas station . . . nothing but while actually hunting. This is probably my only religious scent practice but since those boots contact the ground everywhere I go I feel the need to keep then as clean and scent free as possible. Does it help? I don't know but its what I do anyway.
 
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boyne bowhunter said:
I've expressed my thoughts on this in the forum previously but its been awhile so I'll repeat them here. Full disclosure, I do wear Scentlok camo most of the time. Do I believe its going to make me invisible to a deer's nose? Not even remotely, for this reason I'm fully a play the wind hunter.
So why do I wear it? The bottom line is that I've found it to be good, quality made gear at a reasonable price that's generally very quiet. I've owned three sets of scentlok bibs and jackets over a 30 year span and never have completely worn any of them completely out and I hunt a lot and in some pretty tough on clothes stuff, lots of briars and berries. Most important though is the quiet. If its not quiet, I'm not going to wear it . . . bottom line.

However, do I think its possible that it may contain enough of my scent to maybe fool a deer 40yds away from into thinking I'm further away than that? I foster some belief that may be possible. If you consider the amount of human scent presence in populated, small woods tracts or farms where deer are used to smelling humans then that fading of the scent may be enough to make it really effective for some hunters. Unfortunately that's not the type of environments I'm typically hunting in so I'm still all in on playing the wind. Fact of the matter is I typically only refresh my scentlok in the dryer twice each year, once preseason and once going into late bow season (if I remember).

The only equipment I take special scent precautions on are my rubber boots. I make it point to never handle them below the top two inches where I have to grab them to put them on. I also only wear them in the field. They stay in the bed of the truck, I put them on at the tailgate before going out hunting and take them off at the tailgate when I get back to the truck. No wearing them in the truck, in the camper, to the gas station . . . nothing but while actually hunting. This is probably my only religious scent practice but since those boots contact the ground everywhere I go I feel the need to keep then as clean and scent free as possible. Does it help? I don't know but its what I do anyway.
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Myself, I think scent lok helps but I also hunt the wind cause that is how I was taught to hunt and that does work too but neither are 100 % and I think every one of us on here can agree on that. I just like to stack the odds in my favor and like @boyne bowhunter said, I like their products as far as fit form and function goes.
 
Thought it was interesting as well, if nothing else you’re almost certain to pick up one or two things that are good reminders (maybe take it easy on the garlic during deer season) and maybe something you hadn’t put much thought into before, for me those were the ideas that if they can’t smell anything they may just walk back out the way they came and scent from disturbance.

Overall these scent convos have gotten far more civil over the years, seems like most people have fallen into the “use what works for you and you like the best” camp. Kinda makes a guy miss the good old days when folks would berate each other until the mods had to threaten timeouts.
 
HuskerInIowa said:
Thought it was interesting as well, if nothing else you’re almost certain to pick up one or two things that are good reminders (maybe take it easy on the garlic during deer season) and maybe something you hadn’t put much thought into before, for me those were the ideas that if they can’t smell anything they may just walk back out the way they came and scent from disturbance.

Overall these scent convos have gotten far more civil over the years, seems like most people have fallen into the “use what works for you and you like the best” camp. Kinda makes a guy miss the good old days when folks would berate each other until the mods had to threaten timeouts.
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We just dont want to infringe on their right to be wrong anymore. :p
 
I keep coming back to the quip the guest made, almost in passing about how he never killed a deer from a stand, always while on his feet. I really think the hosts missed a great opportunity to have him elaborate on this further. Is he a bow hunter or a gun hunter or both? If he 100% does not believe in scent control then my take on his remark is that he also does not believe in stationary hunting, such as hunting out of a ladder, lock on or saddle. It seems he believes the only way to effectively hunt in a world where a deer's nose is infallible is to stay 100% mobile and be able to move on a moment's notice as soon as the wind shifts. I would have loved for them to get him to elaborate on that comment.

If someone is going to take what the guest says as gospel, then they may need to rethink their style of hunting and not climb a tree at all.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
I keep coming back to the quip the guest made, almost in passing about how he never killed a deer from a stand, always while on his feet. I really think the hosts missed a great opportunity to have him elaborate on this further. Is he a bow hunter or a gun hunter or both? If he 100% does not believe in scent control then my take on his remark is that he also does not believe in stationary hunting, such as hunting out of a ladder, lock on or saddle. It seems he believes the only way to effectively hunt in a world where a deer's nose is infallible is to stay 100% mobile and be able to move on a moment's notice as soon as the wind shifts. I would have loved for them to get him to elaborate on that comment.

If someone is going to take what the guest says as gospel, then they may need to rethink their style of hunting and not climb a tree at all.
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Maybe he's never killed a deer? Lol.
 
DroptineKrazy said:
Maybe he's never killed a deer? Lol.
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Ha, this is a possibility, lol, but I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt on that one. It would have been nice though if he had said something like "I've been hunting for 40 years and have taken X number of 130 or better bucks" or told whether he hunts public or private land.
 
im simply going to chime back in to refocus that "scent control" does not equal "using ScentLok/whatever product".

Warren Womack practices/practiced scent control using baking soda and smoke... Native Americans attempted to mitigate their scents as well with various methods. so it's a canard to say "ScentLok doesn't work" when that is only one facet at anyone's disposal to attempt to mitigate scent. it's almost like we're all more interested in grinding whichever camp's axe we happen to wield rather than thinking critically about the observations we have both from research and anecdotally.

i also don't think anyone has substantially engaged with the issue of comparing dogs trained for tracking to a wild prey animals' scenting capabilities either. that's a big open question in my mind.

also like @NMSbowhunter points out, gun hunters can get away with a lot less effort on scent mitigation because of their extended range.

and this is all coming from someone who would, in the final analysis, probably say that there's no way to beat a deer's nose. not even with rubber boots (which, btw, in reference to the substantially longer presence of ground disturbance vs. human odor, makes no sense to endorse as some accepted standard for mitigating scent)
 
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