Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

I'm not saying for sure either way because the experience that prompted me to ask this could just be pure coincidence but...

Last Wednesday I got off work early afternoon and it was an 80 degree day so I was already sweating all day. I was short on time plus I had to pick up 2 guys so I just threw my hunting clothes on. When we got to the woodsI sprayed my shoes down and nothing else. I think 3/4 the scent transfer is through the shoes so that's all I do.

Anyway, I just picked a tree in a new part of the forest and just climbed it. Once I got to the top and had a better view, I decided to get down and move to another tree 30yds away. At 6:20 a lone doe comes walking into the acorns right through the same exact area I'd been stepping all over just 1.5 hrs ago. In fact she walked within a few yards of my original tree. She showed no signs that she'd detected any human scent then walked towards me, and I put her down.

Sooo... if deercan't see what's not there,will they also not smell what's downwind?

To cite a past post of GregH's

Yet he kills bigbucks every year.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

I don't think it is that important if you hunt the wind religiously. If you don't even think about going out to a stand because the wind isn't perfect for that stand, then I don't think that scent control is that important. However, there are soooo many variables in this equation that if Einstein was a hunter, he'd still be scratchin his head;):D

So my final verdict on scent control reads something like this. Play the wind perfect - not necessary, But why chance it. If the wind isn't 100% perfect (which it rarely is for most people, most of the time) then why risk going in "naked", so to speak. This is why I will do my best to hunt both scent free as I can and the wind as well.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

I hunt the wind AND practice some sort of scent control ..... why not? If the spray will take gas smell off your hands, then it is doing something substantial ..... that being said,

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

might get by and get lucky.....

but, sooner or later one will sneak in downwind unexpectedly...or will cross your trail before you get a shot and will pick up on it...or maybe theres an area being used by the deer downwind of you that you overlooked or whatever....

i had a mature doe and yearlings come into my setup 2 years ago....of all places to eat the mature doe picked DIRECTLY under my tree...i had to look THROUGH the slats on my stand to see her at the base of my tree...."oh nooooo" i just setup my climber and walked around the tree a couple times....been there a couple other times recently...peed and spit from my stand....for sure shes gunna bust me...that day i left my pull up rope hanging down...it was maybe a foot from the ground...she bumped it...which made her sniff it...tail went up and she jumped back...trotted to her yearlings 10yds away and she cautiously kept looking around and made it out of there...never blew or anything...but she had me....i never sprayed that rope..its always in the pouch when i spray the stand down.....i now open the pouch and spray inside when spraying the stand...

i spray everything every hunt....stand, pack, release, mist the bow, myself...everything....everything is washed and in a bin i keep in the SUV all season long...i still spray it down and mist it quick as it goes back into the box after the hunt...shower...i try to cover my bases....just to go as low key as possible...just for those times when the wind shifts...or he crosses my trail...or whatever....its not uncommon for my winds to shift a couple times a day...drives me NUTS...and to top it off, the deer seem to come from any direction because theres good bedding all around my main spot at home...

pain in the butt to goto your hunting spot and get out and have to change and all that...spray and soaps and stuff isnt cheap....but im serious about my hunting and want to maximize my chances...and since i started my routine ive seen more and havent seen negative results since....im sure i still get busted and dont know it....but ive had a gray fox downwind and cross my trail and never flinch...as well as many deer....

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Woah, I had no clue it would do this, im gunna have to test it just for the sake of it now.:D

That is sure a confidence booster in the sprays if itll do that. I usually spray down, always wash the clothes in scent free wash, and usually pay attn to wind....never wear carbon clothing....and I seem to do fine, not referring to success...just the fact that i am rarely busted by smell, almost always movement that gets me. hoping some new camo will help this.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

I'll go through the scent reduction routine if I'm hunting out of a stand but if I'm spot and stalk hunting in the mountains (like usual) scent control is impossible so you've got to pay attention to the wind and pray it doesn't get fickle on you. Same goes for bear hunting, you can throw scent control out the window because you just can't stop them from smelling you unless you stay downwind. Comparing a bear's nose to a deer's is like comparing an eagle's eyes to a blind man. You can maybe fool that deer's nose sometimes with scent control but you better still be paying attention to the wind.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Trevor ... test it out ... it works!

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

My reply is that thermals will nail you. I get as high as I can in my stand so that the wind doesnt play into my sittin. However you cannot avoid entering the woods and not paying attention to the wind.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Yes.

The wind is easy to predict under normal circumstance.

