Ozonics/Ozone generator and clothing in the treestand

[ajkelley]

Hey everyone,

First time posting here and hoping to get some input from folks.

I've been looking at picking up an ozone generator for use in the treestand but I've also been reading about how it can degrade gear/clothing and wanted to see what the up to date information on this topic was (most posts are several years old). I understand that in a high concentration ozone can degrade rubber and elastic but most of the posts discussing this are mainly discussing putting gear into an ozone bag but not from the point of view of using the device in a treestand. If you have used ozonics, or one of the other ozone generators, in a treestand have you noticed any impact on your gear?

Also, it appears that Sitka made changes to their gear a couple of years ago to make it more compatible with ozone and to not be impacted. Does anyone have experience with the latest gear from Sitka or other brands and if ozone is causing issues for it?

Thanks!

 

[spike camp]

Ozone won’t degrade elastic or rubber, while in a tree.
It has that affect on those materials while in ozone closets, but not in an open air environment.

To that end, ozone in an open air environment, will have no impact in relation to your ability to destroy the gasses and bacteria you’re emitting to any appreciable degree, so that it would impact your success.

 

[ajkelley]

Thanks spike camp! That was what I was thinking since it wasnt concentrated and also wouldnt have direct contact with those areas necessarily.

 

[Blearning13]

I would suggest saving your money and learning how to play the wind. Milkweed is free and will actually teach you about what the wind is doing instead of wasting money trying to fool a deer's nose.

 

[Honyock]

I would suggest saving your money and learning how to play the wind. Milkweed is free and will actually teach you about what the wind is doing instead of wasting money trying to fool a deer's nose.

^^^What he said. Buy a $4 bottle of wind checker and learn to hunt the wind. If the scent free things worked, every drug cartel would be using it. IMHO the biggest mistake a lot of new hunters make, is thinking the scent free spray etc. will let you hunt when the wind is at your back.

 

[signing off]

^^^What he said. Buy a $4 bottle of wind checker and learn to hunt the wind. If the scent free things worked, every drug cartel would be using it. IMHO the biggest mistake a lot of new hunters make, is thinking the scent free spray etc. will let you hunt when the wind is at your back.

I would suggest saving your money and learning how to play the wind. Milkweed is free and will actually teach you about what the wind is doing instead of wasting money trying to fool a deer's nose.

The milkweed for the win.
It is visible and drifting on wind/thermals many many feet away from your position.

I had a buck approaching my tree stand and without any other tool but milkweed, I knew the shot would not happen. At the approximate location I expected him to scent me, he did.
But it was a success because I KNEW. I knew where my scent was. And that is all anyone could ask for.

 

[dtrkyman]

Ozone is the only scent control measure I have seen work, yes it is limited in an open air environment but I have absolutely seen it work.

I have never hunted in a hard side blind but guy's I managed land for did religiously and I watched from a distance while they had deer 360, open one window so you are not breathing ozone all day and aim the machine out that window, insanely effective.

Works really well in a ground blind also.

We had an Ozone changing room with a generator running 24/7, that combined with Ozonics in the field drastically reduced us getting busted.

FYI I have never owned an Ozonics, just used their old units, am the biggest skeptic of scent control products ever, after trying everything over 30 years and none of it working I was shocked at how well ozone works.

 

[Thess87]

Ozone is the only scent control measure I have seen work, yes it is limited in an open air environment but I have absolutely seen it work.

I have never hunted in a hard side blind but guy's I managed land for did religiously and I watched from a distance while they had deer 360, open one window so you are not breathing ozone all day and aim the machine out that window, insanely effective.

Works really well in a ground blind also.

We had an Ozone changing room with a generator running 24/7, that combined with Ozonics in the field drastically reduced us getting busted.

FYI I have never owned an Ozonics, just used their old units, am the biggest skeptic of scent control products ever, after trying everything over 30 years and none of it working I was shocked at how well ozone works.

Agree

 

[ajkelley]

Thanks everyone for the replies! Good to see the information from both sides.

While I agree that playing the wind is always first and foremost it is always good to look for improvements. I've hunted for over 20 years and I am still amazed at how some of your best laid plans can fail, but that is just how hunting goes.

As for the ozonics unit I didnt end up picking one up but my buddy did. Ill wait and see what his experience is this season and reevaluate afterwards.

