Scent control on a 7 day backpack hunt.

[Nuke Man]

Ok, so I'm from the Midwest and hunt whitetails. I take scent control very seriously during archery season. I'm doing my first elk hunt this September and was curious what or if your scent control methods are? I know after a few days it won't matter, your going to be stinking. Do you guys wash all your clothes in scent killer type products? Do you spray down every morning? I know playing the wind is going to be pretty much my only option. I still play the wind even with my excessive scent control plan for whitetail.

 

[Brendan]

I'm a whitetail hunter too, and it doesn't matter. Just have to play the wind. I do try to to use body wipes to clean off on a daily basis, but that's just hygiene.

What it comes down to is that you're too active, sweating too much, eating in your hunting clothes, don't have clean clothes every day - scent control just isn't really effective in that scenario.

 

[durangobrad]

Nothing you can do but hunt hard and always have the wind in your favor.

 

[Travis1984]

As said above...

It's not something that even crosses my mind...

 

[justinspicher]

I can't say that I worry about it too much either.

 

[Bar]

As others have said. The wind is all you need for scent control. I don't spend one second in masking my scent, but i'm pretty finicky about wind direction.

Bears have the best noses and I don't do scent control for bear hunting either. We will smell like humans no matter what you do.

 

[mntnguide]

I carry a small bottle of scent killer with me daily to spray down with before a stalk or if I am working a bull, just to try and help if the wind swirls possibly. But, in all reality in elk hunting, you have to play the wind 100%. You are on the ground working the bull, you have the ability to move if the wind moves. Dont try and make a stalk if you think the wind could switch or if it is blowing back and forth already. You can fool an elk's eyes for a short time, but once they smell ya, they are gone!

 

[BroodBuster]

The good news is that an elk stinks much worse than you!

 

[MAT]

The good news is that an elk stinks much worse than you!

True. I can't count the times I was able to discover elk before they knew we were there because they do.

 

[Osprey]

Most guys out west don't really think to much into scent reduction and think therefore its not really needed to some extent i think its true let me explain. Can you kill elk without scent control sure but what does it hurt to do what you can to reduce stink. I live in the midwest and hunt HEAVILY hunted whitetails anyone who tells you you cannot beat a whitetails nose is false but some areas are harder than others to do it in. You absolutly can I've done it maybe not all the time but anyone who questions it just look up john eberhart for a well known hunter who he kills mature michigan bucks on state land and doesn't hunt the wind. It just requires more work than most are willing and some people just naturally stink more so it may still not work. Now with that said elk hunting is different than whitetails as in you don't have access to the same scent reducing luxuries genrally and you will be working up a sweat pretty much daily in the same clothes. Also as a rule of thumb generally areas where animals rarely smell humans are a lot more jumpy at the smell of slight human odor making those animals harder to fool. So in general for Elk your going to need to hunt the wind however minimizing the stink will help, how would it hurt you have soooo many things against you why not do everything you can on what you can control??? Anyways few things that help would be to shave arm pits etc as hair holds stink, obviously take a spongue bath etc when you can every couple days or whatever in a scent free soap or use scent free wipes in the hot areas, big one is don't use scented shampoo soap etc for at least 2 weeks prior to hunt this scent will be absorbed into skin and released when you sweat I actually don't use scented soap period from aug to feb. Also merino base layers this is really big scent reducer. The less stinky you are the less stink your letting swirl around it may give you an extra couple seconds, some scent reducing sprays will help a little as well and you can find ones where you pack a small pack then add water, I would highly suggest smelling any odor reducing stuff prior to use for example dead down wind has an off smell to me I don't use it I think due to its enzyme base. I didn't shower for a week and kept wind in my favor this past year and had Elk within 20 yds sometimes herds so you really don't need to take extreme caution like you would whitetails

 

[Bar]

Osprey.............How about bear hunting? I use no scent control and a bear has a better nose than a whitetail. I have personal reasons for not using scent control which won't apply to many others. The elk can't use scent control, so I won't either. I like to keep the playing field even. No tricks. Both sides using their instincs and senses.

