smelly lube

frontierman01 · Oct 24, 2009

Hello all, been shooting ball and pre-lube patch. yesterday, was messing with my shooting stuff and found some shooting lube that I had purchase in a kit awhile ago. It's a yellow color waxy stuff, but it smells like vick's vapor rub. is this what it's suppose to smell like? I would think that this would alert any animal that smelled it. I was thinking about trying out some maxiballs this hunting season.

rabjr · Oct 24, 2009

frontierman01 said:
Hello all, been shooting ball and pre-lube patch. yesterday, was messing with my shooting stuff and found some shooting lube that I had purchase in a kit awhile ago. It's a yellow color waxy stuff, but it smells like vick's vapor rub. is this what it's suppose to smell like? I would think that this would alert any animal that smelled it. I was thinking about trying out some maxiballs this hunting season.

Do totally wash in non-scent stuff and wear those carbon suits from head to toe? Honestly the smell of that lube is probably the least of your worry's because if they smell that, believe me they smell you.

musketman · Oct 24, 2009

I have an old T/C paste lube from back in the 1980's and it seperated with time, and it smells too.

I just stirred it with a clean stick to remix it.

lonehunter · Oct 24, 2009

Musketman said:
I have an old T/C paste lube from back in the 1980's and it seperated with time, and it smells too.

I just stirred it with a clean stick to remix it.

Like this??:stir:

rabjr · Oct 24, 2009

This reminds me about a friend who didn't do much to descent while bow hunting from tree stands but he refused to suck on cough drops or any kind of candy because he was a afraid when he breathed the deer would smell it. :haha: I could not convince him that if they smelled the cough drops, they smelled his arse too. :haha:

jethro224 · Oct 24, 2009

Bore butter is yellow and waxy, but it smells like wintergreen lifesavers to me. I kinda like the smell.

Swampy, Sounds like you haven't read near enuff huntin' magazines or watched near enuff huntin' shows on the TV. Probly been wastin' all yer time out in the woods watching real deer instead of learnin' how to hunt right by watchin' the BigBucks network. :haha:

I can't agree more with you either. The whitetail deer has a phenomenal sense of smell. If a deer gets downwind of you or crosses the trail you walked in on, he'll know you're there. Period. I gave up on cover scents and scent eliminators years ago. Just hunt with the wind on my nose. It works better and it's lots cheaper.

Stumpkiller · Oct 25, 2009

A deer will occasionally doubt his or her eyes but they NEVER doubt their nose. They may bob up-and-down while looking at you to get you to move, but if they smell you it's light-up the afterburners time.

It wouldn't hurt to reduce odors as much as possible, but hunting into or quartering into the wind will increase your odds for sure. I never put any faith in cover scents. Deer know what their neighborhood smells like and they're just as spooked by a human in an apple as a plain human I'm sure.

As far as lubes and oils? Keep them off your clothes.

rabjr · Oct 25, 2009

Jethro224 said:
Bore butter is yellow and waxy, but it smells like wintergreen lifesavers to me. I kinda like the smell.

Swampy, Sounds like you haven't read near enuff huntin' magazines or watched near enuff huntin' shows on the TV. Probly been wastin' all yer time out in the woods watching real deer instead of learnin' how to hunt right by watchin' the BigBucks network. :haha:

I can't agree more with you either. The whitetail deer has a phenomenal sense of smell. If a deer gets downwind of you or crosses the trail you walked in on, he'll know you're there. Period. I gave up on cover scents and scent eliminators years ago. Just hunt with the wind on my nose. It works better and it's lots cheaper.

Na, you don't need the newest latest gadget to hunt and kill deer so I stopped watching those commercial/hunting shows. I'm ontop of the CATV so it don't make sense. I just pay close atention to the wind direction.

paulvallandigham · Oct 25, 2009

Jim: I had a yearling buck come up behind me one year, following my tracks as I came in with the wind in my face. I had put on waders, and had put on some doe-in-heat masking scent on the insteps of the rubber boots. I heard him, and turned around to see him over my left shoulder, with my barrel pointed to my right! He was less than 8 feet from me, and sniffing the wind. I had dusted my crotch with baking soda at the car, ( Outside of my blue jeans) to neutralize my scent a bit in that quarter, as that is well within their scent "zone". I was standing next to a small crab-apple tree, among its branches, and he could not make out what I was. He finally moved out into a winterwheat field, to go around me to my left, giving me a chance to shift my feet and bring my muzzle around to shoot him. MY shot was at less than 10 feet from muzzle to his ribcage.

