Ensuring your “natural” scent is not detectable in the woods for a hunting excursion is critical to giving yourself a chance at a kill – regardless of the type of hunting you are doing!

Here are some general tips on reducing your scent to just about every wild animal.

Clothing

This is an area where you can significantly reduce your scent profile. Regular detergents (like Tide, Gain, etc.) clean your clothes but add fragrances that are definitely not found in nature.

Using scent-free detergents will keep your clothes clean without adding the deer-alerting perfume.

Scent Killer, Scent-a-Way, Primos, and Dead Down Wind are a few of the many manufacturers of hunting-specific scent-free detergent. I have also heard of guys using combinations of baking soda and borax to make their own detergent, but I have not tried it myself.
Consider drying your clothes outside, on a clothesline, to avoid picking up odors from inside your dryer. The companies mentioned above also offer sheets to absorb odor in the dryer.

Clothing Storage

Getting your clothes clean and scent free is very important. Keeping them that way is just as critical. Zip-Loc makes extra large bags that work great for keeping your clothes sealed away from contaminants. After I wash and dry my hunting clothes, I seal them in the Zip-Loc bag and put the bags in a Rubbermaid-type plastic container.

Control Scent from Your Body

Use scent-free body wash to get clean without picking up unwanted perfumes. What smells nice to your wife will send every downwind deer scattering. The same companies listed above offer products including scent-free soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, and even chewing gum.

Avoid Contamination

This topic is related to No. 8 but worth consideration on its own. There is no need to employ all the techniques listed above if you intend to wear your hunting clothes while having breakfast at the local diner, spilling coffee on yourself, talking to your buddies while they chain smoke cigarettes, all before filling your truck up with gas, and then heading out to hunt.

Keep your clothes sealed in their scent-free containers until you reach your hunting area. Then get dressed outside to avoid contaminating yourself with odor from the vehicle. This may seem strange or extreme, but remember, deer are not accustomed to the “new car smell” air freshener or any of the other odors lingering in your pickup truck.

Scent-Eliminating Sprays

All of the companies listed above also produce odor-eliminating sprays for use in the field. These sprays use a variety of technologies to kill bacteria or otherwise limit the amount of human scent detectable to animals. Spray yourself liberally from head to toe after getting dressed to restrict any remaining scent on your clothing.

Deer have approximately 297 million olfactory receptors, dogs have 220 million with humans about five million.

Translated for guys like me: Deer have better ability to sniff me out than even my dog!

The more you hide your scent, the better the chance that a skittish deer will not get a whiff of you and make that kill shot nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

To learn more about the basics of deer hunting, please visit Bleacher Report.