Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Shamanic Baking Soda Failure

How in the hell does anyone kill an Elk or Bear, when they are on a packin hunt without Baking soda, eating out of a cook tent, hot days climbing and sweating, etc, etc...

Must be some kind of magic only outfitters know about....

I guess the point is that for all that premium detergent, and scent lock bags and all, I'm getting great results with sodium bicarb and garbage bags, and I've been doing it since Regan's 2nd term. Check the cost of that detergent against a handful of Baking Soda and get back to me.

Yeah, one of the big things I found that helped was removing my outermost layer and letting it air on the line between morning and evening hunts and then again for a while after the evening hunt. I leave them to air and then bag them up before going to bed. I've learned that the same underwear can be worn morning and evening, but it helps to take it off if you come back into camp. Back when I was bowhunting, I'd use complete changes of everything. but I've relaxed that since I've gone to rifle.

One benefit of using baking soda instead of detergent is that detergent does not fade colors. If you're washing camo in detergent, eventually the colors start to fade. Baking soda removes the stench, but does not touch the dyes. Yeah, dirt and stains don't come out as good, but if you end up with blood on your duds or some nasty mud or oil, you can use washing soda. I have also used All Free & Clear before re-rinsing in sodium bicarb.

Larry Kollar, Hal Blood and those Benoit boys never ever mentioned that.......

Not really. The guys who say "Play the Wind" have it right. That way does work. It works fine. My method, done right, reduces what is being sent downwind. It won't totally remove your scent, but it lowers it to the point where you aren't stuck always hunting downwind or crosswind. What I was doing by posting this thread was giving an example where I didn't do much right over the past weekend and I got the results one would expect-- an abject failure.

About 15 years ago, I woke up late on a Sunday AM and decided to skip all my baking soda ritual and go out in Saturday's clothes. It just so happened that I was making my way out to the stand along this same long narrow pasture where I had the misfire on Saturday Evening. It was early in the season and I was in just a long-sleeve T-Shirt that had yesterday's sweat on it. A doe group picked me up at one end of this quarter-mile-long pasture and followed me its entire length and then another 400 yards to my stand. They would run ahead a bit and then wait for me to catch up and the snort like crazy. They even showed up at my stand to give me a good thrashing (at a safe distance of course) and would not leave me alone the whole morning.

Really,

But I’m either close to or just over 100….Bucks and Does….and have yet to soda up, yet to change underwear at lunch, have shot them with the wind going most every direction…although it has screwed me once in awhile…but I roam the hills so it is always changing and I can’t always change with it.

Most times shooting younger Deer is mostly a matter of spending a lot of time hunting. Eventually your paths cross.

And when using rifles, some well known Deer hunters have killed many old Bucks with the wind at their back. And often at close range. Deer often are curious. Have had the wind at my back and waved my hand or hat at them. More than once they have stayed to look, stomped their feet and head bobbed but stayed, or walked closer to try confirm what is going on.

Few people think much past playing the wind. Look, if you're happy with how you do your hunting, that's fine. My advice is meant for the guys who spend gobs of money on Fartlok Suits and spray $20/bottle product on their clothes. There's a cheaper way to get it done.

The oldest member of the Shamanic Dream Team is SuperCore. He's pushing 80. I showed him the Baking Soda method a decade ago, and he tried it a bit and then gave it up. He wears the same duds all week, he goes out to his one little hut, and stays there, smoking Marlboro Menthols. The hut is absolute dynamite if the wind is out of certain directions, and dead otherwise. When he has a favorable wind, he kills monsters. The rest of the time, he just sits. He doesn't care. That's his hut. That's what he's used to. What's more, he's now driving out to it in a bright red ATV and parks it right next to the hut. I'm not going to say he's wrong. He has the #2 buck and a couple more in the top 10. Of course these wizzo antler judges say they're all just spikes and forkers. However, I would invite you to visit the weblog and see for yourself.

BTW: The Benoit boys find a track and follow it upwind for miles. They've got miles and miles to play with. If I tried that, I'd have about 15 minutes of hunting and I'd be off the property line. The Shamanic Dream Team all hunt from static positions, and do most of our hunting by the seat of our pants. The trick is picking the right stand for the right conditions. The stand I picked on Saturday was the absolute worst choice for the conditions, but I like the view and wasn't at all worried about generating venison. The big show is in a month.

What's your take on the cough silencer?

Useless. I've gone hunting with a collapsed lung. The only thing I've found that works is taking off my hat and horking up into that.

Not always….And the long arm of a rifle trumps wind more than infrequently.

OK. I'll bite. You're one of the deer hunters on here I respect. Is there actually a nugget of advice in all what you're saying? I'm sincerely asking.

You're citing the great deer hunter who never used sodium bicarb. Mostly, they trudge for miles in the wilderness. You haven't used sodium bicarb. You kinda-sorta play the wind, but not religiously. You wander all over PA, north of the 'Burg and you've got nigh onto 100 deer under your belt. Are you telling me sodium bicarbonate works against successful deer hunting, it does nothing at all, or just that you've never tried it?

I started using it about 1986 and saw an immediate improvement in my hunting. Of course this was early on. I'd only been hunting 5 seasons or so. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I went from getting busted nearly every time I went out to a point where I was having deer under my stand on most trips.

I could probably stop using it entirely now, because
a) I don't bow hunt anymore
b) I've got enough years in on this farm that I pretty well know where the deer are going to be when.