I thought I was shooting a 1 1/2 year old doe- good eating-- because there were NO antlers, or buttons visible between his ears, even at that short distance. In fact, this buck dressed out at about 86 lbs. matching several does that were brought to the check station that were 1 1/2 years old. When I lifted that hind leg and saw the family jewels, I was shocked. I felt the head for buttons, and there was the merest HINT of knobs, on the skull, under the skin.

I am not suggesting that I would have fulled a more mature buck or doe into coming that close to me, but It can happen in the right conditions. There was a slight breeze in my face, but I am talking 5 miles per hour, or less. But, I had walked down a deer trail along a fence for about 200 yards, from the corner of the field, and the buck came right out of a bedding area and walked right up on me. :surrender: :thumbsup:

catman · Oct 25, 2009

Jethro224 said:
Bore butter is yellow and waxy, but it smells like wintergreen lifesavers to me. I kinda like the smell.

Swampy, Sounds like you haven't read near enuff huntin' magazines or watched near enuff huntin' shows on the TV. Probly been wastin' all yer time out in the woods watching real deer instead of learnin' how to hunt right by watchin' the BigBucks network. :haha:

I can't agree more with you either. The whitetail deer has a phenomenal sense of smell. If a deer gets downwind of you or crosses the trail you walked in on, he'll know you're there. Period. I gave up on cover scents and scent eliminators years ago. Just hunt with the wind on my nose. It works better and it's lots cheaper.

I've learned so much watching those woman deer hunting shows :rotf: :yakyak: :hmm: :blah: :wink:

rabjr · Oct 25, 2009

paulvallandigham said:
Jim: I had a yearling buck come up behind me one year, following my tracks as I came in with the wind in my face. I had put on waders, and had put on some doe-in-heat masking scent on the insteps of the rubber boots. I heard him, and turned around to see him over my left shoulder, with my barrel pointed to my right! He was less than 8 feet from me, and sniffing the wind. I had dusted my crotch with baking soda at the car, ( Outside of my blue jeans) to neutralize my scent a bit in that quarter, as that is well within their scent "zone". I was standing next to a small crab-apple tree, among its branches, and he could not make out what I was. He finally moved out into a winterwheat field, to go around me to my left, giving me a chance to shift my feet and bring my muzzle around to shoot him. MY shot was at less than 10 feet from muzzle to his ribcage.

I thought I was shooting a 1 1/2 year old doe- good eating-- because there were NO antlers, or buttons visible between his ears, even at that short distance. In fact, this buck dressed out at about 86 lbs. matching several does that were brought to the check station that were 1 1/2 years old. When I lifted that hind leg and saw the family jewels, I was shocked. I felt the head for buttons, and there was the merest HINT of knobs, on the skull, under the skin.

I am not suggesting that I would have fulled a more mature buck or doe into coming that close to me, but It can happen in the right conditions. There was a slight breeze in my face, but I am talking 5 miles per hour, or less. But, I had walked down a deer trail along a fence for about 200 yards, from the corner of the field, and the buck came right out of a bedding area and walked right up on me. :surrender: :thumbsup:

With all due respect, a yearling buck or Button buck as we refer to them here are the dumbest animal in the woods during hunting season. They have no idea what they are and have only spent most of their short lives with Females. If they survive they just might grow into one of the smartest animals in woods.

Several years ago up in Adirondacks on Thanksgiving day, just before legal shooting time was up, it was cold, no wind with about 8" snow on the ground. I smoked back then and lit one up. The smoke went straight down to a couple feet off the ground and drifted off in a line in one direction. I had never seen anything like it before. I probably saw a good 50, 60 yards of this line of smoke. Next thing I know I hear a crash and walking coming from that direction. I watched the smoke go directly into what appeared to be a Doe who then turned and slowly walked within 25 yards in front of me. At the time I had the N.Y Disabled 5 year buck or Doe tag so I dropped in right there in front of me. Turned out to be a big Button buck. Camel cigarettes sure were the death of him. :youcrazy:

Billnpatti · Oct 25, 2009

I seldom use any kind of scents because, for the most part, they are a bunch of phony manure. I did, however, find one cover scent that really seemed to work. I don't know if is still on the market. It came in two bottles that when mixed, they gave off skunk scent. According to the directions, you were suppoosed to set one scent pad off at an angle to the wind up wind of your position and the other one off to the other side at abut the same angle to the wind. I bought some and found that if you used too much, the smell was more than I could take even at a distance. :barf: :redface: I never saw a deer whille using it very strong but then I lightened it up a bunch so the smell was feint but still there. That's when I began to see animals of all kinds come near my blind. I had two foxes come close enough that I could have reached my rifle out the window of my blind and poked them in the ribs. Then I had a nice buck come out of the woods to my side and slowly walk across in front of me not more than 15 yards away. Dang right I got him. When relating this to one of the state biologists, he told me that if a deer or other animal smells skunk very strong, he figures that whatever was a danger to the skunk may still be in the area and will likely avoid it.

