I do a shower with scent free soap and use clothes washed in scent free detergent. Spray my boots before walking to stand with home made scent away spray. I do all of this to minimize my impact on the area after I’m don’t hunting so that I don’t leave behind as much of a scent trail. I don’t believe that I will ever fool a deer’s nose. I always hunt with the wind.

I have a friend that believes if you take a bath in brand name scent away you can do whatever you want and hunt the wrong wind.

What do you believe?

Like you I do what I can to minimize scent, but I believe you can't 100% beat their sense of smell.

No.

Yup

No, I hunt the wind.

Scent free is impossible. About the only thing I do is make sure my hunting boots never touch anything but hunting land. For everything else I put my nose into the wind and hunt.

Nope

The only thing that works is using the wind .

the wind in your face ^^^^^^^^^

Scent free no, You have no chance against an animal that can smell you on a molecular level.


Playing the wind and thermals in your favor or waiting for a rut crazed buck is what has worked for me. You can fool their ears you can fool their eyes but you can’t fool their nose.


The big old ones generally don’t make many mistakes outside of the rut.

I do none of that

I used to use all of that scent free soap and wash my hunting clothes in scent free detergent and spray scent killer on before I went to the stand.

I don’t fool with any of that stuff now. I just try pay attention to the wind and thermals. Heck I have even got to where I sit around the camp fire in my camouflage now. I had an older guy tell me campfire smoke kills other odors and the smell of a camp fire won’t spook deer. No idea if there is any truth to that.

^^^This.

I do my best to minimize scent in the woods, including using scent free shampoo and spraying my clothes with scent killer. But there is no way to be completely scent free on the stand, so I play the wind as best as I can.

I definitely believe that smoke is the best cover scent. If I had an opportunity - I always hung my clothes around an open fire and crushed and rubbed pine needles on my clothing.

However, I am very confident that Bustinbeards is absolutely spot on - scent free is impossible and the fact that we are constantly shedding skin cells and hair, we don't stand a chance against an animal's nose.

You can wash,dip ,spray,ozone or what else you wanna try and use and you will not beat a deers nose. Now does some it help yeah I think washing your clothes in some scent free soap is good and washing your butt in scent free soap is good, but you still have to hunt the wind

I used to use all that stuff. I just hunt the wind and see plenty of deer.

Guys, it's all about Parts Per Million of scent. You can smell a 5 lb bucket of chit easily, but you can't smell 5 oz of chit unless your nose is right over it. I don't believe in "scent free" but I understand scent "reduction". The best you can do is scent reduction to put less PPM of scent in the air. Do I think scent reduction (shower in scented-free soap; wash clothes in scent free soap, etc...) works in those cases where a deer gets a wind swirl of scent from your direction. It's that, "Did I just smell something?", and he sniffs and pulls in as much air as he can to confirm his inkling but doesn't get a confirmation. You got away with your scent because you were as scent reduced as possible.

Now, the guy that fried bacon in his hunting clothes and lets his wife wash his hunting clothes in Tide... his PPM are going to be higher and that little swirl of wind carries MUCH more PPM of scent and when that buck gets that swirl of wind, there's no question in the buck's mind that there is a human over there or somewhere close and he gets outta there!!

In a straight downwind situation... NOTHING works!!!!!!!!!

To ad to my previous post... hunting the wind doesn't always work. I can't tell you how many times the FORECASTED "North" wind changes and starts coming out of the South!!!!! ... and then the East, etc... So, in those cases, hunters that have "reduced" their scent stand a better chance at killing a mature buck than the hunter who doesn't care about his scent and hunts the wind.

Steady winds are great... but my luck produces changing wind direction. I'm constantly floating cottonball fibers from my stand to see what the wind is really doing and I just shake my head in frustration as those fibers float in directions. Sigh!!!