Wet wool smell

[Kopper1013]

So I’ve been hunting in wool for the past couple years and never gave much thought to that wet wool smell.
Well this weekend I was getting busted left and right. Do you guys find that deer pick up on that smell really quickly?
I wash my clothes well and hang it out side in the woods for the season. I periodically throughout the season but always hang my clothes on a line in the woods to get rained on and air dried.
It has always worked well for me but this weekend it rained hard, I was soak, and boy did those deer get super nerves around me and all I could smell was that musty wet wool smell.
Thoughts? Or experience’s?

[Yooper-traveler]

It’s not the wool, it’s the stinky human in the wool.

[Sam McMichael]

I don't think the wool is the issue. If a deer is smelling your wet wool, he is also smelling you. I would think that would tend to make the odor of the wool irrelevant.

[Bowguy67]

How are you sure it was actually the wool and not sweaty hands or coffee breath? Hunting the wind would blow a scent away as well. Here’s a couple more considerations. Do you really think deer blow up cause of smells they aren’t exactly sure of or do they associate certain smells w danger from previous history?
Now I hunt w some wool, primarily during the late season. It’s not crazy old, maybe 15-20 years at best. Being I use it during the cold only it usually doesn’t  get wet. If it did I’d air it out on the porch which is covered.
Think about something else? If wool or anything else never got continually wet/damp would it get musty or is this a product of mold building up?
 None of this was an exact answer cause there’s multiple answers but changing your clothing regimen would at least be the first thing I’d do if I was worried. To be honest, I hate to say this but I’d start fresh w new clothes.

[Possum Head]

I see no point in adding to what’s been said already these guys nailed it.

[Bvas]

I agree with the others. Not necessarily wet wool smell, but wet human smell. Not only that, but during wet weather the air is heavy and odors will not dissipate as quickly. This can cause them to form a thicker cloud around you if there is not a strong wind to clear the area.

[Roger Norris]

I hunt in wool exclusively once the temps dip below 45. Wet dry, and in between. I don't have any major scent control ritual, but I do keep my clothes airing out on the screen porch. I almost never get busted from scent (except for the ones I never see).

The wind is the wind. Musty wool, coffee, whatever....if they are down wind of you, they can smell you.

I have taken to paying attention to wind direction from the truck to the stand. When I get to my spot, the general direction of the wind tells me which stand I will be sitting. But I start sending out milk weed pods and/or talcum powder right then and there....the subtle gusts and swirls confirm which stand I am going to hunt, but more importantly they tell me the route I am taking to the stand. I don't want to blow my scent across a bedding area, for example. I also give great thought to that route with regards to my walking scent...scent left by my boots and pant legs. I try VERY HARD not to walk where a deer might walk later.

[Ray Lyon]

Bvas and Roger have it correct in my opinion.

[Ron LaClair]

Some years ago I was part of a two man hunt to be filmed and aired on the outdoor show "Michigan Outdoors" I was hunting with a traditional bow and the other hunter used a compound. We each had a camera man that would accompany us on our hunt.

The night before the hunt we were all in the small cabin sitting around after supper. I was wearing my Asbell wool shirt and smoking my pipe. Dave, the compound guy ask me if I was going to hunt in that shirt and I told him yes I was. He said " My hunting clothes are hanging outside, aren't you afraid the deer will wind you with all the cooking and tobacco smells absorbed by that wool" I said, "I plan on hunting into the wind"

The next day of our hunt, Dave was in a treestand along with his camera man. Dave was winded twice by deer on his downwind side, he took a long shot and missed. I had scouted a well used runway coming out of the swamp going into the hardwoods. There was not a good spot for a treestand but I found a natural ground blind spot that would put me just 8 yards from the runway and downwind.. My camera man was in a popup blind 30 yd's uphill from me. When a nice doe came by I put an arrow through her living room.

Lesson....if you're upwind of a deer they will usually smell you wheather your wearing wet wool or dry wool, you'll stand a much better chance if you keep the wind in your face.

[Gordon Jabben]

A friend once told me "you do so well on deer because that wool makes you smell like and animal".

[Kopper1013]

All right all right I get it I stink the area I was hunting the deer come from every direction and hit a junction in the middle so you kinda just gotta sacrifice a zone and hope they use the other trails and only maybe a couple bust.

[Roger Norris]

All right all right I get it I stink the area I was hunting the deer come from every direction and hit a junction in the middle so you kinda just gotta sacrifice a zone and hope they use the other trails and only maybe a couple bust.

