A good post, Konrad. Thank you. And Patrick, your genius shines again! By pouring a quart or so of Diet Pepsi (or cheap beer like Coors) other other carbonated beverage over ourselves before going hunting, we can save a thousand bucks! Just watch your backside for bears, and the flies could get a bit bothersome (esp. with the Coors).

Seriously, to even WANT to try and eleminate all body odor so that we can “just hunt and forget the wind” equals a bold attempt to dumb down hunting to the slobbering idiot level. Happily, it will never happen. What more basic rule for big game hunting can there be beyond “keep the wind in your face and stay downwind of your game.” In fact the only scent we need to worry about minimizing is the residual we leave behind us for hours after we pass through the woods, providing game with a trail of our comings and goings. A few hints. For folks like me who mostly hunt a rescricted area day after day for a month or so, it becomes critical. For those walking around on big public land and always breaking new ground, they can afford to be less concerned. A few hints I’ve used for year for elk. Slight changes will work for deer as well:

As we move through the woods we transfer body scent to vegetation from every body contact. So do all you can not to contact vegetation by stepping over it, going around it, and packing some pocket-sized Fisker garden snippers and clipping limbs across paths you regularly use. Avoid using your hands to move limbs out of the way or lean on trees for balance — a majority of the scent we leave behind comes from our hands. Have a clean body and clean clothes. Use a cover scent on the fronts and outsides of your pants and shirt or jacket arms and use those arms rather than hands to push limbs aside when you move. And don’t forget your shoe laces! How many of us wear “scent proof” rubber boots, such as the beloved LL Bean Maine Hunting Shoe, yet never give a thought to the tremendous amount of scent we transfer to our shoe laces every time we lace up? Use cover scent. Carry a small foam pad to sit on. It keeps your butt warm and dry and keeps scent off the places you sit. And more. I do these things instinctively and manage to hunt dense woods right in amongst ’em and come and go on the same route every day for a month, and never get busted … any more. In the early days I did stupid things like spray waterproofer onto boots and wondered why all the elk disappeared after a few days. This caution is as critical for tree-stand guys as it is for me. This is woodsmanship vs. technology, bogus or otherwise.

I’d enjoy hearing from others about non-technical methods of scent control that work for you. Dave