Try rubbing your hands, and pants, with brush, leaves, grasses, and dirt you find at the location. I also use baking soda to eliminate scents from soaps, deodorants, shaving cream, toothpaste, and the myriad of other products we rub against or use every day.I dust the baking soda on my crotch- a major source of human scent, just to confuse deer.
You also need to understand where your odor comes from. Dead skin cells( rafts) popularly known as "dandruff", fall off you all the time. Since 65% of your body heat escapes off the nape of your neck, and back of your head, consider wearing a hooded sweater, or parka, when hunting. Wear gloves to cover your hands, and use something to close off the wrists of your sleeves. Other wise, every movement of your arm SHAKES out dead skin cells onto the ground. The same goes with pants. Tuck the bottom cuffs into your boots. If you can wear rubber boots that at least come up to your calfs. This will catch all the dead skin that falls down your pant legs.
Those dead skins cells begin to be eaten by air borne, and ground borne bacteria. Its the digestion of the dead skin that gives off the odor, that dogs, and other animals "SMELL" of you. The odor persists until all the skin is eaten up. Their olfactory centers are capable of differentiating a lot of separate scents. Some well-trained dogs can trail a scent through extraordinary conditions and find their man.
I wear rubber waders, or boot, when hunting, and use Doe in Heat on the instep of the boots to confuse the bucks. I refresh the Doe in Heat often, and hang some cotton balls soaked in it from trees to let the scent carry around the area. Its not that they may not get my scent; they simply are too interested in that DOE, to bother with me.
In farm country, where most deer hunting takes, place, deer are used to the smell of man, and machinery, and fire. Smoking your clothes is good, but also rubbing your clothes, and exposed skin with wood ash from a fire will also work. Animals like deer are used to fires, and the smell of smoke, or ashes simply is not an "alarm factor" unless you are hunting in truly primitive areas, where no one lives.
In cold weather, wearing a thin ski mask will help keep the dead skin from your face from giving you away. Breathe through your nose- not your mouth. That will direct the dead skins to fall downward, and not out into the air where it can travel to a much broader area. In cold weather, cover your mouth and nose with a scarf, or bandanna, and that will keep all the dead skin from escaping to the ground. Goggles over your eyes, will keep the dead skin from your eyebrows, eyes, and cheeks from escaping. The closer to the ground, the more localized your scent will be.
You cannot mask or hide all of your scent, as long as you live. Your own body heat is the prime mover of the dead skin cells that create your unique body Odors. But, when you understand where the odors come from you Can take steps to minimize the amount of dead skin you leave all over, and then masking scents, and Attractant scents can help keep the deer guessing. :hmm: :thumbsup:
Native American hunters would fast for at least a day, to clear their stomachs of foods that created odors. They would cover they bodies with wood ash from fires, and then brush themselves down with grasses, and leaves from the location where they were going to hunt. If they broke into a sweat on hot days, they refreshed the rubbings frequently to mask their scents.
All this has been done my modern day hunters, wearing little clothing, or fully garbed. But, you first have to understand the source of the odors, that allow animals to smell you from a distance. Then, move as slow as a tree, stay down wind, and stay low. Move only when the game is NOT looking in your direction, nor focusing his ears in your direction.
I proved this one night to my second wife, by showing how to walk up to within 6 feet of a wild rabbit in a neighbor's lawn. We were in street cloths, out for a walk,when the rabbit ran across the street in front of us, and stopped in the lawn. If an OLD FAT GUY like me can do it, so can you. :rotf: :hatsoff:
