I am guilty one one or more of the follwing myself when in a rush to get in the stand.
Most hunters will make at least one of the following mistakes concerning a scent-control regiment:
1.Using leather or Cordura boots instead of knee-high rubber or neoprene boots. When is the last time you saw a pair of leather or Cordura waders? Never, because they breath and let air and water (moisture) in and out. Every fox or coyote trapper also uses rubber boots and elbow length rubber gloves to keep from leaving odor at sets.
2.They tuck their pant legs into their boots allowing air and odor to escape every time they take a step. When you properly drape the pant legs over your boots there will be 10-inches or so of carbon-lined pant legs to suck in (adsorb) that air and odor.
3.They wear their rubber boots while getting gas, walking on oily driveways, working on the farm, or other non-hunting related places. It doesn’t always have to be a human odor that spooks deer; mature bucks are often spooked by any odor that is foreign to where they survive.
4.They don’t wear carbon gloves. Just consider the odor left on everything you touch while walking in, climbing, or on stand.
5.They never wear a head cover with an attached facemask that covers their mouth and nose. When properly dressed the only portion of your body that is not covered with a carbon layer should be your forehead, eyes, and ears. You breath from your mouth or nose and those areas should be masked. Hunters tend to replicate what they see hunting personalities on TV and in videos do and most of them do not dress properly, but where they hunt it is not as necessary to be scent free.
6.They wash their carbon suits instead of properly reactivating them in a clothes dryer. This is partially the fault of the suit manufacturers because while they do mention to use a dryer for reactivation and occasionally wash a suit to get rid of physical dirt, they do not emphasize the fact that over-washing will over time cause a loss of carbon.
7.They do not properly store their suits in an odor-control container such as an air-tight bag or a Scentote.
8.They improperly wear their suits in restaurants, in the vehicle, getting gas, etc. I have witnessed this on many occasions in my travels.
9.This one is pretty much universal. They never wash their fanny or backpacks that hang in the tree with them, yet they get into them several times during a hunt and after each hunt to reload them with their bare hands. Packs quickly turn into large human scent wicks unless frequently washed in odorless detergent.
10.They hunt too low or exposed, get seen and of course blame it on their suit because god forbid they did something wrong. Every hunter does things wrong, and that is where learning comes into play. When a hunter (me included) becomes to smart to learn, he becomes ignorant and stagnant.
A scent-control regiment requires a specific type of individual and not all hunters are cut out for that type of work ethic and dedication. If as a hunter you are not willing to go through the entire laundry list of required criteria to keep your human odor as minimal as possible, don’t take getting winded out on carbon technology, take it out on yourself.
<message edited by txbhunter1@sbcglobal on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 11:03 AM>
