Article Written By: Blake Anderson, http://huntertreestands.com
It’s only common sense that you can’t shoot a target that isn’t there. Deer have quite an incredible way of evading humans so that if you’re an inexperienced hunter, it will leave you wondering why they all ran off to in such a hurry. Biologists have estimated that the average deer’s sense of smell is up to 1000 times stronger than the average human. To simplify the situation, they can hastily sniff out predators from great distances and often can evade hunters before the hunter even realizes they were there. So what can we do about these facts that will increase our chances of not coming home empty-handed?
The first and most important thing to keep in-mind is that you will never completely get rid of your human scent. There’s too much that plays into it including your diet, laundry detergent and even the cologne 
you sprayed all over your neck the previous week. Your only hope then is to do your best to control it as much as possible and then leave the rest up to chance. One of the very interesting ways to suppress your odor is by using the wind to your advantage. You will beat yourself up if you haven’t used this strategy before. The goal in playing the wind is to approach the deer or other animals from the direction where the wind is blowing towards you. When you are walking along with the wind, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage because the wind will quickly carry your scent towards the deer, providing them with a heads-up warning of your arrival.
When you’re picking a spot to place your tree stand, it’s imperative that you first determine where your scent will be moving. You will need to choose an area where the deer will be coming in upwind of your stand, because if they come in downwind and notice your scent, they will quickly elude your efforts. Even before you leave on your hunting trip, if you are bringing along a newly purchased tree stand, then it’s important that you remove it from the packaging and set it up outdoors to give it enough time to lose its “new” smell before heading into the woods for your first hunt.
Something else to keep in mind when you’re setting up a tree stand is to choose a spot higher up into the tree than normal. Most hunters never setup their tree stands any higher than 15 or 20 feet since they have a feeling of being safe. But if you were to brave the 25 to 30 foot mark, then you would gain the advantage of your scent then reaching the deer’s nose at much lower levels than a hunter who is lower in the tree. Not only that, but you also begin to move further out of the animals line of sight and therefore have more freedom to do basic movements such as draw your bow without startling the deer. If you remember to utilize all of this advice along with other basic products that aid in hiding your scent, you should be successful on your next hunting trip.
