ACtually, that is not necessarily true. While humans have an odor, it comes from dead skins cells that flake off your body, fall to the ground and to brush, where bacteria and moisture contribute to the skin being eaten and an ' odor " given off during the process. The skin cells fall much closer to the body, than aromas from chemicals will. Those artificial aromas that are added to creams, salves, etc. will carry much further and be detected as something foreign by all animals to the land they live on. In farm country, human scent is very common, particularly during and after harvest season, when men and machines are all over the land. Human odor does not cause the alarm in deer that these foreign scents will to the deer that live in farm country.
Now, having said that, the opposite is true from deer, such as Mule deer, that live in more wilderness country, where human scent is not often present. Then, human scent is also " foreign " to them , and will cause an alarm. So, if you hunt in the mountains, or other wilderness areas, be aware of your scent, and hunt into the wind.
Just a matter of proof to those who doubt what I am saying, my best friend was bow hunting one October here in Central Illinois, sitting on a camp stool along a trail that intersected two other trails about 30 feet away. He decided to smoke a cigarette, and lit one up. He was sitting watching the woods with the cigarette in his left hand, on his left thigh, when something pushed his left shoulder. He turned his head to see a small buck- 5 points- pushing past him and pushing the brances of a bush he was sitting against to break up his outline, into his shoulder. The buck's nose was with inches of the curling smoke trail coming from his cigarette. The buck walked on past and put a small tree between himself and Don, and then turned so that tree stayed between the two until he got another more substantial tree between the two of them. Don dropped his cigarette and raised his bow, drawing back his arrow, but he never had a clear shot because of the trees! Next time someone tells you that smoke or human scent will scare deer away for a half mile around, ask him where he has been hunting. What he says may be true some places, but it certainly is not universally true.
