Author Topic: Before scent block (Read 1751 times)

Survivor · « **on:** December 31, 2006, 02:32:04 PM »

I've heard of conditioning clothes outside. Before all of the fancy camo and scent blockers what did hunters do in order to blend in? I also wonder about camp food. If you spend more than a night in the stix what do you pack. I'm all for campfire BBQ but I also don't really want to make any friends in the middle of the night. Normally we tie and hang all of the food supplies a ways away from camp but are there ways to stay strong and fed in the field w/out packing out a regular grocery store list? There must be some middle ground. Don't say jerky.

I don't want to live on jerky for days if I don't have to. Plus that seems pretty savory and aromatic. Not to mention the Metamusil it'll take to make that worth it!

Don Fischer · « **Reply #1 on:** December 31, 2006, 03:11:54 PM »

There's been a million ways tried to hide scent from boiling clothes in pine neddles to hanging in the barn for days. Then some bright guy out of work thought he could sell hunters stuff to hide their scent and the rest is history. Try this, get a wiff of yourself befor applying the scent blocker and then after, what's the difference? I've never tried it so I wouldn't know and not using it has never seemed to change my luck. I rather think that schrude salesmen can sell hunters anything if they can convince them they'll gain some advantage. Look at camoflage. Take a dull green and brown flannel shirt and hange it on a bush along side a camo shirt. Now get back a bit and take a black and white photo of them and you'll see what most animals see, if animals are color blind as I've been led to believe. You'll pay $100 for a good camo set up, $7.99 for a flannel shirt from the Wal-Mart! Throw in a pair of tie dye jeans and your set!

I don't know where your hunting and what animals it is your worried about sharing your grub with but it's easy to fix. Just keep it in gunny sacks up in a tree aways from camp. If you need a ham sandwich later at night, just maks one and put it in a dirty sock with scent blocker on it!

Survivor · « **Reply #2 on:** December 31, 2006, 04:58:38 PM »

Beware of those salesmen. I hunt in wool, period. I think I've got some camo hats somewhere. I 'll stick to the tree bag. No biggE. Just figured there may be a lighter may to pack or an interesting method of keeping your clothes critter friendly. There's been a lot of hype over flourecents in detergent. Who knows. Honestly, I pack and go. Again, low maintenance. No worries. People make things complicated I think so that the stakes feel higher. Super Deer may exist out there with night vision and turbo boost but for the most part I think guys have had success across the board with less trouble. Although the flourecent topic has a ring to it that's hard to ignore. I guess that's still the salesmen talking.

Casull · « **Reply #3 on:** December 31, 2006, 07:22:03 PM »

Just keep your nose into the wind. Seriously, my brother-in-law uses all of the scent blocker stuff and hasn't shot a deer in 8 years (I am really starting to feel sorry for him). I'll be hunting within a quarter to a half mile from him and have shot 7 deer in the same period (could have shot a few more, but was waiting for something better). The kicker is that I'm a smoker, and smoke on stand. This past season I had two does bed down about 70 yards from me for about 40 minutes. Didn't really want a doe, but I also knew I would be hunting in another county two weeks later. So, I lit up and decided that if they were still there when I finished, then I would shoot the larger one. And I did exactly that. Fact is, probably half my deer (10 or 12) have been taken while I was smoking or within ten or fifteen minutes after I finished. Drives my brother-in-law crazy when I tell him to light up and he will shoot a deer (he's a non-smoker).

Survivor · « **Reply #4 on:** December 31, 2006, 11:51:53 PM »

I wondered about smoking afield. My uncles a Kool guy. Nice story.

Case in Point.

Don Fischer · « **Reply #5 on:** January 01, 2007, 05:08:35 AM »

Casull,

Do you spray scent blocker on your cigerates or do you boil them in pine neddle water befor you go?

Funny how unbleveable gillible hunters can get. Imagine if you had to use the comfort station in a duck blind. You couldn,t wipe unless you had camo paper and to prepare for the event you'd have to go to the car and put camo paint on your moon!

A good salesman could say this stuff with a straight face.

Ah suvivor, I'm not picking. Seem's like most everyone buy's into the theory that your have to do all these things to hide scent then some guy like Casull comes along and smokes on his stand to prove us all wrong. He's the smart ass!

Casull · « **Reply #6 on:** January 01, 2007, 08:09:59 AM »

Quote

some guy like Casull comes along and smokes on his stand to prove us all wrong. He's the smart ass!

Don, that's exactly what my brother-in-law thinks when I start razzing him.

Have a good year.

