Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Could cigar smoking be considered a cover scent?

I like an occasional cigar--mostly I chew on the sweet ones but I've always avoided smoking one before or during hunting. Anyone routinely smoke cigars while in the deer stand?

Who knows it might peak their curiosity. I've got a couple of deer in the freezer this year so I may give it a try--maybe one of the funky 'Acid' cigars (no drugs, it's a brand with an incense whang).

If I'm bowhunting I try to be as scent free as possible and use cover scents. If I'm rifle hunting from a blind or set up on a road or side of a hill and shooting from say 100 to 300 yds I don't really worry about cover scents. At one of my leases,we have no power or water. After four or five days of not bathing, sweating, smoking cigars coooking over pecan and oak, sitting by a cedar fire,cleaning game I get pretty odoriferous. I still kill deer, hogs and varmints. Occasionally an old doe will wind me but for the most part I think deer clue in much more on motion. And if, as you say, you have a couple deer in the freezer I'd enjoy a smoke.
I believe that Rudyard Kipling once pontificated that " A woman is just a woman, but a good cigar, now that's a smoke"
GWB

I've heard that cigar smoking or chew will pique their curiosity.

Hell, I smoked a "Tropic Storm" Zimbabwean cigarette in the blind while waiting for my baboon shot, nothing seemed to notice.

Smoking will certainly spook game as a general rule, in fact any smell that is uncommon the the animal being hunted will normally spook them...Using apple scent in an area without apples growing will spook deer for instance..Using doe must when the rut is long over or a long time prior seems to spook bucks.

Lighting a cigarette from the wrong end makes your breath stink.

I guess they would work good if you spent the night at a titty bar and had a lap dance. Whereas the wife couldn't smell youtoo good when you got home except for,the cigar. Don't think it would work for an elk.

If you spent a couple of months smoking your cigar in your stand ahead of time it would probably work they would be conditioned to it and if you put out some scotch in bowl so they could partake while smelling the smoke you might have some thing. Although I would check local laws about baiting with scotch and cigars

I'd have to make sure I wore a lot of orange 'cause I'd be headed for that stand.

Weekend before last I got to see what effect cigar smoke would have. There was a particularly goofy doe around one feeder, my brother had tried to run her off the day before, hard to spook when you wanted to. I had gotten down to answer nature's call down the fence aways, looked up to see the doe watching me. As I tried to get back to the stand and my camera without spooking her, she would watch me closely when I stood still, when I began to move again she'd put her head down and eat. The two yearlings with her would run off when
Ii moved, come back when I was still. I had no cover between us. Finally making it to the stand, another mature doe and another yearling came out. All five wandered within 20 yards or closer to the stand, while I smoked a cigar (cheap one, too) with the wind from me to them. If I made the slightest noise, their heads would come up, but that cigar didn't bother them. Later, I was walking around and saw a small 6 point in the same field, working across with little cover. I walked with him, about 50 yards between us, and he didn't appear to notice me. I sat down to scope him once, and he immediate;y stopped browsing and eyeballed me until I stood up, then went back about his bidness. These weren't deer that were unaware of humans, a couple of nice bucks were shot from that stand the weekend before, and the does were out between 9 AM and 10:30, the buck at 11:30 AM.

My brother in law routinely smokes camels and eats ding-dongs while on stand. I used to bash him and tell him how he would never see game. He laughed at me.

He says he watches the smoke constantly and plays the wind accordingly. He's right. He consistently takes the biggest bucks out of anyone I know. One after the other.

I had to hunt with him to believe it, but its true. Last year was the last straw. After he killed an absolute monster whitetail at 20 steps with a camel lit, I got rid of all my scent lock stuff and decided to play the wind rigorously instead.

Think about it -- If a deer can smell that cigar ,it can also smell any other smells that are coming off you. Never underestimate any animals nose. Wind direction --wind direction.
I've seen deer dig in a foot of snow to get to some tiny green shoots to eat. They smell them. --- Web

I've seen deer on many occasions go into a still smoking burns without a care in the world. They seem drawn to it...

Would it be a cover scent? I don't think so, but they sure don't seem to be bothered by it.

I'm not gonna ask how you know that.......

Capstick wrote in Death in the Long Grass that his clients and he used to chain smoke in leopard blinds. The first cigarette lit with a match or lighter was lit at the car before they got to the blind, after that he would only allow your next smoke to be lit with the cherry of the previous. He figured that a leopard could smell them anyway, so smoking didn�t matter, but the noise of match or lighter striking would detour the cats from the bait.

I shot the biggest buck I ever took off my land in CT while smoking a pipe. Back then I was smoking a pound of tobacco a week.Then I just decided one day fly fishing, that pipe smoking was to much of a pain in the rump. I quit gave my collection of pipes to a friend that still smoked. Picked it up from him and that was that, no shakes no dt's, no problem. The up side was not spending the 22 dollars a week on my tobacco blend. I never was much for cigars, my dad smoked those and he hated that Fildel guy because he loved Cuban's, I remember going to a humordor in NYC with him, in 60 getting the last couple of boxes from a friend of his. You guys sure to bring up a things I have not thought of in years. Now how about a long discussion on the finer points of the 270 vs 30-06 debate or better yet, How about Egg Nog!!!!

Got a buddy who spent ALOT of time in an antelope blind.
Bastid smoked alot of..... ahh nevermind.

This is the best thread I've seen in a while...I've got a date with a pack of Backwoods come next fall. Maybe if I use the honey flavor I could bust 'em out for spring bear.

Just don't forget to lay the cigar down before you draw your bow & you'll be good to go.

I agree with wldthg, if the wind's wrong a deer'll smell you..smoke or no smoke. Those carbon suits are nothing but a marketing scam.

I have hunted for more than 45 years and admit I went through the "scent" thing myself. At one time I would use doe-in-heat, skunk scent, fox piss, buck scent and acorn scent........all at the same time!!

My father used to say that I killed bucks because I had them so confusued they thought they were in a zoo and felt "safe".

Over the years I have found that nothing will overcome a deer's nose.........NOTHING!! The best you can hope for is to not alarm them. That said, the smell of cigarette smoke is definitely an "alert" smell that gets the deer on guard but nit's not the tobacco that does it. In fact.....I have found that the smell of tobacco to be an attractant, at least in the unburned form. More than once I have seen unduisturbed deer come from 50 yards or more to "test" the smell of tobacco. Louse leaf seems better than snuff but both work.

Strange but true.......

Please..........don't put the "stink" of cigarettes in the same class as a good cigar!