 

[Long Cut]

I was always in the “Hunt the Wind” camp.

Spent thousands of hours over the course of several years in the stand, utilizing milkweed to check my wind. Almost every time I had a mature buck pegged down with the intel from trail cameras, scouting etc.. without fail, around “closing time” the thermals would shift in the direction I anticipated him to come from.

Fast forward to December of 2019, I bought a used Ozonics HR300 on the Archery Talk forums.

September of 2020 I was hunting private land over a feeder. I had groups of 10-20+ does, bucks etc hitting this feeder. It was the perfect environment to test if any form of “scent control” was going to work.

My access, wind etc to this stand overlooking the feeder should have been perfect…. But whenever a breeze kicked up, my scent would swirl around the feeder.

So the first 3 hours, I hunted in a tree stand without the Ozonics unit. Deer would come in to feed for a couple of minutes, the breeze would kick up and they’d all run off blowing and stomping.

After a while, I turned the Ozonics unit on the normal setting. Pointed at a 45 degree angle down over my head. The deer came back in to feed, the breeze would kick up and they’d all pick their heads up and look around for a second. After about 10-30 seconds the deer resumed feeding without a care in the world.

Around 8PM a very large, mature doe with 2 fawns came in. She was by far one of the largest doe I’ve ever seen. Immediately she was on edge and kept walking around. She blew a couple of times and ran off all of the other deer. Eventually she kept circling around the area, trying to figure out what the scent was. After probably 10-15 minutes of this, she walked to the base of my tree, then towards the feeder. She offered me a 7 yard shot and I took her.

Overall I lost count somewhere around 24 deer in that evening sit. All within a 20-40 yard range of me. Bucks, does, fawns etc.. Of all of those deer, only 1 very mature doe acted spooked with the Ozonics unit running.

I say all of this to say, based off of my experiences… I believe Ozonics to work. I have replicated the results time and time again. They’re all essentially the same as this one particular September evening.

 

[DangerRanger]

The best thing for scent reduction imo in tree stands is to go high as shit. You get 25+ feet up and you can smoke and kill deer

 

[The_Dinkmaster]

Im in both camps. I think ozone certainly helps cut down on your scent. I have never used one in the field but about 4 or 5 years ago I bought a cheap ozone diffuser off of Amazon and started storing my clothes in a large plastic tub. I would turn the diffuser on and let it run in the tub for about an hour or so the night before and morning of whenever I was hunting. I started noticing getting busted by deer much less often.

That said, I still play the wind to the best of my ability. However, I hunt mountainous terrain and the wind is impossible to predict and does crazy things. Unless there is a pretty stiff breeze the wind tends to shift very often in the mountains, so Ill take every advantage I can get.

And with that said, I still dont have enough faith in it to buy an Ozonics diffuser. I think most mature bucks will beat it 90% of the time, and I just dont think its worth the money and more importantly the WEIGHT of carrying one in to my set. However, if I found a good deal on one I would probably pull the trigger just to see. An advantage is an advantage, no matter how small.

 

[Rich M]

Thanks everyone for the replies! Good to see the information from both sides.

While I agree that playing the wind is always first and foremost it is always good to look for improvements. I've hunted for over 20 years and I am still amazed at how some of your best laid plans can fail, but that is just how hunting goes.

As for the ozonics unit I didnt end up picking one up but my buddy did. Ill wait and see what his experience is this season and reevaluate afterwards.

I'm not sure what camp you are in with regard to hunting. I subscribe to having as many "first hunts" as possible. The first time you hunt an area is the highest odds that you will see or get a buck.

The deer can smell you walking trail for a week and for all we know it is lit up all neon yellow in the woods. Where I hunt the deer will not cross "fresh" human scent and then backtrack and leave. Have watched them do that. They don't come back the next day either.

So, on a 3-day hunt I have 4 or 5 spots picked out to hunt based on wind and potential for other folks messing things up.

 

[WCB]

waste of money. Maybe use one to descent clothes at home/camp whatever. But out in the open...eh. Also, in an enclosed blind ok maybe but I consistently have deer all around, under, up wind, downwind etc of box blinds no issues. Even in ground blinds late season, when deer here in the upper midwest bolt at the thought of a sound or smell, have deer feet from my blind and aren't busting deer out. I have a buddy that used them for 3 or 4 years out of ground blinds and saw no difference in deer interactions and jsut got sick of hauling them out to the blinds.

