ORIGINAL: LouisianaTomkat
I would just love to know where a person gets the high-falootin' idea that a deer has the sense to figure out where bad breath is coming from? It is no different than any other smell that is strange to a deer. So why do you think this is the most important orifice to keep from stinking? A deer is a curious animal as has been proven over and over. The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing. And that is, never allowing the deer you are hunting to associate your smells with danger. ie., Movement, carelessly flinging arrows, clinking noises form bows/stands. If deer already associate your smell as danger "just instinctively", then why will they come directly under your stinkin stand at night and take a dump or make a rub/scrape? I am not talking a week or even 2 days after you were last there. I am talkin the night after you had an evening hunt in the same stand. This kind of thinking has got me thinking that camo/concealment has to play a way more important role in getting close than does scent control.
OK, enough for Sunday morning. If you feel impelled to wring my neck, well, ok.[:-]
LT
I think a deer is capable of discerning whether or not the source of a smell is still present or not. Otherwise deer that exist with high predator populations, (wolves, yotes, cats etc) would die of exhaustion running from place to place if they couldn't tell the difference of where and when a smell was detected.