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masking Human scent

3K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  Tal/IL 
#1 ·
Hi guy,
i am always open to learn new this and gather up knowledge...i will appreciate your real life experience how to dull/hide or mask human scent while hunting.

Thanks.
 
#3 ·
Never used anthing to mask my scent. I have sons who are better huinters than I am and they never used anyhting. Us old timers sometimes went hunting after a days work in the fields smelling awful. We never heard of trying to hide our scent. When I was a young sprout back in the early 1940s, we lived on what we hunted. I think this idea of masking scent is a new fad to make money. Just my opinion.
 
#8 ·
If you bowhunt you will learn how to minimize your scent and you will become aware of how important it is to manage. Wind direction plays a major part in this but it alone is not enough...
Scent free products...all you really need is scent free soap and detergent. The rest you can do with preparation and care...
Don't wear your hunting gear into a diner for bacon and eggs, don't stand in the exhaust from your running truck. Do store your gear with some leaves or other "earthy" natural cover scents.
I have had deer standing ten feet from me while I've been hunting on the ground. They had no idea I was there...zero. Scent control is why.
Can you ignore scent control and be successful...yes...but I can guarantee I pass on 10 deer for every one chance that someone who does not manage their scent even is aware of.....
 
#9 ·
I wash my hunting clothes in Borax, and store them in plastic tubs with leaves. I never pump gas or associate with smokers while wearing them. I shower with unscented soap on opening morning.

All these things minimize my scent - for a few hours at least. But you can never eliminate it.

A few animals, like turkeys, don't use their noses, and you can ignore the wind when you hunt them.

But for most animals, like deer, it's their primary defense. If you don't mind the wind, you won't be successful.

Charcoal-impregnated clothing and "cover scents" are snake oil.

You can look into a pot of stew and see individual ingredients: carrots, meat, onions, etc.

Animals smell the same way we see; they can separate individual components. A human "covering" his scent with fox urine smells like a human and fox urine.

Slather yourself in anything you like, then go hide on your dog. When he passes downwind from you, he knows it's you and where you are.

The primary advantage of a tree stand is that it gets your scent up above your quarry, where he can't smell you.

Once my dog got loose and trailed me all the way to my tree stand with his nose on the ground. But then he couldn't figure out that I was up above him. He circled and circled trying to pick up my scent, but couldn't do it.
 
#10 ·
Oblio nailed it. It's more about wind direction than anything else. Nothing will entirely eliminate a human's scent, and if a deer gets downwind of you, he will smell you no matter what or where you ate or what you bathed with or what clothes you are wearing or washed them with or stored them. All of that might help a little on those uncommon occasions when there is utterly no wind and your scent pools out around you, but that doesn't happen often and doesn't last long. You're better off minding the wind than anything else. I once had a young buck walk up from behind me literally close enough to touch while I was sitting on the ground against a large tree with the wind quartering from my left, and I'd been in camp for two days hunting in the same clothes. All the scent control measures in the world won't help if the wind isn't right.
 
#11 ·
Oblio13 said:
Charcoal-impregnated clothing and "cover scents" are snake oil.
I have luck with cover scents...I step on an apple if i'm hunting an orchard...and I do occasionally use fox, skunk or raccoon scent depending upon the area...and dairy farmers that hunt with their barn smell seem to get away with it ...but yes, the clothing is a total hype and snake oil... some brands actually trap your scent under a poly layer and make you sweat (and stink) like a pig...
Wind control and stands along with scent control are as good as we can do...but there is no way to hide our smell.....only mitigate it. If you can get the deer a few feet closer and have them stop for a few seconds longer it could be the difference between success and failure.

WRT soaps...borax phosphate fee is fine...but never a soap with phosphates. You'll light up like a glow bug.
 
#12 ·
If you still hunt, you can make thermals work for you, or they can sure work against you when it seems there is no wind.

When it is light enough to hunt I like to be going up. After the air heats some, I like to be hunting down.

"Typically the thermals move DOWNSLOPE in the mornings until the air heats. When the air heats up, it mixes.
After the air heats up and stabilizes, the thermals will be UPSLOPE during the day.
Later in the day, as the air starts to cool, the thermals will mix again and then just before dark, they will be predominately DOWNSLOPE again. "

I have read some things where the advise sounded backwards.

______________________________

"In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends"
― G.K. Chesterton
 
#13 ·
Down when the air temp is dropping and up when it's rising is what I've always thought, but it makes little difference here as the land is flat as a board. Early in the morning or late in the evening with no wind, I suppose your scent could drop from your tree stand and pool around the tree you're in, but I can think of no other scenario when it might matter. You guys in hilly country have more to think about.
 
#14 ·
I've often heard wool clothing doesn't take on human scent very well and from what I noticed with all of my wool hunting clothes it seems to be the case. But nothing will truly block your scent 100%. As an added bonus wool is also super quiet too compared to other clothing materials.
 
#15 ·
You have to watch the wind, but several decades ago skunk scent was very popular to mask human scent.

P.S. I've also shot deer that trailed my foot scent right to the bottom of my tree stand.
 
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