scent masking

[Raymond Coffman]

#3538

There is an interesting article in the latest F&S where in – the author ran a test with a Sheriffs office K9, to see if the latest scent masking techniques/products could keep a human hidden from the dog. It didn’t. In fact the dog got faster at detection. Started with Bad BO at 20secs to discovery to full clean/ masking products at 13 secs. I thought the dog would find the person under all circumstances but was amazed the scent products did not even slow him down. Interesting if not definitive. I was surprised they printed it.
Scout.

[skifrk]

#21150

Its really no surprise given how good a dogs nose is. So I will then use the wind in my favor and not buy a gimmick.

[Raymond Coffman]

#21162

skifrk –
My sentiments exactly – but interesting to see a test. I would be curious to know what difference in acuity of dogs scenting ability vs deer/ elk ?
scout

[Homer]

#21356

Cyberscout — Thanks for this interesting info summary. I too am surprised they printed it. They must not have a lot of high-end scent product ads. I’m not at all surprised at the results, either. So far as scent ranking, I believe it would run like bear, dog, deer. Nonetheless I will always believe in staying clean and as naturally odorless as possible, as it’s not only the immediate impact of wind notifying game of our presence, but also the scent trails we make walking around and touching stuff with our hands, boots and gear. Homer

[Raymond Coffman]

#21369

Homer –
I also will continue and try to remain as odorless as posible – cut down the range of detection, hopefully. I started Bowhunting in 69/70 and one of the recomendations to cut our odor was Zinc tablets which I used. I don’t know if it did any good, made me feel more ghostlike —haha
Scout.

[MCuiksa]

#21454

cyberscout wrote: skifrk –
My sentiments exactly – but interesting to see a test. I would be curious to know what difference in acuity of dogs scenting ability vs deer/ elk ?
scout

Deer/elk have a keener sense of smell than an AVERAGE dog. The trained nose of a police dog can nearly rival one in my estimate. A typical dog has 230 million olfactory receptors. Elk/deer have 280 million (+/-). As humans, we have 5 million. The ability to pickup scent is not necessarily linear so 230 vs 280 is not a huge difference…add in the special training a police dog receives and I don’t think you’d see a difference – especially for us traditional guys….busted at 20 yards is still busted at 20 yards. A rifle hunter might see a slight advantage with the stuff because it can make a hunter that is 300 yards away seem like it’s 350-400…maybe that’s enough for some fool to squeeze off a bad shot.
Good Hunting, Mike.
I’m new to the website. Picked up a copy of TBM 6-8 years ago and have been hunting traditional ever since. Sorry for using my name as my screen name, I thought I’d get to pick a cool name like you guys once I signed up for the forums. I live in Indiana and haven’t hunted out of state yet. BUT, I’ve got an elk hunt planned the end of Sept and a combo lion/bear hunt the end of Nov….I’m not getting any younger so I’ve got to knock these off my bucket list.

[Homer]

#21472

M — welcome here under any name. Actually, lots of guys here use their real names, or one of them (like Homer, for example) and the moderators early on encouraged that,feeling that real names make for more gentlemanly (and womanly?) exchanges. In any event your precise info on comparative animal sense of smell is, to me anyhow, fascinating. Can you tell us where bears fit in here? I’ve heard that grizzlies have a better sense of smell even than black bears. We’re all getting older, even the youngsters among us. 😳

[MCuiksa]

#21496

Homer, thanks for the welcome. The table I have is from my daughter’s college Advanced Biology book and it lists “Bears” (Just as it listed “Deer”). No further breakdowns by sub-species is given. It lists bear at 500-600 million. So roughly twice as many as deer/elk. By the non-linear formula referenced, this equates to about 40% more of an ability for a bear to pickup your scent than a deer would. (i.e. If a deer picks you up at 300 yards, a bear can sense the same at 420 yards.) Does this seem right to you guys who’ve hunted both species?

[Raymond Coffman]

#21525

mcuiska – homer
I thought that most of our game would be similiar [and understand the training factor of the K9 — any other trained hunting dog] realistically in the field – what we have to work against in scenting ability. I have always heard Pigs were best with Bears a close second. I have been intriqued by this as I do not smell well but know people who can do it extremely well. it is probably the tactic we should be most carefull with.
Bears are most difficult Imho —
Scout

[MCuiksa]

#21534

Scout, keep in mind I’m looking at a biology book and it’s based on the abililty for an animal to pickup scent. It does not contain any info as to the reaction of an animal once it gathers this scent information. Back to my example above(from the book) that the scent level a deer picks up from us at 300 yards is the same scent level a bear could pick up at 420 yards (+/-). Here in rural Indiana, a deer scenting me at 300 yards probably doesn’t even stop feeding – it might just cast a casual glance my direction. High powered rifles aren’t allowed here and a 300 yard human scent does not insite the “flee” response normally. However, a bear at 420 yards picking up the same level of scent may run to the next county….(not saying that we have bears in Indiana, just speaking in general)

[Raymond Coffman]

#21540

Mcuiska –
I totally concur — level and distance – I don’t know exactly what it is — – I was in The big bend of Texas for all of last month -at a large ranch with a lot of Javelinas [ no one lives here for months at a time] — a bunch of them jpigs – snuck into the back yard – I tried to run a stalk on them- wind in my face, forgot it would abutt against the lodge and reflect back. Just as I was closing [ 20yds – jpigs are small] they got the scent and were gone — haha – after all this time I should have known better/ or at least planned ahead !
Scout

[SteveMcD]

#21544

I tried that stuff that claims 99% efective in a University Study. After getting busted 3 times in two days I must have been the entire 1% :shock::P:x:roll:

Keep your teeth into the wind! A fool and his money are soon parted! :oops:8):evil:

It all boils down to hygiene, keeping yourself as scent free as possible, minding the wind and common sense.

