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Wanna make (scent control) history?

I don't trust anyone to handle any of my scent control system. I will give an honest opinion you can take it or leave it for what it's worth. I know Scentlok and John regiment is not for everyone .
It’s a control. If one person is in charge, data becomes valid. Make John himself the ringbearer.
 
All I know is that I went from an early season without it getting busted by deer right and left to getting busted zero times the next season. About 40 days per season so about 80 three to four hour sits per season. There was zero chance of playing the wind. No matter what wind direction you had, wait 30 minutes and it will be blowing that way (long enough to climb and get settled in and have things settle down), wait another thirty and it is blowing the opposite. Wait 30 more and it will be blowing 90 degrees opposite. I remember distinctly telling a friend of mine that I would be happy with ANY wind direction if it would just pick one and stick with it. I can see if you live somewhere the wind blows nice and steady playing the wind would be really convenient.

For me it is way more important to have a scent regimen than to worry about visual camouflage. A deer's sight is likely third on the list as far as defenses go in the Smell, vs hearing, vs sight lineup.

I do think there is room to say that under the absolute right circumstances a deer will be able to pick up human odor no matter what. Since we are not 100% hermetically sealed in the suit but I think the chances of all the stars lining up are low. Sometimes all you need is an extra few seconds and an extra few yards that makes all the difference in if you get busted or get a shot opportunity. If they do wind you, oh well, it wasn't meant to be.
 
First time I've ever logged in via laptop, things must be getting pretty serious. I suffer from FOMO, the day I stocked up on Scentlok is when I start wondering if smothering in vanilla with peanut butter facepaint is the better option. Admit this may be a fools errand, but still wanted fiddle with the idea. Of course this won't be in a lab, double blind... but heck we might learn that we have a 50% chance at getting a shot at the deer dead down wind as long as we're neutral to rising thermals, starting at about 24' of elevation if they're closer than 30 yards... or maybe it'll all be an epic fail.

Here's proposed survey Rev 1.0, striking a balance between convenience and science:
[1] Temperature (F):
[2] Humidity (%):
[3] Wind speed (mph):
[4] Winds Swirling? (Y / N)
[5] Elevation to Deer (feet):
[6] Distance to Deer (yards):
[7] Level of Scent Control (relatively clean Scentlok use begins at 4) 1-5:
(1) None (3) Moderate (5) Eberhart
[8] Deers Position 1-5:
(1) Upwind (3) Marginal (5) Dead Downwind
[9] Thermals in Relation to Deer Elevation 1-5:
(1) Away (3) Neutral (5) Toward
[10] Deers Response, spook level 1-5:
(1) No Response (2) Delayed Soft (3) Immediate Soft (4) Delayed Hard (5) Immediate Hard
Notes:

There’s a few other easy categories to add.

Only way you’ll get useful data is if everyone is dumping into the same database, in the same format.

I’ve been toying around this for several different ideas.

This may be something that already exists. But a very basic app for inputting all this stuff. No graphics, no nonsense. Just open your phone and log the hunt if you want. Entry goes in even if incomplete. All drop downs. You pay a “membership fee” of 5-20 bucks to have access to the database. All entries are anonymous.

You’d have access to entire database, which is filterable and sortable by every category.


Id be willing to help front some of the cost of this if someone around here can write that app.

Consider me on board to help you get this thing off the ground. I care very little about the scent control part, but I’m very interested in the general trends this will provide.
 
Can you generate a check list of what you need to do? I have some stuff. Don't particularly run it hard core. Just hope it helps. I sweat to much when it's warm and not enough time, care and money to re activate and store in air tight sealed containers. Not sure if I could ever get to the point I wear gloves to put my stuff on. But if the timing was right I would do the whole shower, and complete change thing. I could offer a few set points
 
If you have 20-50 hunters, and you do this study across 5 years or so, at an average of 100 hours afield per year per person, you’ll get an extremely useful data set.


Things that matter:

Precision of gear/technique assessment. Accuracy not as important. If you know exactly what the person’s routine and gear is, it doesn’t matter what it is. So long as you have a precise measure of it.

Precision of hunting scenario assessment. Wind direction, temperature, humidity, deer approach direction, distance, reaction, etc. there’s probably 10-15 categories you’d want to capture.

Getting a thousand or so of these entries, across a wide set of hunting locations, times, weather conditions, pressure, etc, will tell a very useful story if analyzed properly.

I will gladly contribute to the “I don’t do scent control, and will report my findings as the control” haha.
Barometric pressure
 
There’s a few other easy categories to add.

Only way you’ll get useful data is if everyone is dumping into the same database, in the same format.

I’ve been toying around this for several different ideas.

This may be something that already exists. But a very basic app for inputting all this stuff. No graphics, no nonsense. Just open your phone and log the hunt if you want. Entry goes in even if incomplete. All drop downs. You pay a “membership fee” of 5-20 bucks to have access to the database. All entries are anonymous.

You’d have access to entire database, which is filterable and sortable by every category.


Id be willing to help front some of the cost of this if someone around here can write that app.

Consider me on board to help you get this thing off the ground. I care very little about the scent control part, but I’m very interested in the general trends this will provide.
I’m interested, but probably not this interested. Will stew on it.
 
I would be up for supplying my data from hunts, but I'm in the "kinda" camp... I kinda play the wind, or rather I try to make educated guesses in locations that swirl 99% of the time. Trying to get my scent cone above the deer is probably most important to me. I typically hunt thick places with limited visibility and close shot opportunities. I kinda have a scent control regimen, but not up to par with some others, but not enough to discount. I swear by milkweed, although the winds swirl enough that I can't justify moving set location based off of what the wind is actually doing at any given moment when I'm already set up... I live for this, but I currently usually have one day per week during the season to sit and that may just be for a morning or evening. I remember when I literally used to hunt 6 days a week during the season, but current situation/schedule... I wasn't "busted" at all this year by deer that I was aware o, but how many deer figure things out well before coming into our awareness zone? Scent control as a means of scent reduction pertaining to threat level is more my mantra, but truly playing the wind is the only way to completely eliminate all scent at any given deer's location pertaining to ours.

I don't own Scent Lok, other brands with scent reduction but... I also typically do a bit beyond average for access, so scent/sweat is a bit of a factor on arrival at site...
 
I guess you could say I'm a scent guy. Yesterday evening I walked a long way in and did sweat some. I do use scentlok and follow JE"s scent regiment pretty well. Right at dark 2 does came in but of course they ended up down wind direction and thermal pull direction with very low wind speed. You could tell when they stopped, and all went quiet for a few minutes. They were maybe 15 yards away. They knew something was up, but they never spooked. They ended up going back the way them came a few yards and walked right to the base of my tree. smelling where I had put my pack (scentloc pack) on the ground. Smelling all around where I stood putting my outer scentlok layer on and my saddle. They never spooked and ended up walking right down the old logging road I walked in on. They were around my area for at least 20 minutes. You could tell they knew something had been there but as spooked as deer are in the south after over 3 months of hunting season already behind them, scentlok and the JE scent regiment made a believer out of me yesterday. Now that being said I will always hunt the wind but just like then the deer do what they want and somewhere around you the wind will be against you. And earlier in the evening the wind had blown from at least 3 of the 4 directions. If it had been earlier in the day i feel sure i could have shot either one of these deer iffffff I could have moved into position without them seeing the movement. I was around 25 foot up the tree.
 
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