The scent control that I do is for the close in shots. It is to control what is left on the ground. It’s for when the deer gets less than 15 yards from the tree. For 20 yard shots the ground scent is not much of an issue. I have found that if I do not ware gloves when I handle my rope then my rope will stink with in two days of hunting. I wash my rope several times a season. I check the smell of my rope often. I also wash my pack. You would not believe how smelly the cotton gloves get after one day of hunting. If you had brand new shoes and new socks and then tested them to see if your socks or if the gloves stunk more after one day of use, then you would find that the gloves smelled 10 times stronger than the socks. You touch your oily face and your hair and you eat food etc. Maybe some of you scratch your butt or whatever. The point is that your hands transfer a lot of odor.
On some trees that I hunt out of, I put brush up close to my tree to make a horseshoe shaped barricade as this keep the deer from getting too close. It does not need to be horseshoe shaped. And it only needs to gives you a 5 yard barrier. I will let my rope lay on the ground when there are no trails with in 5 yards or if the spot is not that important to me. You can be careless with scent control and still take trophies. But with all the hard work that it takes to get an opportunity to present its self, do you want to blow 25% of the opportunities on being careless. I have sat on a log to change some clothing and then saw deer smell my scent on the log from 20 yards away. I have seen where I put up a stick as a distance marker and had touched it with my bare hands and a deer smelled my scent on the stick from 20 yards away. About 10% to 20% of the deer that I see eventually smell something. Anything that you can do to shave the odds in your favor is a plus.
It’s all about maximizing your time. Some people are happy to just be in the woods and that is ok. If you are out to improve your hunting then you should measure your success rate. I use (how many hours to get your deer), (How many deer did I see), (how close did they get), ( now many went over my trail without smelling something), (how many could I have shot), (how many were bucks), ( how many were 8 pointers ) and (how many were trophies)
I remember about 20 years ago when I was not clean with scent at all. Like I rarely washed my hunting cloths. A trophy was coming straight in on me. At 15 yards out the buck smelled a little of my ground scent and he turned broad side and walked away. He almost gave me a shot. I only needed him to have come in 3 more yards. And a few days later in the same tree, I had another trophy that was coming in quick and he was going to pass with in 5 yards of my tree and I was waiting for him to pass and then I was going to give him the quality quartering away shot. He bolted at 5 yards and ran like a bat out of hell. Scent on the ground cost me both bucks.
I have taken a very nice buck at 2 yards and another very nice buck at 3 yards. I could not have done this without good control of ground scent. Some people talk about how far away they can shoot there deer. I put a lot of value on how close I can take my deer.
Controlling scent helps with not spooking the close in deer and not spooking the deer that you see. What is more important is (are you seeing enough deer?) and that has little to do with controlling ground scent near your tree.