SDS-GEN · « **Reply #7 on:** January 01, 2007, 02:27:20 PM »

I wash my clothes in baking soda or oxy-clean and try to stay as scent free as possible but can't see dropping the kind of money they want for a scent blocker suit. I have had plenty of success doing it my way. Just keep the wind right. As for food storage, in grizzly country we pack a small electric fence and have never lost a scrap of food. Otherwise it is stored in a cooler or if it is cold enough a rubber roll top bag. Freeze dried food comes in handy when backpack hunting, check camping stores for this stuff.

dakotashooter2 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 08, 2007, 07:14:15 AM »

I won't say that scent blocker doesn't have some limiting effect but is grossly overrated. I have found that even the modern breathable fabrics are not as "breathable" as one thinks. Quite frankly I have never had good results with breathable fabrics and in fact it seems that I "heat up" more with them than without. And while the scentlock stuff may absorb "some " odor the extra layering it provides may be causing you to produce more odor than normal (seems to be my case) and a lot is going to vent through openings in the cloths. Using the wind seems to be the most effective but a most difficult feat to master as even the smallest change in terrain can cause a drastic change in the wind. I actually find quartering the wind more effective than hunting directly into it and that slight changes or shifts of a quartering wind seem to cause less problems.

Survivor · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2007, 02:53:18 PM »

What is quartering the wind?

Don Fischer · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2007, 07:11:52 PM »

Quote from: Survivor on January 09, 2007, 02:53:18 PM

What is quartering the wind?

Looking straight ahead is 12 o'clock. If your quartering the wind, it's coming from somewhere between 1 and 3 o'clock or 11 and 9 o'clock. The wind is still blowing at you but at an angle.

beemanbeme · « **Reply #11 on:** January 10, 2007, 05:20:37 AM »

Back when I was a smoker, I didn't feel it hurt anything to smoke while hunting and I still don't. Especially while in a tree stand. Ground standing or stalking, I don't think the smoke as such matters if you're doping the wind properly but the extra fidgetting around and moving while lighting and smoking may turn you out to a deer's sharp eyes.

Ranger J · « **Reply #12 on:** January 11, 2007, 04:54:46 AM »

Remember in years past a lot of guys that probably didn’t even bathe very regularly killed a lot of deer. Here is Missouri they almost eradicated the species. The difference was that they knew how to hunt deer. Still as I have had deer spook as soon as they got downwind of me in a stand it doesn’t hurt to stay as clean of sent as possible. I.e. don’t wear the same set of clothes ten days in a row, etc.
RJ

elmer · « **Reply #13 on:** January 12, 2007, 05:15:36 PM »

One point on washing your hunting clothes. From what I have read deer aren't exactly color blind. Their vision is just in a different frequency range than ours. They can't see well in the red / infared range , but see very well in the blue / ultraviolet range. If that is the case you shouldn't use soap with brighteners because they enhance the blue to ultraviolet range (does anyone remember using blueing to brighten whites).

Don Fischer · « **Reply #14 on:** January 12, 2007, 06:38:50 PM »

We used to use blueing up in Montana for late season ducks. The ponds would freeze over and the ducks would land out on Flathead lake. We'd put some blueing in a bucket of water and throw it on the ice. Made it look like open water. You ought to see a duck land on ice thinking it's water!

beemanbeme · « **Reply #15 on:** January 13, 2007, 06:00:29 AM »

Don, is it true that if the first 10 of your most favorite receipes start out "take a pound of ground elk", you must be from Montana?? Or if you buy your kids halloween costumers big enough to go over a snow suit, you must be from Montana? What about if your ski-do has more mileage on it than your car???

Don Fischer · « **Reply #16 on:** January 13, 2007, 07:00:32 AM »

I think you get the picture!!!

dakotashooter2 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 01, 2007, 06:39:09 AM »

Beeman....... How old are you?

? I have not seen the use of the term ski-do to generically describe all snow mobiles, in years. Are you from MN? People look at me funny when I call snowmobiles, snowcats.

beemanbeme · « **Reply #18 on:** February 01, 2007, 11:30:07 AM »

Alaska term. You ought to see me look at NYC'ers that call a 7-11 a bodago.

S.S. · « **Reply #19 on:** March 15, 2007, 04:15:56 PM »

first deer I ever saw my Father shoot, He had a
cigarette in his mouth when he pulled the trigger. I don't care what scent bocker
you have on, a deer can still smell you. Every time I have been "busted" by deer,
it was from me moving at the wrong time..Not from me being odiferous

Mikey · « **Reply #20 on:** March 15, 2007, 05:30:39 PM »

Survivor: I agree with the fellas on the utility of scent blockers - I think it is money that could be better spent elsewhere. The trick is not to poo your pants and sit in it all day - that would probably alert a bigfoot. I have not seen cigarette smoke bother a whitetail as though they recognize it as a human contrivance and therefore dangerous, it is just smoke to them and that is what alerts them, unless they see you fidget about.

