How sensitive are deers noses to scents and do you think scent blockers help?

Question

I've been kind of curious about this for awhile now and a previous post sparked my interest. I'm a casual deer hunter, I go deer hunting about every 2-3 years. I don't bother with camo or scent blockers, I smoke in the tree stand and yet I still usually have no problems filling my tag (elk are a whole different story, sigh...) , I know deers noses are pretty sensitive, but so is my beagles. I've seen her miss a rabbit that was upwind of her just a few yards but able to get a hot scent from a rabbit 50 yards downwind. I've seen the same thing with my labs and pheasants, if one is downwind of them, they will find it a long way, upwind they might hear it, but they don't go on point until they smell it, which is pretty close sometimes.

My personal thoughts are the deers noses are sensitive enough to pick you up downwind no matter what you do, scent blocks etc. but if you are upwind of them, they just about have to step on you before they scent you. What do you all think?

Answer 1

most animals have a superior sense of smell to man. Yes, I have seen without a doubt that scent blockers work. But I too hunted for many many years before we thought of using them. We used to hang our hunting coats near the smoke from the camp fire, and figured it was good enough. And for the most part, it did help. But good scent blocker can really enhance your chances at that big buck.

Answer 2

Staying down wind is not good advice. Example: When you sit around a camp fire, does the smoke always blow one way. No, it changes direction all the time. Think of all those times you set around a camp fire and the smoke would be blowing away from you, and then all of the sudden it would be right in your face. The key to this is to hunt high, about 30ft in the air. The scent will travel right over the deers head and it will not detect it. Deer detect scent quite well and they do pay attention to it. You may have killed plenty of bucks but how many really big bucks have you killed. Big bucks will really pay attention to all scents so it's important to use plenty of scent block. Also, smoking while hunting will cost you a big buck. You can still kill deer and smoke but you will not kill the big ones, at least not very often.

Answer 3

You're about right. I've had young bucks (2 1/2 year olds) walk up to within a few feet of me while taking a smoke break on many an occasion over the years. I'm not sure, though, that they aren't just dumb and not alarmed by the scent.

Answer 4

Very and yes!