iDEAS ABOUT SCENT FREE
 

Would like to start off with explaining to everyone that human scent starts....where else? with the human. humans shed skin cells at a very rapid rate, even though you cant see them. they are lighter than dry baby powder and invisible to the naked eye.
So imagine yourself covered in baby powder and walking on a black carpet. same thing with scent. Now think of ways you cant put on items to keep the powder totally in. Now ya got all these items on, now imagine if someone was to come up and start patting on you, would there be a puff of baby powder comin out? i would think so. can we keep all the scent in? probably not, but we can try.

wash your clothes you will be wearing and a towel in scent free detergents, sure you can find some here at HNI...put your clothes in a scent free bag, read the directions on your bag and take care of properly. I put a lil bit of stuff from where i hunt in my bag, i.g dirt, leaves and pine needles. and yes i just washed the clothes but o well

ya dont wanna do the following and then go get in your truck!!!!!! i am allowing no travel time here...sorry....no way you will stay scent free..and unless your truck came from Texas Instruments and is clean room ready,( and i will still have my doubts)..the dirty truck wont help as you are just putting yer own skin cells on the outside of yer gear..i am lucky at one of my grounds i have showers available, and am able to walk right into the field...but others i dont and have to take a frigged shower buck naked in the woods and it sux..i aint gonna lie.

take a friggen shower...use something that will loosen all the skin cells possible while you shower. an umfa thingy ..wash rag . ex foliation is the key here...but dont just use your hands and the soap.

this is not the time to smoke cigeretts and eat breakfast, walk the dog...
this is the time to get as far away from everyone as you can, try and be upwind of your livin area, downwind of natural wildlife. make sure you have all your gear and its scent free. You dont need a buddy with ya, you dont want him contaminating you, this means grandma too.
open the bag, get your gloves on and spray them, put on your hood, then your top tucking in the hood, you dont want the hood ever comin over your top, it will be shedding skin cells on the outside of your gear and this is what we are tryin to prevent. i use a 1 piece, but if you have a 2 piece, its time to put on the bottoms tucking the top into the bottoms, same way, ya dont want skin cells falling on the outside of your gear. you guessed it boots...i know it sux, but ya need to tuck your pants into your boots...otherwise you are sprinkling skin cells out the bottom of your pants, and you just cant tie it off imo..waterproof/snakebite and/or rubber boots help keep the scent in better imo.

this is the time to spray down..if its real windy its hard to get your back i know, but ya have too, and with out your smelly buddy who just dropped a bomb and ate breakfast with his morning cigarette ...do it your self..unless of course your buddy is this gung ho about it too, and he probably dont want your stinking butt near him right now lol
spray head to toe and the bottom of the boots as well and plan on sittin fer a few minutes to let it dry. (bottom of the boots)

spray your bow, arrows, quiver, pack ( i dont carry one they are scent bombs unless you are really careful), .hopefully you keep your gear scent free, there are skin particles all over this stuff from practice the day before or whatever..what about the stuff in the bag, is there gonna be this big baby powder smoke bomb goin off when you open it up in the field.i spray my bow the night before and
leave my bow in a tree upwind from us and downwind of nature, its saturated from the dew sometimes . i also use scent free oil if ya can believe that. its real cheap, once again HNI can probably help ya with that.

remember keep that hood on tight and try not to bend over and look down because your downfall now is the opening for the eyes, ears and mouth, which you guessed it, smoke bombs of scent falling to the ground.

remember to take it off in reverse, spray your gloves before you start, always rewash your gloves when ever possible.

i have ruined a couple calls washing them, but have found a few that make it. what ever your taking out needs to be scent free and treated just like the clothes....if your gonna use a washer and dryer, then do a few loads of regular laundry with scent free detergent before your "real load"...empty that dryer vent every time. i do mine in the same scent free cooler fer years and dry them in the woods.i also use the creek water where i hunt, and they dry there too. right into my scent free "dirty bag"... you don't wanna be shedding skin cells on your clothes right outta the dryer or off the tree, so use your gloves, put the bag close to the dryer and fill it up dont be leaning over the clothes droppin skin cells in/on the clothes and bag, close it , and then hand wash your gloves then turn wrong side out to dry . then i put it in the bag. with them wrong side out, you dont get scent on the outside of the glove when you start gearing up.

i know guys who dont do none of this, and play the wind....but when ya wanna get 20 feet from a deer and the wind is wirling, its your best chance to do what ya can to control your scent.

Great post , Thanks

Seems like to me that you should put your pants over the OUTSIDE of your boots, and then tie them off. Otherwise, foot odor can come right up between your pants and your boots.

