Scent Elimination/ Care

[TWard]

Just was gifted a garage closet with shelfing to store all my hunting stuff as you all know... what does one more piece of clothing hurt, or gear at that matter. It has shelving, clothes bar, etc.

My question to you fellow hunters is... The closet is musty from being closed for awhile. I don't want to just go in there and clean it with cleaner that smells.

Is there a product that I could place inside that would take away the musty smell but not scent my clothes and gear up with some sort of human like smell that wouldn't transfer well in the field?

I'm not finding a product that completes this feat. I am looking for something that would last a while. Like maybe, I could put it in there and leave it, and it would knock the must down initially, and ensure it doesn't return.

Help! Thanks!

 

[VuduDoc]

Is there a product that I could place inside that would take away the musty smell but not scent my clothes and gear up with some sort of human like smell that wouldn't transfer well in the field?

IMO, no. Those scent wafers (think car air freshener) are cover scents. They mask human odor with a strong naturally occurring odor (pine needles, dirt, etc.) Certain sprays are this way too. Cover scents vs scent eliminating.

If you’d want to get rid of the must I’d say it probably needs cleaned well. Jug of hot water, a DIY cleaner like cleaning vinegar + dawn + a little lemon juice for the smell if you want; should clean it up well. Leave it open and let it off-gas/air out for a while.

If there’s a small scent that remains look for some sort of activated carbon scent absorber. That’s what I’d recommend for a hunting wardrobe anyways. Activated carbon will grab scent particles. They’ll need replaced fairly frequently if you want them to actually work.

 

[xglosses]

Totally agree with the basic clean down with vinegar and dawn. What is the closet shelving material? Wood? Metal? Are the clothes hanging or sitting on a shelf?

I'd also put a fan in it to help it dry, get some fresh air circulating in there. If it's really musty and you have the ability, I'd put it outside on a sunny, dry day.

 

[Texasbuckeye]

try ozone generaters. They have some really inexpensive ones for like 100 bucks that work super well in a closet and will knock the smell right out of the thing.

I use an ozone gen in each of my hunting clothing closets during the seaons and they keep smells off my clothes quite well.

scent crusher makes some good stuff, I just ran an extension cable into my closets from below and wrapped it around the top hanger rack and let the unit hang. They last about a year or so and then will stop working, so I got new ones from amazon last year and they were good for the 30-50 dollars I spent on them.

 

[K9kodi]

If it was my closet I’d loook at why it’s musty. Is there water damage? If not and it’s just an area with high humidity and no airflow, I would put in an electric dehumidifier, a fan to move air at a minimum.
Def clean the walls and floor first though.

 

[VuduDoc]

The frustrating thing about scent control is the moment you pull something out of it's controlled environment it'll start picking up scents. Fire up the truck and go grab your stuff out of the garage closet? Exhaust/garage smells. Sit in some of your layers on the way to your parking spot? Human odors.

They make those portable climate control bags/folding "closets" to keep your clothes isolated until you get out of your truck but idk. Haven't taken it that far. I like traveling to my spots in my base layers just for a more expedited entry to the wild ha.

The portable ozone generators might have some merit in the field but its more crap to pack, carry, setup and tear down...

It's pretty much an exercise of futility. Fwiw, I do think its a spectrum so minimizing exposure to scent is better than not, imo.

Scent free/scent eliminating detergents, stored in controlled environment with scent preventing/absorbing methods, and sprayed in the field with a scent eliminator or cover scent is what I do.

@TWard, keep us posted on how your new man-armoire turns out.

 

[K9kodi]