Camo is about the same: remember the old style wool black and red check shirt - still seems to work pretty well and the deer don't know what it is. Same with the different earth tones: greens, browns, grays, etc., they all blend in well.

Food: if you're going to be out for a couple of days and need to pack away a couple of meals that won't keep you up at night or make you uncomfortable, consider dry foods you can add water to and heat up. Rice is good, add a few dried veggies and some dried meat for flavor; oatmeals are good as are other dried cereals. I would definately stay away from spicey foods and smokey campfires, they both leave a stink too easily recognized by critters.

You may want to drop on down to the Recipe Forum and see if any of the posters have some good recipes you can take to the field with you. Good Luck and HTH. Mikey.

Buckfever · « **Reply #21 on:** May 10, 2007, 04:36:39 PM »

I live in Minnesota and when I was a kid all the deer hunters would hang their cloths outside for a week ahead of the season. It was usually out in a shed with no animals or under the porch eve. It seemed to work pretty good. Not many people do it anymore because of scent-lok and sprays. They also don't because some people today have no values and started stealing their clothes especially after they got real expensive. I went back to this program in Canadian hunts. Cloths hung outside and I shower in the morning with Dead Down Wind. I have deer sleep under my tree stand and one small buck made a scrape 5 feet away from the ladder! None of the clothes are camoflage. Deer see motion and hear any small noise instantly. I am all old school with hanging the clothes out but that Dead Down Wind shower soap has made me a believer. Buckfever

Ramhunter · « **Reply #22 on:** May 11, 2007, 03:22:45 AM »

Do camo patterns and scent blockers matter? The best advise I've heard is to buy whatever's cheap, then spit on your finger and hunt toward the cool side!

skb2706 · « **Reply #23 on:** May 11, 2007, 05:33:46 AM »

Figuring out whether scent blocker works or not is akin to finding out which dog food tastes best..............to the dog.

Camo was invented when some hapless sole doing his laundry spilt clorox in on his green and brown hunting clothes.

dakotashooter2 · « **Reply #24 on:** May 11, 2007, 09:37:01 AM »

Environment is also a big factor. Game adapts to its environment. In farmland deer get used to smelling fuel and humans and will often ignore them as long as they do not appear threatening. On the fringe of urban areas the human scent drifts in and out as do all other smells associated with humans yet many hunters successfully have harvested game without the latest an greatest scent free gear. It has been my experience that with the exception of game that is high alert it generally takes a triggering of at least two senses to cause game to flee or significantly alter their path. When deer smell something suspicious they don't necessarily flee. They often try to determine the source and unable to do so most often will resume on task.

I also believe that Scent blocking cloths do not offer near the level of scent protection they advertise. Even the best cloths have gaps around the sleeves, waist, neck and etc. While most are advertized as "breatable" the body often produces heat and moisture faster than it can be absorbed or filtered through such cloths. As heat and moisture increases it builds pressure forcing its way through the aformentioned openings. The fact that the heat and moisture may be contained withing the cloths for a longer period may even make one's scent "more potent" when it is released further reducing the effects of the "scent blocking" clothes.

Camo patterns ? Just remember that the pictured in the ads for camo clothing are taken under closely orchestrated conditions to ensure that they "blend" into that particular environment at that particular moment. "That" environment may only be ideal during 5% of the time and conditions when a hunter may be afield. Actually several different patterns placed in different areas of the body may lend itself to better overal blending than any single pattern. I spend nearly all my time stillhunting and in most cases I go with dark on the bottom and lighter shade on top" if" I wear camo. I have worn little or no camo the last 5 years had have seen no difference in the number of times I get "busted". The best thing to do is experiment and go with what works but don't get all wrapped up with any particular product.

*ROCK-MAN* · « **Reply #25 on:** May 13, 2007, 01:50:48 PM »

My father-in-law just turned 90 and I have been huntin with him for about 15 years now.His secret was to place his coveralls in a plastic bag with green pine or cedar needles/limbs.He hunts on the ground with an old brownibg shotgun with buckshot.He does not use a stand or bait and where we hunt the deer are wily.He has more stories of deer kills than I have hairs on my head.
Second part of the question is something we would do for food on hunting or fishing expeditions.Soft flour tortillas with all mixtures of stuff in them.Bacon&egg,sausage&egg,Beef & bean,beef & potato,beef&bean&potato,sausage&egg&potato see where I'm goin?
We'd wrap the individual tacos in aluminum foil and put breakfast in one zip-lock baggie and dinner in another.
Was pretty good for a couple of days but don't know about any longer LOL
Take plenty wipin paper.
G/L
Rock