Smoke as a cover sent question

[Big E]

My cousin does a lot of research on deer and reads every day. Talk about hunting fever he's got it worse than I do and I should be in a support group because Hunting is my life! Anyway he has read a lot about guys that will stand next to a wood fire to absorb the smell before heading in the woods. One guy even puts his clothes in a walk in smoker and puts wood chips in a pan to get the smoke smell just like smoking meat only he's smoking his clothes.
   So I thought of it and we have a shack in the yard that we burn wood in and talk hunting and plan the hunt and such. Well deer will come into the yard while we're in there. The smoke blows into the woods where even I can smell it from my stand. Fires happen in the woods sometimes so the deer I think are use to it even in remote areas. I've read that deer have to familularize a smell or sound with humans before it really spooks them like gasoline from a 4 wheeler or whatever.
  Have any of you heard of this or tried it or know someone that does?

[dakids]

My brother works for a dairy farmer and he will wear his barn cloths out hunting.  The deer in the west metro where he works are not bothered by it.  I hated it when I used to hunt with him but he shot just as many deer as I did.  He would also take a tractor out to the edge of the woods so he would not have to walk back to the farm to get it to take his deer out.  My grandfather also used to take a gun with when he was a young man to cut fire wood for the winter.  He used to swear that the deer would come running when they heard a chainsaw running.

I can't see why smoke wouldn't work some of the time.  It all really depends on the particular deer that smells it. 

Good question. 

[cobb]

Years ago when we had a wood burner in our hunting cabin, I thought I saw more deer then in later years when we had upgraded to a LP furnace.  Some of the older guys in camp would always throw everything that was burnable directly into the wood burner, without opening the draft first, so it seemed like there was always a little smoke in the air.  This is in the Bemidji area and when you are sitting in a deer stand, you would smell a lot of wood smoke from the other residence in the area.

I think that if there are a lot of wood burned for heating in the area that you hunt, that having smoke on you as a cover scent would maybe an advantage.

[dag1980]

My cousin smokes cigs like its going out of style ( i should say used to) but he would always have a "lucky" smoke and then he would shoot a deer. deer never really minded it he always seems to shoot deer. I never tried the smoke thing but one of the farms we hunt has cattle and i will always walk through some fresh cow pies as a masking scent and seems to work. I've had a number of old does downwind of me and they only can smell the pooo.

[thunderpout]

Not sure about the smoke thing, but Ive had does and bucks (one nice one) walkin in to me when chainsawing up firewood for deer camp more than once... the buck got to within about 100 ft from me, I started whistling to him like you would to a dog, & he waged his tail at me and stood there for a half hour staring, kinda mezmorized by the chain saw... this was two days before opener.  Of course he was not to be seen the rest of the week. An old guy up there where we hunt said its association with trees being downed, & that means food to them.  Ive thought about bringin a chainsaw to my stand and letting it run when Im in the stand to call em in...

[Faceman]

I know alot of guys do alot of things and yes I know several that also use wood smoke to cover their scent.

Where I hunt in bemidji the deer are used to the human smell and cig smell so I never worry to much about cover scent. In fact I have now shot 6 deer while smoking. I had a big doe walk within 20 feet of me while I was smoking and she never thought twice about it.

It all depends on the surroundings that the deer are in as to what can and should be used.

[Outdoors Junkie]

We had an area across the road from us logged off a couple of years ago.  That deer season some guys came in and hung their stands on the edge of the clearing.  The loggers decided to burn off a pile of left over brush a day or two before the season started.  It was still smoldering and smoking the first couple days of the season.  Those hunters cleaned house that year.  There was four of them and they had a couple bonus tags.  They left with six deer.  Two of which were huge bucks! 

I never thought that until now, but maybe the smoke attracked the deer?  Who knows?!


Another story I will share...ten or more years back, my grandpa would buy a pack of wood-tipped swisher sweets.  We would open the pack up after the first buck was shot.  Then we would have a few adult beverages play cards and smoke the swisher sweets.  There would be a thick haze when you would walk into the cabin.  My grandma (who hunts with us) would always bail and walk back to their cabin next door.  We would laugh (cause we smoked her out)!

The next day she would clean house on us in the woods!  I think the deer could smell that on us and would sneak around everyone of us guys and end up walking out in the open by granny.  Then she would let them have it.  The years that we smoked the swisher sweets, my grandma would shoot 3-4 deer.  It was amazing!

[BigYooper]

I read an article a while back that talked about how to not resemble a predator.
predators put out certain smells, this is what deer are supposedly scared of. I use Team Fitzgerald's deer dander, this stuff rocks! It is meant to smell like a deer, I douse myself with it every time I go into the woods. I have had does right under my ladder 15ft under me. It really stinks, but i rarely have deer bust me. It also said that the whites of our eyes are a giveway as a predator, don't know if this is true or not, but interesting.

[stevejedlenski]

My dad swears by his smoking in the stand, and he has taken some nice bucks. i have also taken some and i do everything to eliminate my scent. we hunt in a semi residential area, so this may be a reason his cigs dont matter much. o ya he likes to pee right out of the stand as well, maybe hes just got luck on his side

[cobb]

OK, I think a wood burner or campfire is something normal to the deer because of all the wood burned to heat the houses that may be in their area.

A Winston or a Salem is a whole different thing, which I think most that hunt and have the need to smoke, use as an excuse or to explain as a plus when they were smoking and a deer came in upwind of them. 

Smoking butts and burning oak is not the same.........................

[Faceman]

OK, I think a wood burner or campfire is something normal to the deer because of all the wood burned to heat the houses that may be in their area.

A Winston or a Salem is a whole different thing, which I think most that hunt and have the need to smoke, use as an excuse or to explain as a plus when they were smoking and a deer came in upwind of them. 

Smoking butts and burning oak is not the same.........................

It all depends on where you hunt. The area I hunt all the people that live there smoke heavily and are outdoors alot so the deer are generally pretty use to the smell. Like I said my smoking has not deterred to many deer from me upwind or down wind. Yes it has detterred some but not to many in the area I hunt. Now if I hunted in a non populated area that is a different story.

[thunderpout]

Any of you guys ever read Dr. Ken Nordbergs books on deer hunting, or talk to him?  One of his books, (hes got many) is mostly about how we go about hunting/behave/move about in the woods... I believe that issue is called "how to hunt like a wolf".... I found it very interesting, and had alot of info that you just dont get much from the regular stuff.(feild & stream, whitetail, outdoor news etc.)  Big Yooper touched on it, not resembling a predator... very interesting how animals can read how we act, smell and move through the woods, he wrote about seeing wolves working deer, acting like they were just moving thru, not in hunting mode, when they really were stalking, and the deer would not act threatened and continue doing what they were doing, going about their buisness, and then would get taken down.... but when being obviously stalked, ya know, all the pausing, "sneaking" stopping & starting, makes deer very nervous... great read, it changed the way I hunt, and the way I feel I am being watched somtimes when in the woods!