However, very few, understand thermals. Thermals end more days a'field than most care to admit. And many don't even know.

Heck.. I understand them well. And am an fanatic with my scent control.. and they STILL screw me from time to time. Once already this year![:@]

The fact that another hunter does one thing that most hunters don't do is not something you should think you can get away with.

ALL properties are different. Understand the whitetails that live there.

I've hunted ALL over. MANY different locations. I've hunted areas 20 minutes apart where you'd think you were hunting 2 different animals. Spots where 2 yr. olds act like 1 yr. olds (not very intelligent).. and spots where 2 yr olds act like 5 yr olds (very very cautious).

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

The wind flavor of the day is what decides where I'm gonna sit and all my clothes are washed in scentaway and sprayed more than they should be.

But.. I have kiled deer with a sandwich in my hand and a cigarette in my in my mouthand thewind right at them. Never smoke anymore. Doesn't make much sense after all the work trying to be scent free..

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

What are you going to do when the deer crosses the path you walked in onand your not religiously trying to cover your scent? Each step and slight touch of a weed, branch, etc. could get you busted. Always scent control, if not, good luck...hope the wind is right and you can fly on in.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

TO maximize your chance of success you must practice scent control. There will always be the chance of getting lucky and you hear stories of them guys saying yeah I did this and the deer never detected anything. But those are few and far between. At least when your hunting wild deer that live away from human activity. I am pretty strict on scent control and always play the wind the very best I can. If the wind is not right and I have zero chance of a deer coming from another way. I would rather hunt the ground with the wind in my favor as a last resort.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

The question was:

Sooo... if deercan't see what's not there,will they also not smell what's downwind?


I hope I didn't confuse anyone including myself with that question because reading it back to myself just now it started to sound like a double negativedue to thewording. What I was asking really was kind of a rhetorical question because obvioiuslyno living creature cansmell what's downwind.

Mike, you bring an interesting element into the equation which actually can change the answer to yes, it is possible for deer to smell you though you are downwind. Imagine a situation in the afternoon when the thermals are falling and you happen to be in part of the stream of a swirl pattern. Though you never actually feel the wind change directions, the thermals may be taking your scent down to the ground then injecting it intothe swirl stream which takes it upwind where the deer can smell you. It might not be a strong potent smell to the deer but they will know that something is in the area. Hope that wasn't too hard to follow.

I'm not totally anal about scent control but I do practice it. I do the Atsko/plastic bag deal. I do have woods only footwear. I try to walk slowly to my stand so I don't look like I just ran a marathon by the time I get there. I don't however, spray all my equipment and stand down each time I go to the woods. That would probably cost me another hundred bucks a month on top of my monthly $400.00 hunting fuel bill.

I do understand that minimizing scent lessens the chances of getting busted because yes, deer can pop out from anywhere, not just upwind. I think that in perfect scenarios where you have your back up against say like a river and the wind is blowing in your face then there's probably very little chance you'll get winded. In the middle of the woods though, anything can happen including the lucky net I fell on jumping into the woods stinky after a long days work.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Call me CRAZY, but I'm a fanatic about SCENT control, and I pay a little attention to the wind, but I've killed many deer that were downwind, including my biggest buck, and a herd matriarch that "had it coming." I don't honestly remember being busted by anything by my own stupidity of moving, or dumbluck that I got busted moving by an animal I didn't know was there. I use X-scent or an alike Silver Ion base layers, and spray off with a little scent killer and use just a little BUCK URINE for my cover, rather than doe urine or coon urine or whatever. It's yielded good results for me the past few seasons thus far.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

wind never seems to be blowing from a consistant direction here....generally light and variable when Im out....so yes, I try to take all reasonable measures to control scent...........but I dont use scent lok clothing or anything like that

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Don't give it another thought, just play the wind. Then again, if that deer was where you were and didn't wind you, do you really even need to play the wind? Seems your nothing scary to deer. Your golden!:D

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Scent control helps with variable winds but it is not a cure all.Never hunt a good deer downwind.

RE: Is scent control all that important if you hunt the wind right?
 

Justin,
Try some base layers with the antimicrobial Silver Ion impregnated thread, big words, but they are also very effective words, X-scent is the name on most of my stuff, but I have a couple off-branded ones that are similar, and they are excellent in conjunction with an already good scent control plan, and they also help wick away your sweat, keeping you cooler than you might be otherwise. What I use are like underarmour, except with a scent control aspect added in.