[Raymond Coffman]

#21552

Mr Steve —
The least you are heard/seen/and especially smelled the better off you are,and keeping your “nose in the wind” may be the best advise!imho ” The way of the Leopard”
Scout

[skifrk]

#22357

So for the multi day hunts/camps do you guys like to use scent free baby wipes to clean up or do you have other tricks to keep clean hygiene

[Charles Ek]

#22386

The first test of alleged scent-eliminating/reducing clothing with a trained dog that I know of was run back in 1994 by a fellow SAR dog handler in Minnesota. We all knew what the result was going to be, and it was not a surprise.

I’ve seen my own (air-scenting) dog make a find on a human from a half mile downwind through the trees. From what I know of bears, that sort of scent work is child’s play for them. There are records of polar bears detecting prey and other food sources from ten miles, admittedly out on the ice.

As for reactions to odors by deer and bears, I think it has a great deal to do with their respective strategies for survival and their habituation to humans. A deer does not live long by blindly running off before it knows what plan is being executed against it by a group of predators. Lots of time they’ll hold tight while they figure out what the next move is going to be from the other side, be it a human or wild predator. (I’ve seen amazing nighttime footage of a leopard deliberately stamping its foot to get a group of antelope to break.)

And for bears, there are just two rules:
1. There are no rules for predicting bear behavior.
2. If you need a rule for bears, refer to Rule No. 1.

[Raymond Coffman]

#22549

skifrk —
Yes I use [scent free]baby wipes nowadays. I use a solar shower if I don’t have to pack it far [truck camping],or just bath in the creek [if available not too cold]. I wash all my clothes/gear with scent free soap and pack em in bags w/cedar chips.
scout

[Raymond Coffman]

#22554

eidsvolling –
you bring up a very good point of different game animals reaction to level of scent. Very dependent on their experience and frequency of exposure to our/other hunters threat.
Leopards are special –
scout

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#22572

“Hey buddy, glad to hear yer lovin’ that scent free stuff I sold ya. Really works, yeah? And if you like that, I gots a foolproof way to make you invisible and silent, on sale today only, for just $599…”

[Raymond Coffman]

#22590

Smithhammer —
Haha, well said and how true!
Scout

[David Petersen]

#22632

Ah, Bruce, it’s good to finally know what you really look like. Close to what I’d envisioned.
I can barely bear to look …

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#22848

David Petersen wrote: Ah, Bruce, it’s good to finally know what you really look like. Close to what I’d envisioned.

I clean up nice, don’t I?

[rnorris]

#23304

Cover scents and the scent lock clothing have never made sense (ha! thats almost a pun) to me.

My big game experience has been almost 100% on Michigan whitetails. And brother, it’s your scent that discloses your location everytime. They will freeze at a sound or even sight, but if they smell you, they are gone….right now.

I hd an incident 4 seasons ago….I was in a tree inside of a 1/2 acre thicket, in the middle of a 70 acre rolling field. It had been farmed 20 years prior, and had turned into a massive golden rod factory. It didn’t look like deer country at all, but scouting showed trails and runways all through the rolling field. One morning I had 3 mature bucks bed down at 40 yards (I could have killed them all with anything but what I had in hand, a longbow). They rested up for 2 hours before getting up…it was now 6 hours since I had passed through that field. When the lead buck hit my trail, he followed it until he arrived at the spot where I had paused briefly…to get my bearings in the dark….took one snif, and BOOM…..all three bucks ran as if thier were wolves on them.

When I had walked in, I was wearing chest waders so that I could cross a swamp…the only thing not encased in rubber was my arms, upper shoulders and head….that 1 minute (maybe) pause had somehow deposited enough scent to spook that deer. No flippin way would some cover scent made a difference.

I do my best not to stink….but the wind is everything.

[Charles Ek]

#23417

rnorris wrote:
When I had walked in, I was wearing chest waders so that I could cross a swamp…the only thing not encased in rubber was my arms, upper shoulders and head….that 1 minute (maybe) pause had somehow deposited enough scent to spook that deer. No flippin way would some cover scent made a difference.

When you paused you probably were breathing, right? 🙂 Your exhalations carry scent. Avalanche dogs will frequently locate a buried victim’s head end first, from following the exhaled air that passes through the snow and rises to the surface. Dogs often get to know each other by sniffing their respective exhalations (and other “stuff”, of course . . .)

This is one of the reasons I’ve always doubted the efficacy of clothing as a way of defeating a deer or other animal. Unless you’re using a closed-loop rebreather, you’re constantly giving off an indication of your presence and your species.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#23425

eidsvolling wrote:

This is one of the reasons I’ve always doubted the efficacy of clothing as a way of defeating a deer or other animal. Unless you’re using a closed-loop rebreather, you’re constantly giving off an indication of your presence and your species.

Agreed, but I do think that wool retains a lot less odor than synthetics or cotton. Even in warmer weather, I usually wear a very light wool shirt for that reason. But of course there’s no escaping the direction of the wind, no matter what you’re wearing or what miracle chemical you’ve unfortunately paid too much for.

[Author]

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