Hunting: Scent-Control Success Comes From the Details
MUSKEGON, Mich. (October 9, 2020) – You’ve put in the time hanging multiple treestands, using trail cameras, and spent hours scouting. You’ve also taken the time to clean your hunting clothes, used ozone before the hunt, and sprayed down before going to the stand. So, why are you still getting busted by the occasional deer in the stand or blind? What are you doing wrong?
Showering pre-hunt with scent-control products, destroying the odors on your clothing with ozone, and keeping the wind in your favor help tremendously, but aren’t enough to prevent alarming odors from reaching deer. A successful scent elimination regimen – complete odor management – does not begin and end with hunting garments and boots. Additional details must be considered and attended to. This involves anything and everything that is going to be in the stand or blind before the hunt ever begins.
Most hunters arrive at their stand with more than just their bow or firearm. They likely have an array of additional gear and gadgets that may give them the edge when it comes to taking a trophy buck. All of these items must be considered when striving to eliminate unwanted odors before the hunt. Take your grunt call, for example. That grunt call carries odors from your breath, which build up every time you use it.
Many other accessories carry odors that can be alarming to deer. The wrist strap of your bowhunting release absorbs sweat and bacteria. Your binoculars absorb and carry odors from your vehicle. The same goes for your safety harness, range finder, rattling antlers, gloves, facemask, bow, firearm, hunting pack… you name it. These items are commonly ignored by our scent-control efforts.
This past season, I began using the OZRenew and Gear Chamber for my hunting clothes, boots, and an array of accessories. The best-designed ozone closet I’ve found, the OZRenew and Gear Chamber has several built-in pouches on the interior wall. I use them to store and deodorize beanies, gloves, facemasks, as well as smaller gear such as grunt calls, rattle bags, flashlights, rangefinders, and anything else that I know is going to be in the treestand or blind with me. If it will be with me on my hunt, it gets stored and treated with ozone inside the Gear Chamber.
Once all my clothing and gear come out of ozone storage, I transfer it all to my OZChamber 8K Storage Bag for transport to my hunting destination. While the bag comes with a powerful OZ500 ozone generator for use at home, I place my OZ Radial Nano rechargeable ozone generator into the bag and run an additional 15-minute ozone cycle through the bag with all of my apparel and gear in the bed of my truck on the way to the field.
When I arrive, I take the final precaution of dressing in the field – away from my vehicle – spraying my boots, pack and bow with my OZ NFuse ozone sprayer before heading to my stand or blind.
Consider these final tips on dressing. Between your breath and your hair, your head is by far your body’s primary emitter of metabolic (human) odor. Fail to cover your head and mouth with an activated carbon head cover and you are sacrificing all the other efforts you are making to defy a deer’s nose. The same goes for wearing activated carbon gloves. If you wear activated carbon pants and regularly tuck them into your boots, try wearing them on the outside instead. Odors can escape from the tops of your boots with every step, so having a layer of activated carbon on the outside can help to trap those odors.
It’s often unavoidable, but on the way to your stand or blind, do your best to avoid contact with vegetation, including stepping on it whenever possible. How many times have you been sitting in your tree and observed deer with their noses to the ground following the trail you walked in on, even after you have carefully cleaned and sprayed your boots? In many cases, those deer aren’t necessarily smelling you; they are smelling the subtle odors of the broken or crushed vegetation, and are trying to determine what came down that trail.
Think all of this is going too far? Think again. In reality, all the items you carry into the field collect and retain all manner of alarming odors that – if ignored – deer can and will smell. One needs to treat all such items with the same care and attention as they pay to their clothing and boots.
By paying attention to these extra details, you will reduce your chances of taking unwanted odors to the field. Try it, and start experiencing greater rewards.
Written by Heath Wood
About OZ by ScentLok
OZ Active Odor Destroyers emit a powerful stream of ozone to seek out and destroy odors, mold, mildew, fungus and bacteria wherever they exist. OZ products are designed for maximum versatility, so they can serve every aspect of your lifestyle. From the home to the outdoors, pets, athletic gear, work environments and vehicles, OZ products improve the world you live in by keeping objects and spaces fresh, clean and healthy