Traditional bowhunting and scent control

[MIBIGHNTR]

I am new to the traditional bowhunting world but this will be my 36th season bowhunting.  In the past, I have been fanatical about my scent control.  I am curious about all of the leather associated with traditional bowhunting and if you have personal experiences with getting winded more or if it doesn't seem to alarm the deer??

Please refrain from all the "hunt the wind" comments, etc....  I am not new to bowhunting and spend a lot of time on stand for basic tips.

THANKS so much!!

[YosemiteSam]

I don't think they mind leather.  But they may not be too enthusiastic about whips and chains.

Sorry -- that was low-hanging fruit.

Folks have been hunting in leather longer than we've been hunting.  If it was a deal-breaker, we wouldn't have survived long enough to be here at all.  It may or may not be the most effective but, then again, neither is a stickbow.

[TIM B]

It prolly ain't the leather smell that alarms them
Tim B

[Sam McMichael]

I believe that if they smell the leather, they will also smell you, even with serious scent control. I doubt the leather smell, itself, will mean much to a deer unless something has happened which will cause it to associate leather odor with humans. Overall, I think you will be fine.

What part of Michigan are you from? I have a daughter who's has been working/teaching at MSU for a couple of years. I have only visited once, but I saw enough to realize you guys have some really big deer. Good luck!

[ozy clint]

only time they smell me is if the wind changes

[Roadkill]

Eyes, nose ears and a 5th sense alll work against us, but for them.it makes sense to minimize odor (breath-coffee/body odor-spicy foods the day before, etc). Cover scents and attractants work for white tails, not so much for mules.  Shine of face/hands wow.  Last week I watched a mulie doe spot my daughter’s fully cammo’d Frame on the opposite side of a canyon.  The only thing not blending in was my daughter’s face.  At 200 yards,I whispered to my son,again fully cammod and blended in,not on a skyline, and a doe snapped her head to stare right at me. Smell, yeah, but the other senses are worthy of note as well.

[TxSportsman]

Worried about the leather loincloth?

I think you’ll be fine!

[nashoba]

You cant really control scent,what a animal smells is us shedding dead skin cells. So unless you rap yourself in a tyvek suit and breath through a respirator its a loosing battle. Don't get me wrong I try to minimize my scent but you are never going to stop it.

I do think that leather bow grips pick up a bunch of human odor off of our hands, so I always change the grip to rubber for hunting season or otherwise cover up the scent as best I can with pine needles or somesuch. Leather looks best on a traditional bow, tho IMHO.

[BAK]

"Please refrain from all the "hunt the wind" comments, etc.... I am not new to bowhunting and spend a lot of time on stand for basic tips."

Since you seem to  already know the only important response no need to go further.

[Etter]

Ive seen guys in lots of hunting camps take scent control really seriously. I think if I had to go through that nightmare, Id quit hunting.

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Wow! I guess it is really important for people to convey their opinion that hunting the wind is the ONLY important piece of scent control.    

However, I'm going to disagree with that notion and hopefully give you some helpful thoughts!

Your intuition about leather IS correct. Leather soaks up oils and grime really well. I think you can go through the same scent control routines as before though, with a few tweaks for leather gear. It's best to start by keeping your leather items free from obnoxious scents, right from the start.

You need to consider the organic nature of leather, and its compatibility with any scent control routines you might go about. I like smoke for cover scent personally, and that isn't going to harm leather. Not sure about scent sprays and such
so test them on scraps in the off season.

As I mentioned, you have to treat anything leather as an odor sponge and handle it appropriately. But I don't think the leather smell itself will alarm deer. It's the smells the leather has accumulated that you have to consider.

I.e. it might be bad to be wearing your hunting boots all around town every day, never washing the sweat out of the liners (baking soda and warm water, btw), and letting the dog slobber on them. But quivers, arm guards, boots and such can be stored in a container with scent wafers or pine boughs, just like camo. You can also walk through cow pies, or mud on the way to the stand, and add better scent associations to the places your feet land.

Oh, about smoke, the bull in my avatar was killed after an hour in a stand of trees with never ending wind changes. Literally every direction was getting my scent stream on a frequent basis, but I'd built a smudge fire to smoke up before hand. NO way to play the wind, so I had to beat it. It works. Cheers!

It all depends on the leather.  I had a really comfortable pair a kangaroo hide boots and a nice pair of soft leather boots.  Neither were water proof, lined or insulated, but I never have any fun until my feet are cold and wet anyway.  I can tell for certain that the leather grip on a longbow will not frighten deer away.  I am certain that leather back quivers and arrows don't frighten deer either.  When I dropped all of the stuff i had to the ground except for the arrow on the bow string, the big doe her fawns or the the two yearlings had no problem stepping over it. Deer were terrified of the newer soft leather boots, that combination of new plus mink oil was wrong.  My kangaroo hide boots did not bother deer at all, but that dead minnow smell inside of them didn't do me any favors.  I always had a problem with farm cats following me, deer don't like farm cats.