Great article, thats taking scent control to a new level. It should be called scent obsession.

on the contrary, odor is human skin cells, , as gravity is forcing the skin cells down from your hood into your shirt fallin down to your pants and right out the bottom of your pants onto the ground. which leaves a very distinguishing path of scent. the boots catch this scent and keep it aboard your scent ship. if you tie it off , it aint as good imo..just imagine fillin your pants with rice and tie it off and walk around.....i am gonna bet some will fall out.. human scent cells are falling off you at a rate of 30k -40k EVERY MINUTE!!!!..( thats 30,000-40,000) and human skin cells are way smaller than rice. hopefully someone knows the math on rice grain vs human skin cell?


as for your foot smell... i recommend Benzalkonium Chloride...
they come in a "hand wipe" usually at the doctors office or even spring creek bar-b-que with the rib plates..
if you are buying it get the purple ones, not the blue....
also works on ring worm(jock itch) ..there is no burning sensation as with blue star ointment and others.
.buy 2-3 boxes at a time, if ya had it for a few years maybe 5 boxes, use at will when ever you can..stops the itch almost immediately....take a real hot shower to get the fungus good and opened up(expanded) so when ya hit it with the wipe it kills more.

Don't sit or lean against your tailgate while you change cloths. Once you have the cloths on don't sit on the tailgate. If your like me you know how much crap comes
across that from the years. Also don't warm your vehicle up then go out and put stuff in the back of the truck while exhaust fumes get all over you. I see this happen
so much at our deer camp and public hunting areas.

This is the core of my "obsession" on scent control.

For you skeptics, just check out some of the websites that discuss how bloodhounds and tracking dogs detect and follow humans (e.g. http://www.napwda.com/tips/index.phtml?id=24). It's not a leap of faith to figure out that deer are doing the same thing, since dogs and deer share a common evolutionary ancestor. Skin cell shedding is just one of the reasons carbon suits are a waste of money, imho.

Just to expand a bit, you shed your skin every 28 days - which means you are shedding ~1000 skin cells a second. When I shower just before hunting, I "exfoliate" my skin - I try to remove those cells that would normally be shed over the next several hours. You can find exfoliation brushes and washcloths in the women's skin care section of the local drug store. I wash/scrub with a "hunter's soap", and follow with another wash using baking soda as a mild abrasive. Just don't over do it!

You can't stop skin shedding any more than you can stop being human. You still need to play the wind. But you may have an advantage over your fellow hunters who don't know or don't want to bother...

-fsh

I'm working on the construction of my vacuumed sealed scent free tunnel from my shower to my hunting land.

You talk about gloves being so important, what if i dont like to wear gloves when im on stand, is that a big deal?

once again..its just my opinion, but to me yes gloves are a big deal, any part of your body without a cover is a big deal to me...its like a bowl for your skin cells, holds them in better than not havin on gloves jmo

I'm with you on this HB.

I just finished readin that link..and thats real interesting...how they can use the sterile pad and stuff...and the ground breaking where you walk able to be smelt is cool, but makes sense .....like sturin up pot-pouri ..i dunno if i spelled this right but my ol lady burn roses and stuff in a pot and makes the house smell like a rose bomb went off that supposed to cover 9000 sf and my house is a mere fraction of that....the pot pori isnt all that strong after it sits fer a bit...but if ya stir it up it gets around..sheww-weee

That is really helpfull, I am definetly skipping steps that I need to do. I would like to add that when you take your scent free shower and exfoliation. Use a towl that has been washed in scent free detergent.

This really should be a sticky so people can always read this.

I add a couple more steps.

When washing hunting clothes I also wash a few pairs of drawers, sweat pants, T shirts, socks and towels and store them in scent free containers. After the shower I dry off with the scent free towel and then wear the scent free sweat pants and t shirt driving to hunt. I change into my hunting clothes before going to the stand.

I always figured it didn't do a whole lot of good to shower in the scent free stuff and then dry off with a towel loaded with detergent and fabric softener and then put on clothes that smell the same.

Mez and Markmon good call on the towels I have a couple of hunting buddies that say they are scent control minded in every step they do and they have the sealed clothes that were dried outside from a pine tree and shower every time but I have always seen them walk to the linen closet and grab their towel they are going to use after they take their shower. But I would have to say the thing that cracks me up the most are the guys that go out and spend all the money on scent lock suits and then wear them to bass pro or cabelas!!!!! that is a classic!!!! Oh and mez hope you are watching the draft to watch Sue go #1!!!!


GO BIG RED!!!!!

did a lil update..what i miss?

