There is no doubt animals can smell the cleaning compounds used on firearms. The question is...does it alarm them? The curiosity factor may work in your favor.

An article published in the Missouri Conservationist quite a few years ago suggested that odd smells may spike a deer's interest. I believe the fellow who wrote the article was a retired Doctor and experienced hunter. He claimed his high success rate was due to cheap cologne. He made a point of digging out the old Brute, English Leather and Ha-Karate in his bathroom before a hunt. Apparently, the smell masked human odor and did not frighten the deer. He claimed they would come in to investigate the smell.

 

onewhiteguy the whole masking thing is interesting.
Having hunted Blacktail, Mules and Elk I have had lot's a laughs. More than once I could have poked deer with my hand... once after several
days without a bath I had a cow elk walk right up to me. I kinda think Movement is a bigger key to spooking animals.
Also logging operations and noise at a gun range doesn't stop these dummies :biggrin:
:hmmmm: But you go slinking through the woods and them crafty critters will put some moves on ya :biggrin:

 

When I bow hunted I built blinds out of brush and briar and had deer walk within a few feet of me and one time I had a doe poke her head in the hole I had made to shoot out of and look right at me but sort of amble on. To bad I didnt have a doe tag then.

 

People tend to think deer are a lot smarter than they really are.

 

If you truly want to be successful hunting, always hunt with the wind in your favor and it wont matter how much you or your rifle smells.

 

If the smell of Hoppe's #9 isn't one of the most attractive smells in the Universe,it's gotta be in the top five. I've had deer walk right up to me when I was in full camo with a freshly cleaned rifle. I'm sure animals can smell gun oils/solvents. Every deer is gonna react differently. Hunt the wind and move slow and careful.

Rob

 

:congrats:YEP! Hoppe's #9 is my favorite aftershave lotion!!:biggrin:

 

All good advice, the cheap cologne thing sounds interesting. Not something I'd try if I was desperate but maybe if I'm one doe from filling my tags. I don't give deer too much credit for being smart. Everything I've ever read and been told says they sure can smell you though.

 

Double post

 

I mask my sense by smoking cig . I've NEVER had a problem get my deer in over 50 years of hunting . My last deer in Tn I watched it walk down the hill from a 150 yds in heavy cover to within 50 yds of me where I sat on a stump smoking a cig when I popped him with my 92 Rossi in 44-40 . Yes I was wearing a red vest , Tn law

 

There are 5 senses.............. The gun part is the least of your worries. IMO.

 

A couple months back my son and I went to the local gun range and were surprised to see somebody left 4 deer archery style targets in front of the rifle targets. Got out of the car and started walking towards them, about 50 feet away, off they went into the treeline. Needless to say we were rather suprised, guess gun and people smell did not bother them much.

 

See the second tag-line in my signature...

 

I worry more about if they can smell my shorts.

 

A very interesting question that has at least a couple different answers, IMHO. I've hunted a good number of different states and used a number of different methods to hunt deer, from hunting deer with dogs in N.C. to horseback hunts in Idaho & Alberta. Because we all do NOT use the same methods to hunt deer the true answer varies due to how you hunt. A hunter who has access to hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres to hunt can use prevailing winds to mask any and all odors. Whereas the hunter who hunts woodlots and from a stationary stand location does not necessarily have the opportunity to "play the wind" for all his/her hunting.

Most of my hunting this fall will be on woodlots varying from hundreds of acres to smaller parcels. My experiences when hunting all these areas for several years now is that no matter how much I plan & study, I can never be sure where a deer is going to come from and where it's going to be headed. In other words, I cannot ensure I am always going to be downwind of the game I'm hunting. Because of this I do my best to be as scent free as I can. Many hunters can, as mentioned before, always take advantage of the advantage of knowing prevailing winds and then hunting only certain areas and moving in a certain direction. However, that's not possible for me.

So, for me, me the answer is yes, they can smell solvents and oils and also may become alarmed when it happens. A lot depends on the individual deer as well. There are young, inexperienced deer and there are older smarter ones as well. My experiences tell me that younger deer are much more curious than are mature deer and a mature deer, whether buck or doe, may not tolerate certain foreign smells. In many of the areas we hunt, it is so thick that the first time you even know a deer is close by can be when they give a warning "blow" to other deer that they have picked up an out of place smell. Using strict scent control is not always needed by all hunters. Depending on the type of hunting one does, it can be a valuable tool to utilize. This hunter's opinion, anyway. :biggrin:

 

To put this in perspective... A dog can smell about 44 times better than a human. A deer can smell about 60 times better than a human and about 35% better than a dog.

No matter what your cleaning regimen is, your firearm is still going to have a hint of odor associated with it. Be it from the cleaning products you use, your ammunition, the oils from your skin, etc... Scent eliminators have their place, but they also have their limitations. Scent control is dependent on too many factors to actually be controlled... Especially if we consider the olfactory senses of the critters we hunt. What is a faint whiff to us, can be a stink bomb to them.


If you want to hunt the wind, even in areas where the air is moving too slowly to detect, take along a bottle of detector. I use an old visine bottle filled with powdered mica. If I am unsure of the wind, I shake the bottle, remove the cap, hold it at arms length, and give it enough of a squeeze to get a puff of the mica. It tells me exactly which way the air is moving, how fast, and which direction I need to focus on moving in.

In the thicker woods, with rolling country, the prevailing wind may or may not impact us much. The thermals, upslopes in the mornings, and downslopes in the evening are common during the warmer weather, but in the winter time, when temps are typically colder, the thermals have only limited effect and only very locally, but synoptic conditions (the locations of high and low pressure cells) have a more pronounced effect in air movement... During the winter, the thermals may only have an influece within a north-south draw with an east facing slope that takes sun in the morning, but the synoptic effect will shift that upslope movement to a north or south westerly depending on the barometric pressures... In this instance, I would plan on hunting into a quartering wind... And, I still have my little bottle of detector to confirm what I need to do.

