Fooling game with foreign odors

[Izzy]

Heres my silly question for the season. Have any of you ever introduced a forein odor to your stand sites preseason to get the game acclimated to it and then used it as a cover scent??? I mean like laying the same dryer sheets that you or the wife normally use on the ground close to a blind or stand a couple of months before season opens or showering with an  every day  soap in the morning after you put some in your stand areas previously.Nothing super strong smelling or carzy but what about everyday bath soap or shampoo. Just something that if they do smell, they are already familiar with it being in the area and may even calm them. Gimmicky or has anyone ever tried it and how did it work for you?

           Thanks,Izzy

[billy shipp]

I am a firm believer in the fact that no scent is the best scent.

[Blackhawk]

I believe those whitetail noses are darn tough to fool no matter what strategy one uses.  Hunt with the wind in your face or take your chances is my philosphy.  

With that said, I believe doing what you said can't hurt either.

[recurvecody]

i'm with billy keep the wind in your face and elimate as much scent as possible.

[Ragnarok Forge]

When baiting bears was legal here we used to spray anise oil on our stands, the bait barrel and the brush around our bait sites.  It let the Bears know fresh food had been placed and covered our human scent pretty well.  We would spray the anise oil on our boots and pants t help mask our scent.  The bears would come right into the bait.

[mrjsl]

Deer are supposed to have better noses than dogs, right?

I have two coon dogs. I have watched them pick up scent off the breeze from a long ways off. One of my dogs was running down a gravel road one night, stopped on a dime and started looking up. Sure enough, there was a kitten coon 40 feet up a big oak and out on a limb that overhung the road. I have seen them "get a whiff" of coon a long ways from where it got hot enough to bark on. They can smell stuff just by riding by it at 40 MPH in the truck. Pick out a coon's trail from deer scent that's all around. I am always amazed at how well they can catch scent from amongst other scents. These two dogs can romp off over a mile distant, and if they lose the trail, they can come straight back to me by scent no problem. It's impossible to sneak up on them.

As a result of having seen this with dogs most of my life, I do not believe that a deer's nose can be fooled at all. Therefore I stay downwind or move to another spot where I can stay downwind.

I have been busted by a deer that were over 300 yards away in a good breeze. Watched it happen more than once, and that is after using unscented soaps, scent eliminator, etc. I am no longer anal about using products or scent elimination, but I am ten times as anal about the wind. If the wind isn't in my favor, I don't go.

[Kip]

Slade I disagree with the deer nose better than a dog.Not sure if I am right but like you, seen some amazing things dogs can do with their nose.Kip

[huntin_sparty]

Not exactly what you are asking but the farm area I hunt everyone has woodburning stoves.  So last year I tried smoking all my stuff with a bee smoker like can with bellows and wood chips.  I saw more deer than any season before.  I like to think since they smell the woodsmoke all them time they are use to it and didnt pay attention to me.

[Pete McMiller]

Slade, I've been singing the same tune for years.  I too had coon dogs and always wore rubber hip boots.  Those dogs could back track me no matter what I was doing or walking on.  That cured me of trying to fool deer or elk.  A buddy bought the scent-loc suit a couple years after they first came out.  He had everything to cover himself up and got busted three times in one week at an elk wallow.  

Best advice is to make sure you are down wind.

[bornagainbowhunter]

When I go hunting, if at all possible, I will beat my boots with cedar limbs or pine limbs and them rub those limbs all over my body.  They are used to the smell of those tree, of course, and they have a strong enough odor to cover my scent.  When you beat them on your boots it brings the oils from the leaves or needles to the surface.  That in turn makes it easy to rub the oil on your clothes to cover your scent.  Thats what I do.

Oh yeah, and the "forget the wind just hunt" motto is NOT a good idea.  I don't own one and a carbon or silver suit might be good, but your body still has exposed areas and you still breath.   Hunt the wind.

[Buckeye Trad Hunter]

Animals aren't afraid of scents that they are familiar with.  Animals don't smell certain scents and think, Oh there's a human I'd better run.  They spook from scents that they associate with danger.  So in theory that should work.  I have actually heard of other people doing as sparty said and using smoke in areas where wood burning stoves and the like are prevelant and having success.

All that aside the best advice is still to keep the wind in your face, but there's no harm in trying to stack the deck in your favor a bit more.

[Izzy]

Hmmmm, guess I was just wondering if anyone experimented with something like this.I know a deers nose will never be defeated by anything other than being downwind.I use conifer branches and dirt and moss which sure seems to help.Ive been busted using smoke in areas with fires (maybe I just stunk)and never, ever use scent lock or any of that stuff.I may experiment with this in my late season suburban hunts but will keep trying to play the wind even though it constantly changes in my favorite area.

[katman]

I have used my scent, rubbing my hat or shirt on a trail I wanted to keep them off. I have also kept the earth scent wafers in my stand changing them with fresh ones on each hunt. Since you can't do a double blind study don't know if they never smelled me while down wind or just got lucky, but they did not pick me out if they got down wind, deer have a way of showing up from routes you did not expect, especially while the boys are cruising.

[Hot Hap]

When I hired in at my job in '67, the company was called Armour Pharm. Co. When Revlon bought us out, they opened a store in the plant. You could get a case of Dial soap [72 bars] for $7.
I got a case and took a hot nail to put a hole in the bar of soap, and strung it up with rope. I put a half dz. around my hunting area in June-July.
I showered w/the soap and took a bar and dissolved it in a gallon milk jug to wash my clothes. It worked for me.
Hap

[Sam McMichael]

I think the deer on my place have us patterned much better than we have them patterned. I have tried all kinds of cover scents and putting decoy scent in one area while actually hunting somewhere else. But I actually believe the deer simply pass it off as "Oh well, here goes McMichael with another one of those stupid scent tricks again".

You won't beat a deer's nose. Now I just hunt the wind.

[Craig]

I hunt on my own property just off the corner of our house. The windows are open and the deer just walk by. I get up in my stand and the deer just walk by. I left a friend hunt up in my stand and no deer came through and they were walking through every evening when I was up in the stand. I figured they are use to my sent because of the windows being open and we have a clothes line not far from the area.

[ksbowman]

I always have access to fresh cow manure at my place, so I try to step in and wallow (my feet)around in it evertime I go out. It doesn't work 100 percent of the time, but I'm sure it helps as more than once I've had deer follow my trail, come right up and smell the steps on ladder stands I'm in. Probably wondering why a cow defecated that high.

[SteveB]

You can reduce your scent so you are percieved as less of a threat.

You cannot hide it with another scent of any kind - deer simply smell the added scent and you.

[cahaba]

Can't beat hunting the right wind. I do store my clothes in a container with some fresh cut cedar and it at least gives me more confidence.

[nutmeg]

I was once out walking my two labs in my deer woods behind the house. My two boys and their buddies had gone "camping" three days prior about a mile in at a place we called the rocks It had rained heavily the day before. A few yards down the dirt road they put their noses to the ground and made a bee line right to the spot the boys had been camping. It was obvious that they had followed the three day old scent. Tails wagging, they expected to find the boys.
I believe that deer noses are at least that good and probably better. I don't think we can fool them despite our best efforts. Hunt the wind and stay as clean as possible because you'll never be "scent free" (nut)