From: ut-emx!shawn@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Shawn Boyd)
Subject: Re: Neutralizing Scents
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas
Date: 18 Aug 92 08:05:20 CDT
Originator: hunting@osnome.che.wisc.edu


In article <1992Aug14.091446.17889@doug.cae.wisc.edu> robinson@ac.dal.ca writes:
>I'd be very interested in hearing of any experience/opinions/facts
>people have with regards to scent neutralizing products that are
>applied to the skin.  Specifically, I've heard of solutions which
>supposedly kill scent causing bacteria, which sounds good at least.
>Also, I've seen products like Scent Shield's line which claim to
>prevent scent molecules from forming.
>

Some people swear by these.  I do know that wearing scent free clothes
is a very important factor in a successful bowhunt.  The number of
testimonials to this from highly successful hunters is legion.  Some
advocate scent neutralizer sprays others swear by masking scents.
While masking scents have been in use a long time, I for one don't use
them.  Skunk?  Fox urine?  "Essence of Estrus Cycle?"  Gack.  Yuck.
Phewwww.  Essence of diaper pail?  Not!  I have heard a couple of
hunters (but not many) deny the fact that these things work...
especially on the notoriously difficult, paranoid-schizophrenic,
string jumpin' whitetail deer.  But then whitetails are completely
unpredictable.  A good friend likes to say, no matter what the smell
is, "they just don't like anything different."

How the hell those things ever get hit by a car I'll never know.  You
can climb in a tree, sit over a hundred pounds of corn, and turn blue
holding your breath trying to be quiet to get one within range, and
never see a durn thing.  But get in a rattly ole, stinky, smoke
belching pickup, turn on the high beams and tool down the highway with
a hole in your muffler and missing on three cylinders, and they'll
jump out in front of you to commit hara-kiri on your bumper.  Go
figure.  Maybe we should just strap on cardboard sillouhuettes of
pickups and go run through the woods yelling vrroooom! vrroooom! honk!
honk!  You'd probably limit out on opening day.  They'd hafta outlaw
it.

I guess deer don't look upon pickups as a threat.  Pickups don't hunt.
Humans do, and deer definately don't like having us around.  While I
don't use a masking scent on the (perhaps limp) theory that all you
get with masking scents is an extra stinky smelling human, I do use a
scent neutralizer from time to time.  I do this because, almost
unanimously, the hunters I know acknowledge masking scents and scent
neutralizers as effective hunting aids, and I am bowing to their
admittedly superior knowledge.  However, I haven't found them to make
all that much difference.  The last javelina hunt I was on (and those
critters rely on their nose to make their living rooting around for
food, they sure as hell can't see worth a damn) my buddy was so ripe,
when he got home after the fourth day of the hunt, his wife wouldn't
kiss him and his little dogs didn't recognize him.  But he limited out
with two kills that hunt.  Our whole group was pretty ripe.  I mean
downright stinky, and our kill ratio that trip was a phenomenol 125%.
Unheard of.  I dunno... maybe we just smelled like the targets, and
they didn't know we were around.

Irregardless of my admittedly rather cavalier attitudes towards
masking scents and neutralizers, I can say that it is absolutely true
that you should not use body soaps or laundry detergents that have any
sort of perfumes in them.  I personally cycle ALL my camo through the
washer three times without any detergent at all.  There is, after all,
some residual detergent in the machine after each wash.  Ditto for the
dryer, so drip dry your camo.  Either that or talk your significant
other into not using soap in the washer?  Nope.  I don't think that's
going to happen.

For gawdsake don't use scented deodorants or aftershave.  One guy I
know jumped in the truck on the way out to the lease with enough Aqua
Velva on to titillate ten thousand "fabulous babes" (if the old
commercials are to be believed).  He smelled like a topless dancer.
You coulda' left the dogs at home and still tracked him through a
rainstorm.  No one said anything, but he hunted alone that day.  I
think we all got a little bit perfumed up just riding with him.

Some say that the same is true for what you eat as well.  I'm not real
big on the "what-you-eat-makes-a-difference-theory" but I do know some
some guys who go totally vegetarian several days before a hunt.
Fruit, rice, potatoes and mild vegetables.  I don't go that far, but I
do avoid things like garlic, which have a particularly strong smell.
Certain other odor producing foods, such as beans and brussel sprouts
can also have the discomforting effect of either making the vicinity
of your stand particularly odiferous, or otherwise causing you to at
least WANT to make it odiferous -- noisey too.  :-)

Other forms of (uh... how shall I put this?) perfectly natural
biological, but odor producing behaviors, are also to be avoided at
all costs around game trails and blinds or stands.  If you can't "hold
it" in your blind, take a gallon milk jug with you.  One with a tight
cap.  Moral of story -- no peeing on the game trails, and (my personal
all time favorite bumper sticker) no farting in the tree stand.

One final note.  No smoking when you hunt.  Period.  Alcohol of any
kind is also a bad idea (for multiple reasons beyond odor) until at
least after the hunt.  I can smell beer and tobacco from yards away.
That means a whitetail or any other wild animal can smell it from the
next continent.

>Mostly what I'd like to know is if these are necessary if one is
>washing one's self in scent free soap?  Do they really work?

In summary... I personally don't put much faith in scent maskers and
neutalizers, but far better hunters than I disagree, almost too many.
What can I say?  I must be wrong.  So, in deference to that notion, I
will use a scent neutralizer, but I can't say that any of my
experience bears out what I've heard about them.  I suppose I also
might use a scent masker, as long as it didn't make me smell like I
just fell in the cat box.  That means I guess I might use apple or
acorn scent.  I positively will not wear skunk or urine scents, and
although you supposedly can't smell doe estrus scents that much, I
won't use those either.  Not that they're all that offensive -- I just
don't want all those ruttin' bucks talkin' about me.

I can say this for sure... none of them will make any difference at
all if you ignore the other common sense factors mentioned above.

>-- 
>John Robinson                  

Shawn Boyd


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