Play the Wind
Ever since the thought of scent elimination, there have been hunters that have resisted. Hunters who say that in order to get a big mature deer you just have to play the wind. They say that if your stands are hung with the wind in mind that it really makes no difference if you use and odor eliminator or not. For many people, that actually may be correct. Urban/Suburban hunting is one area that I would say it’s absolutely correct. Deer in those areas are used to smelling humans all day every day. There is no need to use an odor eliminator when hunting suburban deer because a lot of the time deer are within bow shooting distance of a strong source of human scent for a good portion of the day. Deer in these areas are not nearly as spooky when it comes to scent. Also, in suburban areas it is much easier for you to get a stand set up where your scent is blowing back towards buildings or high human traffic areas where deer are less likely to come from.
This buck is directly down wind of me. Hunting a Suburban area, using an odor eliminator. This deer bedded down 30 yards down wind of me for over an 1 waiting for the cover of darkness to eat from the fruit trees in the yard 60 yards away.
Odor Eliminator isn’t 100% Effective
That’s absolutely correct but that does not mean it isn’t still a good idea to practice scent control and use a good odor eliminator. Here’s the thing though. We don’t need to be 100% scent free. It would be nice if we could achieve that, but it’s just not possible. Almost all deer smell humans on a regular basis. That’s not to say that there aren’t areas where it’s very rare for a deer to smell a human because I know that there are. But for a vast majority of us, we are hunting deer that smell humans on just about a daily basis. In agricultural areas, deer smell farmers all the time as they check on their fields and plant/harvest crops. Not to mention that in those areas deer are usually forced in to pretty close quarters once the crop fields are harvested because there just isn’t anywhere for the deer to hide. Because of this, we don’t need to be 100% scent free. The purpose of using an odor eliminator on ourselves and our gear is to reduce the amount of human scent to a point where the deer will think we are 100 yards away or more when we are really 20 yards away and ready to fire. Again, deer smell humans all the time. We just need to make deer feel safe by thinking we are much farther away than we really are.
The Bottom Line on Odor Eliminator Effectivness
For some hunters, I have to agree that it would be a complete waste of money to go all out on odor eliminator products. I’m sure you could easily spend hundreds of dollars every season. For many hunters, having every single advantage that you can in order to be successful in the woods is a great thing. One should always try and set stands where they are taking advantage of the topography and wind direction, but the weather doesn’t always go according to plan. Sometimes the wind will take an odd swirl out of nowhere. Usually that ends up happening at the very worst time like when you have a deer standing within range as you’re trying to get your cross hairs or pin where it needs to be. During those times, I’d like to know that I did everything in my power to remain undetected. As I stated before, I know that I cannot completely eliminate my scent. I’m only hoping that the odor eliminator that I use will help the deer think I’m much farther away than I am to minimize the reaction. Good luck and Happy Hunting!