“All natural” COVER SCENTS and MASKING AGENTS…

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Marty1

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It’s now raining outside this morning which kinda killed my plans big-time today, so I figured I’d pass a little time on the keys.

Having grown up in the backwoods of Pennsylvania I was always fascinated at a very early age with observing whitetail deer in the wild. After 45 years in the woods I still archery hunt for deer, and every now and then I manage to get lucky enough to take one with the bow ! Over the years I have had much more success simply getting close to deer than I have releasing the arrow. (And yes… I do get busted by the deer… ALL the time). Of the deer I have actually taken with the bow, none of them have ever been farther than 20 yards away. The largest buck I have ever arrowed and harvested was a nice 9-pointer taken only 8 yards away, and have over the years observed a significant number of deer within 10-15 yards of me. I also once took a small 6- pointer at 7 yards. I guess the only point here worth mentioning is that all my close encounters were while I was camo-ed on the ground…and not in a tree stand.

As we all know it’s so hard to get really close to a deer while on the ground. Believe it or not, for me (being an exclusive ground hunter) my biggest obstacle many times is trying to go undetected by motion or sound, rather than worrying about smell. It’s for this reason I thought I might share my pre-hunt ritual that I do to “mask” any of my human-ish smells/odors in order to help me get close to deer without alarming them. In some instances the deer were well aware of my presence, but were not alarmed or spooked by a “strange” or “foreign” smell. Deer are curious-oriented animals. Putting sight and sound aside, unless I’m sweatin’ because it 55 degree out, I have managed to be relatively successful in dealing with the most powerful sense of the whitetail. Just this past 2008 archery season, using pure farm doe urine as a primary attractant, I once again managed on the ground to be within 9 yards of a wide-racked, six-pointer. The buck came to ME twice within a 3 ½ hour period and clearly knew “I” or “something” was there in the bush, but was not spooked. So how did I mask my scent?

Starting from the inside out, I shower daily with antibacterial soap and avoid scented deodorants and shampoos all during hunting season, and I never wear the same garments that touch any part of my skin more than once without first washing them. If you use antibacterial soap daily your skin will form a barrier against a lot of stuff that causes body odor. Everything else (outer clothing, boots, gear, etc.) all gets lumped into the same type of mask treatment. My secret ingredient is “pure cedar oil”. My outer clothing is stored between hunts in a plastic garbage bag with a few drops of cedar oil placed on then after each hunt. When I take them out of the bag to use there is a “slight” aroma of cedar oil on them. I have found that the smell of cedar oil does not alarm most deer, and many times they (often spike-horns) are stupidly curious enough to approach the source of the smell, even if the source of the smell has “slow” movement.

I also use cedar oil as a masking agent during gun season. So if you’re having trouble getting close to deer give the cedar oil a try. Pure cedar oil can be “Googled” and bought in quantities of 8 ounces or more on the internet. A little goes a long way. I have had the same 8 ounce bottle for years.

When the ground is not frozen, another trick I sometimes do near my ground stand is to take my boot toe and heel and literally kick-up and scatter the first 2 inches of the dark topsoil by clearing an area about the size of a scrape (1 foot by 2 foot) 20-30 yards upwind of my stand. For what ever reason deer are also curious about the fresh smell of topsoil. I found this out one October while fall archery hunting in Pennsylvania. So that I could approach my ground stand quietly that evening, that early afternoon I had thoroughly cleared all the leaf litter off my approach path for 50 yards with a hard tooth rake. When I returned only a few hours later the path that I had cleared was literally covered with fresh deer tracks. Every now and then you’ll see the stores carrying “fresh” ? soil scent in a bottle. There’s nothing fresher than creating that smell yourself in the woods.

I’m just sharing my field experiences, and I certainly don’t claim to be any expert by any stretch of the imagination. We all have our own proven, sacred hunting rituals. I also do a tremendous amount of bass fishing, and have found that bass get wise very quick after seeing the same‘ol lure thrown at them day in and day out.. But NOW… throw them something or some color they have never seen before, or put a few drops of anise oil on that soft plastic… and simply get ready to set the hook. I also never buy local deer lure off the store shelf. I buy all my deer lure from out-of-state deer farms.

If you have any unique methods of hunting deer you’d like to share that has worked well for you… of course I’m all ears. I promise I won’t use them where you hunt ! There may be a certain place however for it in my woods of Massachusetts.
 
Good infomation Marty!!!

Now, a few tips from me.

Step 1 - don't pee on your boots by accident then go hunting in them (I actually know someone who did that).

Step 2 - if you use chewing tobacco or snuff, stay away from the mint or exotic flavors. Your spit will carry a very "strange" odor a very long distance.

Step 3 - for some odd reason, whenever I wear old spice deoderant, deer wander my way more often than when I do scentless deoderant.

Step 4 - don't smoke in the woods...bad idea for many reasons.

Step 5 - dump truck beds make excellent field tree stands. Special note, if you every try this, make sure that the rifle muzzle is past the edge of the dump bed before shooting. If you sit in a lawn chair in the middle of the dump bed, then shoot the deer grazing in front of you, the shock wave reverberates around that dump bed like a gong from hell. It hurts...a lot!
 
Old Spice :shock: you got me there...that's definitely a new one.

On the issue of human urine, here's what I found from my experience. It seems to be a neutral smell to deer. They are neither attracted to it nor alarmed by it . The way I look at it, the smell of human urine is not a threat to them for the nine months of the year when they are not being hunted. I believe a deer spooks when it gets wind of something it senses is not "natural". While I don't spray my urine on my ground stand, neither do I go out of my way to to keep it out of my hunting area. If he smells it and he's still alive, then what should he be afraid of? The only time I would go out of my way would be if I were hunting an old Boone & Crockett...because they're just simply anti-social, don't like humans, and hate hunters...period.
 
they say if you pee on your fishing lures it attracts trout. Ive yet to try it.

In all the years ive been allowed to go hunting, we've never used any of that snazzy scent stuff.

Got to remember a lot of the pro's using it often hunt on high fence ranches. I get sick of watching that crap on TV. I still dont understand how these "farm animal" are allowed to get put in the trophy books.
 
The only books those big ranch bucks get put in are the big ranch family photo albums. Game taken from a confined or fenced area are not harvested by the rules of "fair chase", and are therefore not eligible for the "official" records books.

I'll take a fair chase doe any day and call it a great hunt.
 
I'll take a fair chase doe any day and call it a great hunt.
Marty , That sounds like me !
The only thing I do is wash with scent free soap and keep my camo in a bag with some buck lure . Sometimes I'll grab some pine needles off a tree and rub on my clothes . Seems to work for me .
Dale
 
Yes, I've also heard that pine oil works well too(same principle as cedar oil).  Buck lure...I have no doubt that that works.  I've also read a few stories about hunters getting attacked too using it, so be careful!  

Another terrific plant to use as a natural cover scent that is fairly common(at least here in the Northeast is "Sweet Fern", also known as comptonia peregrina.  If you see it along the trail you probably have also smelled it. It is very aromatic. see pic below:
Sweet_Fern.jpg


Just strip off the leaves and rub it on your clothing. The odor is pleasant and will stay with you for hours. :)
 

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