It's just that :

a) I haven't found anything cheaper to wash my hunting clothes in.
b) The whole deal isn't that hard to do. I wake up, take a shower, and get dressed like everyone else. The only difference is that I air out my hunting duds when I come back in and I make a point of keeping them bagged up when I'm not hunting.
c) About the only thing that takes any real effort is washing my clothes at home and air drying them on the line outside. I transport my duds to camp in garbage bags.

All in all, it isn't THAT much of a hardship. It wouldn't be a huge hardship for someone like yourself to give it an honest shot and see if it did anything for them as well. I'm not asking you to try. I'm just saying it's really not that big a deal. I've already estimated that this thread is going to run 5 pages, and most of it is going to be spurious comments from folks saying they've never used the method and think it stinks. You'd think that in the 20 years or so that I've been mentioning this online somebody would have been stupid and gullible enough to write back and say "I tried it. It doesn't work. Shaman, you're full of beans!" The truth is, I get email from guys every year telling me it really does work. Perhaps they're stupid and gullible as well. All I know is the Baking Soda post is one of the most popular ones on my weblog, and the one I get the most positive feedback from.

The other thing that I find fascinating is that all I have to do is make mention of this method and the scheißvogel descend and start asking for my opinion on butt-out tools and the thread gets boosted to the top of the pile for days on end with the scheißvogel doing everything they can to humiliate me, and when simply ignoring me would have these threads off the front page in a matter of no time.

So, these sorts of colorful descriptors grind far more than the wind-defying logic.

We've seen the "monsters" from the dream team camp (complete with what could be the most horrid approach to field photos the forum has seen).
From the "165-inch" camp-record to the 70lbs of entrails from a whitetail deer, your proclivity for exaggeration is without peer here (at least in the deer hunting forum).

You're probably a pretty good dude so it hurts a bit to share this notion that myself (and others) have tippy-toed around for years – you're completely and utterly FOS.
And with relative ease, could produce a half-dozen 12 y/o hunters that'd hunt circles around you - none of which have a blog to share their deer hunting prowess/ignorance.

Hell, I don't know - maybe you're just playing us. If so, bravo - the joke is on us.

What that SKane guy said.

Gotta admit to having similar thoughts. And I've held them back because Shaman seems like a nice guy.

Relative to the average deer we take off the property, he pulls in his share of the largest. If they don't stack up to your standards, that's fine. I don't hunt where you do.
I don't claim any great expertise-- never have. I'm just writing about what I see and what I do at our farm. Some people love the stories. Some people could care less. Most people read my stuff and enjoy stories about a guy who's enjoying the heck out of his 200 acres. You and the scheißvogel seem to feel the need to make me and our camp appear small. This seems to bring y'all great entertainment. I really don't think you'll stop until whatever godawful hunger you have is satisfied.

The camp record? It's the biggest one we had to date. Nothing has come close. Monsters? To us they're monsters. 70lbs of viscera? Yep. I weighed it. Am I just a dolt running around in Orange? I don't know. I could be. I'm happier than a retard in a room full of bouncy balls, and I'm leaving puddles over it being so close to The Opener. You're the one trying to kick sand in my face.

I can't figure out what the motivation is. Are you going to chase me around for the next decade throwing every possible turd you can at every thread I post? Are you going to come to my house and poison my dogs? What's the end game here?

Am I playing you? You bet. I can post something like this and you hop on it. I get gobs of traffic on my weblog. I don't make money off it, but I get folks reading my stuff, and most of them enjoy the heck out of it. Right now, the traffic is up 70%.
.

Again with Scott...but I'm sure you think what you are doing is helping..

As far as myself, I haven't used soda and don't intend to. A long time ago, I would pack my Deer clothes in pine boughs, but gave up on it. Now if it is warm enough, I mostly put on my small game clothes and go hunt. If it is cold I have gear for that also.

My Deer hunting consists of moving thru the wood...slowing down some admittedly...and trying to catch them before they catch me. And have been successful over the years doing so. And bouncing them out of their beds. Less successful, but have connected more than enough to know it isn't impossible. Have shot them when the wind was at my back and at what some would consider close. Have shot them while in a stand with the wind not perfect. Most often at around 100 yards give or take, and they either didn't have a clue or didn't care. Favorite time is after a big snow or hard cold breaks..They are up and moving, often getting some food and often times care less that I am around.

I have shot a few larger Deer and a few nice ones, but most will not give me bragging rights.

My Deer hunting mainly consists of taking a walk in the wood with no special hunting clothing pre-prep...And it would take something bad to happen for me to take off my underwear at lunch...

Best of luck this year to you and yours...

See this guy off in the distance, maybe 200 yards away...Nasty day and I was moving as was he, but I caught him at it first...Moved, and making noise in the leaves, but the wind nullified it... he eventually walked within 20 yards of me feeding along. To small so he went on without ever knowing....It's not rare here.



Real close, and we both knew each other was there...But he waited...If it would have been earlier and in season it would have been a mistake..




Could have shot him at 10 feet when he crossed the trail....glad I didn't..




While taking a hunting walk....Not legal, but made for a great memory.

I had to download the pic and blow it up, but yes. I did see the deer.

Maybe so, but what about the butt-out tool and barrel de-resonator?

I had never thought of a barrel de-resonator. The butt-out tool looked like it solved a problem that didn't need solving. Besides, it made me feel icky just looking at it.

Baking soda in bulk - Locked and loaded, ready for deer season, baby!




Aw, just kiddin.' That's for the hot tub and pool.