 

[Osprey]

I have not bear hunted so I cannot comment on that but whitetails you can reduce it enough to where they think you are either farther away or to a level they are ok with doesn't always work. You have to remember though midwest tails are smelling humans a lot more often throughout there lives than mtn going critters so I believe this is the #1 reason to them being vulnerable to being beaten in scent. I hunt the wind reguardless but even then a few may get down wind especially when hunting bedding areas or cold calling. Now I don't think you can beat an elks nose especially just due to where and how you hunt them its not really possible to take the same precautions as whitetails and also I feel they are much more sensitive to human scent then whitetails. In other words you can't eliminte your scent 100% its getting to a level there ok with for there environment if that enviremont has no human odor you can't expect to beat em. I understand where your coming from on scent and keeping it even its part of why I bow hunt only for whitetails even in gun season just for the challenge. Everyone has there own personal challenges and the greater the risk for failure the greater the reward.

 

[Poser]

Hunting Whitetails in the East often relies on patterning the animals and/or hunting from a fixed location to intercept their habitual movements. As a result of these fixed locations and habitual animals, your scent, be it blowing in the wind or left On the ground, can often tell the animals what they need to know in order to avoid you. I've done the scent control thing to the extreme before. While I wouldn't go out of my way to make myself smell more like a threat than necessary, there is just no practical way to address scent control when backcountry hunting short of wearing merino base layers, which is more for your comfort than the means of animals smelling you. 2 hours into your backcountry hunt and any scent control efforts you have made are out the window. You're sweaty, your pack straps are sweaty. You are carrying lots of food in your pack. Are you going to de-scent your sleeping bag? What abut our tent? Or the neoprene sleeve on your jetboil?

Practically speaking, you have too many other things to worry about and focus on when backcountry hunting to worry whether or not your armpits stink or if your leather bow release is holding scent. In all practicality, you're going to need to put all of your whitetail scent control practices and obsessions to the side, else your are going to spend too much time trying to deal with a lost cause and carrying too much useless weight associated with it in the form of deodorant, carbon clothing, sprays etc. the tasks involved with mobile style hunting, moving camp, eating, sleeping, drying out socks, and finding animals to hunt is more than enough to keep you busy every minute of every day. The last thing you need to be worried about is trying not to break a sweat, hiking in rubber boots or trying to fit a bath in. You are going to stink by the standards of any elk. Elk smell, too, though. A herd of elk might as well be a herd of cattle. I'll tell you this as well: once I came back from my first backcountry trip out West, I lost any interest I ever had in practicing scent control and it hasn't hurt my whitetail hunting one bit. In fact, it is way more enjoyable and relaxing now that I don't do that. I'd go so far as to advise you against going elk hunting if you are intent on being a super passionate and obsessed whitetail hunter in the future.

 

[yak]

I backpack in a 12oz. bottle of scent killer. I spray myself down every morning and hang my clothes out mid week to get some air flow. Typically out of scent killer by day 6. Also use elk urine to mask my odor, but no matter what, you have to play the wind. My logic is it will help, not hurt my hunt. Not to mention, mid-day in the backcountry can get rather boring if you know where the elk are and don't want to push them out. Gives me something to do if I am back at camp.

Dead down wind also used to make a concentrate powder you can mix with water once your in the backcountry so long as you bring a spray bottle.

 

[Bar]

What do you do about your breath?

 

[Bubblehide]

On one of my hunts, I hunt out of a base camp, I generally make 2 trips in so I can have some comfort items, and meet my hygiene needs. My routine consists of unscented baby wipe, both morning and night. I will also use rubbing alcohol (I use a small spray bottle) at night on my pits, groan, hair and feet. Prior to doing this, I have, what I believe, seen animals wind me. The fact is that the animals we hunt, have a significantly better sense of smell than we do, their olfactory senses are much more developed than ours. Keep in mind that wildlife is attuned in picking out what doesn't belong in their environment, from hearing, vision, and smell.scent. From research we know they key in on the out of the ordinary. Some of the latest research on the hearing of deer finds that they have the same level of hearing as we do, but their ability to separate competing sounds, and pick up on sounds that are not usual in their environment is significantly greater than the human ability. That hearing ability is a survival mechanism, just as their hearing is. If your after prey that makes a living off of it's nose, like bear and pigs, I believe hygiene is even more important. My hygiene process appears to help. I'd say, it can't hurt, other than a little less money in your wallet, and a little extra weight and volume in your pack.

