Smoking your hunting clothing
 

Hey everyone just wanted to see what everyone else’s opinion was. Last year when I was on my annual Illinois hunting trip a buddy was smoking his clothing with woodchips in a bee smoker. At first I thought he was crazy until all the success he said he was having with deer down wind. At the time I was wearing a 300 plus dollar carbon suit. My curiosity got the best of me the 3rd day there and I tried it. To my surprise it worked great. I fooled a ton of deer downwind of me. Of course not all of them but it def made a difference. We always head to Ohio to hunt on the way home from Illinois for a week and it worked great there as well. After I thought about it, it made sense. Smoke is very natural for them in most environments and smoke also is carbon which kills other odors just like a lot of the hunting apparel out there. I am defiantly a believer; does anyone else have an opinion???

I haven't archery hunted in a lot of years so I really didn't worry much about scent control. I will say this, when I still smoked cigarettes almost every deer I killed and it was a lot and most within 40 yards and many closer, I was smoking when I shot them, both downwind and upwind from me. I always figured smoke is smoke and deer smell a lot of smoke.

that makes scents. get it?? scents??? lol

i usually put both sets of coveralls (fall and cold weather) out back under the porch when squirrel season starts. and i don't bring them back in until after spring turkey season ends.

i have also been within a few yards of deer while smoking, they don't seem to even notice, or at least don't mind it.

i will try smoking them with wood chips, that really does make sense...
sound like a good way to help remove any unwanted smells.

have you guys ever heard of washing them (when needed) in plain water and then dragging them through fresh dry black dirt???

i stepped in dog urine once on my way out. later, a doe walked up and gave my footprints a good sniff. her tail immediately went up, and she left in a hurry.
i was very surprised that they could still smell that, even after walking 30-40 minutes to get to my spot.
they really do have great noses. and apparently, they don't like dogs very much...

I bought a scent smoker about 6 years ago and have been using it since then.Nothing will fool a deer's nose 100% of the time but I have little doubt that it's helped me a ton.

Cover scents, I believe, work better than scent "killers".

I use to use spray scent killers................not any more.


I smoke cigarettes and most of the time I have to put it down to make the shot.

Same for coyotes.......................

If cover scent worked wouldn't the woods themselves cover our scent?

I mean if putting the scent of the woods on yourself keeps deer from smelling you then shouldn't the reel thing (actually being in the woods) keep deer from smelling you?

To me it is crazy to think adding a woodsy smell to your clothes will help deer not smell you in the woods.

I do believe in scent reduction but I just don't believe adding a scent that is already exists is going to help at all.

This is not to say smoking your clothes won't work because it may reduce other scent somehow but if it does work IMO its not because your adding the smell of smoke. Its because something about the process reduces other scents.

Adding a scent doesn't do any good at all IMO........There are already millions of scents around you. If they don't mask your scent then the ones you carry in probably won't either.

I tried smoking my jacket but it was too big. It kept on tearing the rolling paper. :D

I just searched around and read several other long threads on this subject. Many posted that they tried this with success and NOT ONE posted that it did not work. I think I will give it a try. Chop up some of my maple firewood into small pieces and construct a small burner from a metal container like a coffee can. I could put all the items inside a closed blind and smoke the blind too. Would not take much wood I don't think.

Just buy a bee smoker for about thirty dollars.You can buy one called the scent smoker.I use hickory and I'm telling you,it works better than anything I've ever tried.I'm not saying it's foolproof but it makes a difference.I was skeptical in the beginning but it didn't take long to make me a believer.

Another good smoke material you might want to try is the red Sumac tops. I pick these and then dry them. They smoke real nice as I use this for my bee hives.

And I will use my smoker now on some of my deer clothing and even my new stand that is in the process of being built. Why not?

JW