Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting My Annual Baking Soda Rant

Here, here on the swirly and ever changing wind.

I bet I killed a hundred deer at ranges short of 75 yards with a lit cigarette hanging out of my mouth. I quit smoking 10 years ago now and miss the constant wind direction indicator of cigarette smoke.

For the folks that swear deer are downwind of them but don't spook, I'd encourage you try these out to fully understand what the wind is actually doing:

Milkweed Wind Indicator

The wind does some awfully peculiar things - particularly when winds are on the lightish side. Direction and current in your close proximity isn't necessarily how it is 30, 50, 100 etc. yards away. While I prefer to hunt clean like the majority here, I've done enough hunting in a lot of different locales to know there's one constant – I'm not fooling a deer's nose.

And if you wanna swear by the various remedies as foolproof, that's all fine and good. Just know you're only bullszchitting the fans - not the players.

None of what I'm suggesting is foolproof. However, my experience has been such that I know a little bit of hygiene and some baking soda does have positive effects. Do I still get busted? Yes. However, I would say that the vast majority of those busts came from moving around in my stand and not from scent. I'll also add that I know the deer around me are much more acclimated to human scent than some. On three sides, I've got neighbors, the closest is probably a mile away. They are mostly all out there doing what folks do in the country. These aren't suburban deer, but they're not deep woods critters either. Deer and humans interact constantly around me, and for 11 of the 12 months, those interactions are non-threatening.

I will also concede that during November, there isn't much of anywhere else they can go. When the ATVs start rolling on the Opener Minus 30, it's an Orange Invasion. The one place the deer can go is onto my property. Once the shooting starts, there is probably one hunter per 20 acres on average, and on my plot it's more like 1 per 50 acres. However, that gives us enough of an edge. It's enough so that doe will come and browse acorns just downwind of my stand and pay me no attention whatsoever.

It's also produced some bizarre circumstances, like 2017, when a doe came by and stuck her head in the blind and then wandered out a few yards. The large buck following her came by and did the same. This was the result:



The rest of the story is here:

2017 Opener

Sodium Bicarb has been a big help to me and some of us at camp. That is no bull.

Beaut. What'd it go? Bout 140"-145"?

Shaman, did you score this buck?? Rio7

SWOOSH —-^^^

Smoke can do the same when the air currents are light. It's amazing how far you can see a stream of it go under the right circumstances. There were many times I'd have sworn deer were directly down wind of me at relatively close range if it weren't for a steady stream of smoke telling me otherwise.

Not even close. Not enough tine length or main beam length. I've got a 10 on the wall with longer mains and longer tines all around that goes just under 140.

You sure about that?

Yes. Take a look at the pic of the buck laying in the back of the pickup in his link for a better look at the rack.

Hmmmm. I don't know....

G-1's, G-2's and G-4's are pretty short on both sides. It's a nice buck but it ain't 140".

Gonna need Shamane to verify

I honestly have not measured this rack. I know it dwarves the one I once measured at 125" and it's smaller than the camp record that I measured at 165". We're more worried about pounds of yield than inches of rack. I figure it to be about #4 or #5 on the camp's list. He took up a bunch of freezer space.

Here's another view of the buck:


I'm not saying that baking soda is magic, but something significant is going on when a guy like this stands downwind from you at 20 yards, and he's more worried about the doe than you,


EDIT: I had the wrong buck originally showing in this second shot of the 2017 buck-- same year, different animal. Thanks you, Blackheart for pointing it out.

He might be 140 in Ohio, but in Texas he is a 125" That should piss off all you expurtts. Rio7

Because you've not exactly been picking up what a few of us have subtlety been laying down for the last year regarding your camp record:

The measurements on your camp record are wrong - and not by just a few inches.
And the alleged 80# of entrails from said deer were not more than that of a mature elk.

Sometimes your long, shamanistic orations convey more yarn than revelation.

Rio - what hillestadj was saying was said in jest. So tongue-in-cheek in fact, I'm surprised he didn't push his tongue out the side of his cheek.

S Kane, Sorry I missed that. Rio7

LOL, my dad used to do that when he took me hunting as a kid. Always smoking. I'd tell him to stop and he'd say there's a highway over there, or a farm over there, there's all kinds of stink wafting around when you hunt this close to anything. We shot plenty of deer when he was smoking a cigarette.