Obviously keeping the wind in your favor is a priority. However, we can see the wind, we cant see the swirls, bends, curves, and we certainly can not see how the landscape and vegetation alters and redirects the wind. Can a person harvest animals without attending to their hygiene, of course they can. But, why would you want to neglect hygiene if it is easily attended to. Granted, you can leave the tent in the morning, and sweat up a storm, and potentially negate any hygiene efforts you made. But today, we have so many options, from the silver tech clothing, to carbon, and so on; all which can help. We have the scent elimination sprays... But body odor can be like water in-that osmosis can carry it up hill. I'm sure many of you have experienced, as I have, a buddy with a week long BO build-up standing down wind from you while your chatting, but you can still smell their stench.

Like our tongs, and animal tongs, which have receptors that detect specific tastes, a deer's nose has groups of receptors that detect specific smells. Any given smell, once picked up by those receptors, triggers a signal in the animals brain. If the signal is associated with food, the animal might salivate, feel hungry... If the animal smells human odor, but is habituated to humans, the animal may not display any reaction, as the smell would be considered neutral. However, if the animal associates the smell with danger, it will undoubtedly trigger an desired reaction from the hunters perspective; triggering a heightened level of alertness, or flight, as in the fight or flight response in humans. The fact that wildlife, deer in particular, [since they are to topic of discussion (yes elk are in the deer family)] have significantly better olfactory senses than we do, and a greater ability to separate and identify different smells, we all as hunters should be concerned with our hygiene.

Habituation: I hunt an area from time to time, fairly close to some houses. The deer in the area are often found in the gardens of those houses (a safe area), but they move about their territory, and go up into the hills behind the houses. The hike up into those hill is pretty arduous. The opening of the season is generally while it is still very hot. So when I do hunt this area, I end up all sweated up. Despite this state of stench, I've had deer walk right up to me, yes including bucks. I have also been sitting, midday, having lunch with hunting partners, chatting it up, with no regard to the hunt, and had bucks just walk up to us. I chalk this up to the animals being habituated to humans, as I don't see this behavior in the deer I hunt in a wilderness area; nope, those wilderness area deer, both does and bucks, behave very differently, moving away from any human sound, smell, or sight.

Sure I've killed plenty of animals after climbing all over God's country, sweated up with a stench wafting up from my body. But I'd rather take every ethical advantage I can, and increase my odds of not spooking the prey I am after.

 

[sneaky]

Stay downwind. ALWAYS

 

[Bar]

Here's the problem. There is no proof that a human can be scent free to an animal. Sure, the companies that push scent products will tell you that you can, or you can dilute your scent so the animal won't be alarmed. That's not true. Any human scent an animal picks up will alert it. You can't ever get rid of smelling like a human.

Nobody ever talks about their breath. Can you stop breathing? That's the only way to keep your breath from giving you away. You can brush your teeth with some scent product and suck on some magic wafer. You'll smell great to your girlfriend, but to an animal every breath you exhale gives you away.

Play the wind for all your worth. If it swirls...back out. It's not your time. Playing the wind properly is much more work and worthwhile than trying to be scent free. You will always smell like a human to an animal that smells 100 times better than you do.

 

[Bubblehide]

Here's the problem. There is no proof that a human can be scent free to an animal. Sure, the companies that push scent products will tell you that you can, or you can dilute your scent so the animal won't be alarmed. That's not true. Any human scent an animal picks up will alert it. You can't ever get rid of smelling like a human.
...

Your correct, nothing will totally eliminate human odor. However, before a signal is sent to the brain (animal or human), there needs to be enough odor detected by those specific receptors within the olfactory canal, otherwise the signal will not be sent to the brain. So in theory, one can dilute their scent to the point the animal will not be alarmed. However, there is no research on deer, elk, bear, pigs...that I am aware of that indicates what that level of dilution would be. However, my experience tells me that the efforts I take help.

Breath, now that is a good point that I have thought about. If your worried about your breath, try brushing with baking soda. But again, as Bar points out, there is no way to totally eliminate human odor.

"Play the wind for all your worth. If it swirls...back out. It's not your time. Playing the wind properly is much more work and worthwhile than trying to be scent free. You will always smell like a human to an animal that smells 100 times better than you do."

^^^^ I can't argue with that, as it is solid advice. However, from my experience, limiting one's scent/odor, is worth the effort.

 

[duchntr]

Just carry this with you.. problem solved lol
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Ozon...=GoogleProductAds&WT.z_mc_id1=03101810&rid=20