But I suppose if you get an Ozonics, some HECS clothing, and chew some scent killer gum you'd disappear.

 

[Dexter Grayson]

Been busted using mine. Not sure it’s a gimmick, but it’s also a pain to set up.

 

[mobohunter]

First time I used an ozone bag, I had deer all over me, not a care in the world. I do scent crush my gear during season every other day or so, careful around suspender and elastic. I've only had a problem with some inexpensive bibs. I've also heard similar results to @Long Cut story, but still haven't felt the need to pull the trigger on one yet.

I think playing the wind is essential, but does Ozonics give you 1-5% advantage, maybe more in certain situations, sure. Is the price tag and % gain good enough for you? If so buy it, if not pass and just play the wind.

 

[Long Cut]

Here’s the video that sold me on Ozonics. RIP Todd Pringnitz but he demonstrated perfectly with a mature buck downwind of his position, with milkweed hitting the buck in the face.

Most guys will attempt to downplay it by saying “the bucks in the rut” or whatever.. but the fact of the matter is you can actually see the milkweed hitting the bucks face, the buck has a reaction but it’s more out of curiously than anything else, which is the typical reaction I’ve personally noticed when using Ozonics.

I say all of that to say, I do not care whether you use Ozonics or not, just keep an open mind and do not bash a product that you haven’t personally used yourself.

 

[BigSkyHntr]

Lol some of you ‘play the wind’ guys will never change your minds- and that’s ok! I agree playing the wind is obviously the best route when possible. But I don’t think it’s always realistic.
I hunt MT and for elk hunting/ spot n stalk no I don’t think trying to stay scent free is realistic or worth messing with.
However I love hunting early season (archery) whitetails in river bottoms of Eastern MT. I have had decent luck playing the wind and ‘kind of’ trying to keep my scent down and using Nose Jammer (which I will definitely argue works to an extent) but still got busted occasionally.

The thing with river bottoms is you might have a prevailing wind most of the time but in my experience that hour of ‘prime time’ at sunset/ sunrise there is often no wind and the thermals are just floating around every which way making it impossible to always be downwind.

Last year I decided to get more serious about the scent thing and bought a Scentlok suit and borrowed a friends Ozonics.
I always changed into the Scentlok out of the truck and kept the clothes outside in a scent free bag when not in use. I’ve been as skeptical about Scentlok etc. as the next guy but decided why not?
And something definitely worked! I didn’t get busted a single time while using the Ozonics and wearing Scentlok.. not sure if one was more important than the other but the combination worked, and made me a believer!

This was in a spot that I was hunting a crossing but it is literally impossible to stay downwind of every deer that comes out as they come from all over. Like others have said, some of the downwind ones would sniff around curiously but never blew and always went on their way.
Now I’m sure I’ll probably get busted at some point by a wise old doe or buck but to me if I can fool those 80% of “young n dumb” deer that always come out first then it is absolutely worth it, and better than having them blow and alerting that old buck that’s back there waiting til last light to come out.

As for ozone treating clothes I did a couple rounds with no issues but probably didn’t do enough to tell for sure if it would do damage..

Edit to add: this was tree stand hunting.

 

[gjs4]

Ozonics in a ground blind is deadly (and a blessing if you hunt with your young kids).

 

[Tboned]

^^^What he said. Buy a $4 bottle of wind checker and learn to hunt the wind. If the scent free things worked, every drug cartel would be using it. IMHO the biggest mistake a lot of new hunters make, is thinking the scent free spray etc. will let you hunt when the wind is at your back.

What if every drug cartel is using it?

I'm not sure what camp you are in with regard to hunting. I subscribe to having as many "first hunts" as possible. The first time you hunt an area is the highest odds that you will see or get a buck.

The deer can smell you walking trail for a week and for all we know it is lit up all neon yellow in the woods. Where I hunt the deer will not cross "fresh" human scent and then backtrack and leave. Have watched them do that. They don't come back the next day either.

So, on a 3-day hunt I have 4 or 5 spots picked out to hunt based on wind and potential for other folks messing things up.

Mock scrape I made about 6 hours earlier. No scent control. Bare hands to bend the branches.