Saturday, January 06, 2007
Unraveling The Mysteries Of Scent Travel
There is one, and only one certain way, to escape being winded by a deer. That is to stay downwind of the animal.
There are many mysteries still not fully understood about how deer detect human odor. Sure, we know that deer have receptors in their nose, and they are much better than the human nose when it comes to detecting human odor.
We can bathe just before heading into the field, and if we work up a tiny bit of a sweat in the process, a deer can smell that. We all know that if we fuel up the car, vapors of gasoline will impregnate our clothing, and deer can and will smell it.
There are all kinds of clothing on the market said to eliminate human odor. There are thousands of different cover-up scents, masking scents, and what not, but everything boils down to one thing.
Have the wind in your favor, and be downwind of where deer should appear in your hunting area. Hunt from an air-tight coop is helpful, too.
There are a few things we do know. Years ago, I began picking milkweed pods, allowing them to dry, and when it’s important to make sure—100 percent sure—that I’m downwind of deer, I’ll pull two or three milkweed fibers out and allow the breeze to drift them away.
Keep an eye on the floating fibers. Even a soft whisper of moving air, one that is impossible to feel, will carry those fibers on whatever bit of wind there is. Where those fibers drift is where the wind takes it.
Those fibers, even when there is no perceptible breeze, will move up, down or to one side of the hunter. Watch the fibers, and you may be surprised to learn that even though the breeze appears to be in your face, how the breeze hits the trees and other obstacles, can move the milkweed in an unlikely direction.
That direction, you may be surprised to learn, may be in exactly the wrong direction. We’ve all had it happen before. A deer moves along a trail, upwind of you, and suddenly the animal stops. It lifts its nose, sniffs in your direction, and races off.
An errant puff of moving air carried your human scent to the deer. It reacted according to its instincts. It smelled a nearby human, and raced off, snorting and raising a racket.
I’ve come to use milkweed seeds and fibers to eliminate such a problem. I am not about to use special clothing or slather a cover-up scent on me or my clothing nor will I use a masking odor such as coyote, fox or skunk.
Instead, several times during each hunt, I will let a few fibers and seeds drift on the wind. They are watched intently, and if any of them drift toward a trail that deer use, I slide out of the stand and move before a deer picks up my scent.
Deer stands are picked for their ability to produce. They are most often downwind of where deer normally travel, and often they work. In recent years we’ve had more east winds than ever before, and east winds have a tendency to swirl. The hunter may think he is downwind of the whitetails but the truth may be quite different.
A good stand is something to take care of, and a hunter isn’t helping his blind or his hunting by being winded while sitting in it. Deer, if they wind a careless hunter, may not walk past that blind for the rest of the season.
It is a bit of extra work to stay scent-free and downwind of where deer normally travel. It’s not always possible to do, but using milkweed seeds has certainly helped me up my hunting success.
It works for me and can work for you.—The Whitetail Wizard