Sounds like you take scent control to the max but you stated [i spray my bow the night before and
leave my bow in a tree upwind from us and downwind of nature, its saturated from the dew sometimes] there is no way i am leaving my bow in a tree if i am not there

Or you could just play the wind.

Right. I certainly agree that one should do everything in his power to limit scent and I like your analysis of human "skin shedding," especially the rice analogy. However, a lot of my personal observations fly in the face of conventional wisdom concerning human scent and the control thereof. I think scent control is an important factor. But I don't think it is the only factor for success.

Cool great post thanks for sharin.

I agree that scent control is important to success,but you have to remmember there is a differance between being "scent free" and and "scent control"
scent free= NO SCENT
scent control= taking steps to control scent(ie cover scents)
I have hunted with guys who take every step to be scent free only to then spray themselves and there equipment with cover scent and IMO you just destroyed the scent free steps you've taken. I have seen alot of guys over do it with cover scent.
And the point is to be "scent free" deer do not smell human scent and think hunter run away,what they smell is a foreign scent that they preconceive as danger,so they take steps to avoid it(ie. runaway) but the fact is any foreign scent will be preconceied as danger and avoided, whether if that foreign scent is human or an over abundance of any odor (ie.fresh earth,pine,acorn, ect.) anything out of the ordinary will be preconceived as danger and will be avoided.
IMO take the steps to be scent free not scent covered,because if theres NO scent theres NO danger.

Wow, great thread and great info, but I believe that scent control/free falls under the same classification as camo choice and that it is totally up to the hunter and not critical to success in the field. 32 years go when my uncles were teaching me the way of the woods... we didn't have "camo", we had natural colored clothing. We didn't have "scent free" but we did have scent control. Scent control equalled hanging up our outer garments on the screen porch in the evening and then in the morning hanging them next to the fireplace to get the hint of wood smoke in them. We didnt have scent free soap... heck we didnt even have a shower that we could use for the week we were there, And I can't tell you with honest truth how many deer were shot from our stands in NE Pennsy while we had a cigarette hanging from our mouth, but it was quite a few. I guess my point is that I don't judge anyone for taking extreme measures to do what they think is a edge over game during a hunt. But I believe more emphasis should be on playing the wind and knowing daily movement routes.

Cheers........

I believe in the basics of scent control such as using scent free soaps, detergent, clothes bagged in aromatic native vegetation and other items from the woods. Also when i get to hunting location i go out of my way to work soles of boots over good in some fresh dirt, cow manure, osage oranges or whatever else i might be hunting around that day, then try to avoid walking where i think the deer might be...

I also believe in hunting high.

I think you're putting more into it that you realize, and I can show you a couple guys who smoke all day, and kill some GREAT deer, because they put the efforts in to get to them, hunt hard and hunt smart.

Now let me dress down the scent control thing......

It starts at home and well before the season opens for me by using scent free detergent and softener on ALL of my clothes, bedding linens, bath towels, etc. Even the wife and kids clothes get the SCENT-FREE treatment as it gets the scent out of my washer and dryer. I annually pull the spindle and clean it out, so there is no residual of smell softener in it about a month before season opens up, therefore making sure I'm good to go by the time the season comes in.

After that, I use a low odor soap, then follow through with a scent-free body wash. The boots I wear are kept in the box I bought them in, and come out once afield, and go back in that box once back at my truck. I wear X-Scent/X-Static base layers, and a face mask (the face mask does 2 very important things, first, it hides my ugly mug, but secondly, it limits the scent of my breath from lingering all over the woods). Playing the wind is also beneficial, but I've yet to ever find a place where the winds CONSISTENTLY blow in only one direction. They always tend to swirl at least a little. Don't buy that, light a little fire and see how many directions the wind will blow in an hour.... But with that thought in mind, I do still make the effort to try to make my set-ups more conducive the general wind directions. I spray just a little earth scent if I'm in an area where earth scent is going to be a common scent, otherwise, I leave cover scents alone nowadays. As far as the "shedding skin," it's not as prominent as you make it sound IMHO, and I've noted that my movement has gotten me busted far more times than SCENT, and I've killed more than a few deer that traveled down the same path I'd just traveled a short time before. While I think you have some good ideas, I'm not completely sold on all of them.

well..i am just saying its near impossible to be scent free.

This is some great info. And you are right being scent free is nearly impossible. I do most of these things also. I've also done none of this with good outcome but I agree that every little thing helps. Great tread!!

Great information HB. I wonder how the Indians got scent free and scent control? they were able to feed and clothe themselves a long time ago. They played the wind.

CVG Ohio

They actually wore the hide of the game.that helps........they also hunted as a tribe..pushing the game to the killin squad..