It works in the deep woods, it works on the prairie, it works during blizzards, and it works during rainstorms... Learn to hunt the wind.

 

I, too, use Hoppe's, but only to clean my bores with. After cleaning, I flush out the Hoppe's with Gun Scrubber or Bore Blaster, then I mop the bore with Hoppes Oil which it near odorless. And to that ain't enough, I foul the barrels before the season begins, just so I'm not shooting from a "too clean" bore. This doesn't seem to bother the deer, and they get really close (sometimes less than a yard) to me when I'm hunting. That's they way I've been doing it all my life, and haven't found a better way for me yet.

 

Yes - but... Have an acquaintance who bow hunts and is almost a chain smoker. kills more deer each year than most... Go figure...

 

Best buck I ever bowhunted was taken at a range of about 6 yards after four days of remote camping - - no shower, just plenty of woodsmoke infused into every pore of me and every thread of fabric, and no scent eliminators... My Uncle arrowed an even better buck on the fifth day at about 4 yards and a doe on sixth at about 15 yards. Those deer were all taken at ground level.

We both smelled to high heaven by the second day, but Uncle Harley threw some fresh fir and cedar greens on the fire and really smoked us up good. It was almost a nightly ritual - - cleansing by smoke, if you will... By the time we came out of the woods, on the seventh day, Ma and G'Ma could hardly stand the smell of us. After we got cleaned up some, they made us do our own laundry. Went and took a whiff of our hunting clothes... All you could smell was smoke, but it wasn't unpleasant, and nary a hint of BO.

Granted, the smoke was an effective cover scent, but it was all natural, and we still hunted the wind. I reckon my Uncle Harley learned what he knew about hunting and bowhunting, in particular, from his step-G'Pa, who was from the Mille Lacs Band. Have to wonder how all those natives managed to hunt effectively for all those centuries without all the commercial cover scents us white folks seem to rely so heavily upon these days... :biggrin:

 

Quote:
It works in the deep woods, it works on the prairie, it works during blizzards, and it works during rainstorms... Learn to hunt the wind.

That is, of course, sage advice and it always behooves any hunter to do so. However, you can check the wind as often as you want as you sit 15-20' up in a treestand and it will do you little to no good, especially when sitting overlooking a funnel or bottleneck and having deer passing by in more than one direction. At that time, about all you can do is try to minimize your scent profile.

 

I mask my scent with brute after shave:biggrin: Of course they can smell gun oil,if the conditions are right. Ive killed a lot of deer(200+) almost as many on the ground within hand shaking distance of em as I have above em. Most times the wind was right,,but theres been times they have come in from where they had to smell me too. You do the best you can,but sometimes its blind luck. Its kind of a weird deal with spooking one,Ive spooked em by either movement,or noise and had the same buck come back. But never had em come back after smelling me.

 

I just floored by some of the replies. What ever happened to common sense ? Some people will argue just for the sake of arguing and throw all common sense out the window. Reminds me of congress. :hmmmm: Unbelievable!
You all hunt how ever it works out for you, and I wish you the best of luck,:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::stupid:

 

​If they can smell you, they can smell your gun; and vice versa.

 

All kidding aside,yes Ive put out cigarettes to kill deer a many a time.. But you want catch me doing it on the ground unless turkey huntin and then its only in self defence of the skeeters tryin to suck me dry. I smoked more this year turkey hunting than ever but it was in pop up blinds. But Im at least a pack a day smoker,and try to stay 4 hours on stand. During that 4 hours Ill smoke a couple if in a tree or tripod.And it has worked out for me,more than it should. "BUT"!! I know full well Ive lost deer Ive never knew was around because of it!!

And would never tell anybody too smoke on stand.And I always wipe down my rifle with a dry rag before hunting.P.S. being part Indian,I have to say that the Cherokees always covered themselves with wood smoke before hunting,to mask there smell. First time I ever hunted in Michigan,had a old guy tell me that Id see nothing the next morning because Id built a bonfire and was sitting in the smoke.(Really I was just tryin not to freeze to death,think it was like 5 degrees or something) Next morning at 8am I was dragging a nice 8pt out by him:biggrin: The second time I hunted up there I drug two out by him,he doesn't offer me advice anymore:biggrin: You do all you can,and sometimes it works out for ya!! Seen my brother kill two nice bucks a week apart,from a stool next to a bull dozer being used to clear cut the land next to our dads land. That oiley,thing reaked of fuel,but it worked for him..

 

I make sure to get smoked up by the campfire every night at deer camp. It works well for me too. I don't use scent killer in a bottle, I use it right from the fire. Use what works for you and unless you're dipping your rifle in peanut butter, don't worry about your rifle smelling too much. :biggrin:

1895gunner

 

I have always wondered about the smell of using stinky solvents spooking deer but I always end up getting deer regardless. I contribute odor to spooking deer out of my line of sight and that is wind related, once line of sight is established it is all about noise and movement.

 

Heck, I've pee'd out of deer stands and had deer walk right over it. Had a few stop and sniff it, but no alarm. Hunting bear in Canada, I had a guide that would pee right by the bait barrel. Again, no problem - and we know bears can smell. I like a cheap, fruit flavored cigar while hunting too. My buddy and I joke it is an attractant. Hunting the wind is the way to go for scent and sound. In IMO, all this commercial hype about scent killers is way overdone. Staying still, quiet and hidden are the most important things to do. And of course, making a good shot.