The previous post hit the nail on the head. Things like that you want controlled are only controlled while you can control them. Haha.
I train dogs for a living, professionally, and work them. When I started getting really deep into training years ago, specifically for the odor aspect of dog training, be it detection work or finding the man work, what I found was, it is virtually impossible to eliminate human odor. There are things we can do to reduce odor for sure, but covering it and or eliminating it doesn’t happen. Once I got heavy into dog training I realized that utilizing cover scents is a joke, and doesn’t work. Deer are prey animals, and by design they have more scent receptors and a larger brain area for assessing odor and valuing said odor. It all comes down to suspicion, curiosity and fear and whichever outlook they place with the associated odor. Iow, if a deer smells a human and each time they smell a human they are rewarded with high value food, it’s a good thing. If the odor is something they havnt connected with a trait yet, they may be curious, specifically your young deer due to lack of experience / exposure, they may be curious. If nothing bad happens to them they may ignore it in the future, if they get shot at and live its a bad experience, or shot at and harvested, well that’s that.
I guess by understanding on odor is specific to canine olfactory, understanding deer are better suited for odor as prey, the same would translate, but they would just be more sensitive. The example I give in demos is old but carries an easy understanding. When mom bakes a cake and we walk in the house it smells like a good cake, hopefully. Haha. For a dog to smell the same thing they can smell each and every ingredient. So, using cover scents, say fox urine or such, even doe in heat , the animals and deer around you will smell you and the cover scents. The goal is for bucks to be in rut and not care about the human odor, but rest assured, if they can smell the cover scent they can smell the human. This is why I always try to wear clothes that wick moisture vs hold it, I use clothes like cotton and cotton gauze when I’m training dogs bc it captures and holds human odor so well.

The best advice is to clean your clothes as best as possible with non scented , non brightener detergent and HUNT THE WIND. Even if it means not going to your fav spot that evening, don’t blow up the spot.

I try to eliminate as many foreign un natural odors as possible. I see value in attractant scents , but if I was to use them it would be during the rut only. I firmly believe that those woods have been untouched by man for a long time, I hunt heavy travel corridors, if there’s a new scent, even if I use animal scent, if it’s brand new the day I’m hunting, I wouldn’t doubt it if it’s enough to cause suspicion to the degree they slightly alter their patterns. Be minimalistic, sneak in, sneak out and act like you were never there. Of course hunting locations vary, there are spots on the farm I hunt I don’t mind making more noise or smelling a little more bc it’s next to a state trail that people walk daily and talk and ride bikes and horses, but then the deer are acclimated to that area being that way. Srry, too much info in rant form

 

[K9kodi]

I’m also skeptical of the ozone machines.
We have one at work for equipment and when that thing is on you can smell the ozone. Granted it’s a huge machine, but remember deer smell at a very very very larger scale than us. We had one growing up in the house, and I could smell when it was on. It smells Ike the air right after a heavy lightning storm. I’m not saying it’s a bad product bc I’ve never used it or tried it, hell I’ve never held one, but I go back to my last, it’s a diff and another odor that we as humans just injected into their habitat. And if it’s placed above your head, it’s only gonna affect any odor that carries up. Hair, skin cells, other odor is always still dropping.
Unless your in a tube with the only exit of air is through the ozone machines, it’s not eliminating al of your odor. It just makes me squirly. Just hunt the wind

 

[E.Shell]

The frustrating thing about scent control is the moment you pull something out of it's controlled environment it'll start picking up scents. Fire up the truck and go grab your stuff out of the garage closet? Exhaust/garage smells. Sit in some of your layers on the way to your parking spot? Human odors.

They make those portable climate control bags/folding "closets" to keep your clothes isolated until you get out of your truck but idk. Haven't taken it that far. I like traveling to my spots in my base layers just for a more expedited entry to the wild ha.

The portable ozone generators might have some merit in the field but its more crap to pack, carry, setup and tear down...

It's pretty much an exercise of futility. Fwiw, I do think its a spectrum so minimizing exposure to scent is better than not, imo.

Scent free/scent eliminating detergents, stored in controlled environment with scent preventing/absorbing methods, and sprayed in the field with a scent eliminator or cover scent is what I do.

@TWard, keep us posted on how your new man-armoire turns out.

Agreed, especially the "futility" part.

Adding cover scents is like adding creme to coffee - it's still coffee. What about your breath? What about that column of scent that's boiling off your body and leaking out of your clothes?

The wind is the key; if you're downwind, they CAN'T smell you, if you're upwind, they WILL smell you. The best you can hope for is to mask your scent enough with something local and natural that if there is a little twist in the wind and they catch the tiniest whiff, they mistake the ID, but they're not as dumb as many seem to think.

Some friends I bowhunt with put their hunting clothes in a tote, interleaved with pine branches. They smell like Christmas, it's very pleasant. They store them in the closed tote and just put them on when they're ready to head to the woods. I don't think they kill any more deer than I do, but it does provide confidence.

I don't bother. I can't tell you the number of times I've put down a lit cigarette to kill a deer with my bow.

 

[Swamp Fox]

Clean it, air it in the sun for a month, ozone it, then smoke it.