I would get out of that hub...locate 3 or 4 stand sites around it,and hunt each one as the wind dictates. I know it sounds like a great opportunity to be at the "center of the wheel", but if you are spooking deer in 50 % of your hunting area by being at the center....move to the edge. Fewer spooked deer =more opportunities in the long run.

One of the swamps I hunt is a great example of that. In the center, is a criss cross runway series that I would call the "hub". But the only reason I know it is there is because of late season scouting. I NEVER go into this swamp (it is about 75 acres). Rather, I have 10 stand sites (not all treestands) surrounding it. I hunt where the wind tells me to go. It is very rare that I hunt this swamp without getting a shot opportunity.

[mec lineman]

i have some kuiu merino base tops that do have an odor when damp or wet, but to me that odor is mild compared to a polyester shirt. This season was horrible for mosquitoes, i use a thermacell and consider it mandatory early on. That emits a smell that blows in the same direction as my human funk.

[YosemiteSam]

A few weeks ago, I was watching 2 does about 130 yards downhill of me.  I had setup at about 4:30 p.m. up above a nice wooded draw with the afternoon thermals still blowing uphill.  After about 15 min of watching these relaxed deer, they suddenly turned and started trotting my way, back in general direction that they had come from (from my right).  Then the snorts started.  Still having the wind in my face, I figured that some swirling breeze put my scent onto them somehow -- it's happened before.  Oh well.

20 minutes later, I'm still hearing occasional snorts.  Wind still at my face.

20 min later, I hear hooves off to my right.  They've moved uphill and much closer.  Wind still at my face.  Occasional snorts.

20 min of listening & I catch one of the does off to my right about 50-60 yards off and at the same level.  Wind still at my face.  The doe might move into my scent soon...

10 min go by and I'm thinking I'd like to watch the does and see what happens as they come into my scent.  I slowly shift 90 degrees and watch the doe.  Then I see a third deer in the mix.  It's bigger than the others but its head ducks behind a tree so I wait.  It steps out from the tree and I see it has antlers.  Head turns and I see a fork.  Just like that, I see my first legal buck in 3 years of hunting these mountains.  Deer snorting nearly the whole time.

That was all just a long-winded story of how not all snorts are alarms.  I don't know if it was the buck or the does that were snorting.  There's a doe at a different spot that has a very high-pitched whistle when she snorts me off (definite alarm in her case).  Makes me wonder if snorts can be broken down into a rough "language" like bird calls (alarm, feeding, coaxing, etc.).  But I certainly need a lot more time in the woods to sort that out.

[JakeD]

I'd keep using the wool. Too many people try to follow a strict scent control regimen for some reason. If the deer get your wind, it's the human they are smelling that alarms them. I've never understood how some guys think that spraying their clothes down or wearing some carbon suit will make them invisible to a deers nose. Your skin is still exposed and that stuff isn't air tight anyways. Using the wind and thermals to your advantage will serve you much better than changing clothes out. It's a lot cheaper too.

[Don Stokes]

In my decades of bowhunting I've probably tried every type scent control that the manufacturers could come up with, and a bunch of things on my own, like keeping my hunting clothes in a bag with cedar or rabbit tobacco, or just a bunch of leaves. I've been a smoker and a nonsmoker. I've used scents from skunk to used tampax. I have found one thing that works all the time, every day. Be downwind of the deer. Period. I too plan my route to my stand with awareness of where my scent stream is going, and I almost never hunt the same stand twice in a row. I stay off the deer trails when possible. On those days when the wind starts to shifts back and forth, I leave my stand. I think the worst thing that can happen to mess up your stand location is for deer to smell you there.

[pavan]

Earlier this month a compound hunter stated that deer could not smell him because of his scent lock clothes that were kept in a plastic garage bag until he hunted.  He stripped down to his underwear to put on his hunting clothes.  He got busted by deer and was bitterly complaining about the gnats and mosquitos.  I asked if the smell of that plastic garbage bag was attracting all of those gnats and mosquitoes and scaring off his deer.  He agreed and decided to add deer musk pads to his plastic garbage bag. 

[Tedd]

Firstlite and Kuiu makes washable wool. Nice stuff!
Tedd

[Terry Green]

Wool is from a sheep...the most passive animal on the planet. ....nah, they don't care about smelling a wet sheep, but they sure care about scenting the ultimate predator!