I agree that not all cover scents work but that skunk scent was a good one when used correctly.

rabjr · Oct 25, 2009

P.I IN THE 80'S with over 70 deer per square mile was a great place to test different scents. It showed us everything was pretty much a waste of money and one of the worst, which surprised me, was Fox urine. We used to pour a bit on a pad and drag it on the edge of one of the roads which gave us a good 200+ yards to watch, We saw so many deer start to come out to cross the road, stop and hit that scent and turn tail and run back into the woods and waste no time in doing it too.

Blizzard of '93 · Oct 25, 2009

WD40 has a scent that travels a long ways also. so wipe your guns dowm with shortening before you go to the woods.

texcl · Oct 25, 2009

Another thing that really helps is putting your stand as high up as you can, the stand I was hunting tonight is probably 25' up and while a little scary in a wind storm I almost never get scented or seen. Playing the wind is a rule in deer hunting if you don't obey it you will get busted 99% of the time.

paulvallandigham · Oct 26, 2009

We have different experiences, apparently. That is okay. My good friend, Don Latter was sitting on a stool watching a juncture of two game trails, during archery season, smoking a cigarette. it was in his left hand, and his land was resting on his thigh, when the branch of the bush behind him began pushing against his left shoulder. He looked ot his left, to see a Nice, 2 1/2 year old buck with a good rack on his head push by him, and within inches of the cigarette smoke curling up into the air above. Don dropped the cigarette, and tried to get the bow up and drawn with his broadhead in place, but the buck managed to put a good sized tree between himself and Don before Don had a line on a shot. So much for mature deer being more alert to people, fire, smoke, noise, etc. Another friend was cutting willow trees along a ditch and piling the wood up to burn after it dried. He looked up and the largest buck in the area ( he had seen several times with binoculars before) walked out of the woods and stood watching what he was doing. The deer do not react in panic at the sound of cars, or tractors, or combines, and barely will move out of the way when farmers are harvesting their corn. They are smart enough to spend the entire sunny day laying up in a small swale full of high grasses, while all us deer hunters are decorating trees in the woods around them. :rotf:

rabjr · Oct 26, 2009

paulvallandigham said:
We have different experiences, apparently. That is okay. My good friend, Don Latter was sitting on a stool watching a juncture of two game trails, during archery season, smoking a cigarette. it was in his left hand, and his land was resting on his thigh, when the branch of the bush behind him began pushing against his left shoulder. He looked ot his left, to see a Nice, 2 1/2 year old buck with a good rack on his head push by him, and within inches of the cigarette smoke curling up into the air above. Don dropped the cigarette, and tried to get the bow up and drawn with his broadhead in place, but the buck managed to put a good sized tree between himself and Don before Don had a line on a shot. So much for mature deer being more alert to people, fire, smoke, noise, etc. Another friend was cutting willow trees along a ditch and piling the wood up to burn after it dried. He looked up and the largest buck in the area ( he had seen several times with binoculars before) walked out of the woods and stood watching what he was doing. The deer do not react in panic at the sound of cars, or tractors, or combines, and barely will move out of the way when farmers are harvesting their corn. They are smart enough to spend the entire sunny day laying up in a small swale full of high grasses, while all us deer hunters are decorating trees in the woods around them. :rotf:

You have to realize Paul, there are three different kinds of Whitetail deer today. And there is a difference between the three. :haha:

Wild Whitetails
Urban Whitetails
Suburban Whitetails

rabjr · Oct 26, 2009

Also up to 2001 when I finally gave up cigarettes, I would smoke one every half hour to see how the wind was. I can't tell you how many I had to spit out to shoot a deer, then pick it up and finish smoking it. Lots...

paulvallandigham · Oct 26, 2009

But all these were living in rural farm country. I know there are a few wild areas left on the continent, where game never come in contact with people except during hunting seasons, but None of those places exist East of the Mississippi, and probably, East of the Rockies.

rabjr · Oct 26, 2009

paulvallandigham said:
But all these were living in rural farm country. I know there are a few wild areas left on the continent, where game never come in contact with people except during hunting seasons, but None of those places exist East of the Mississippi, and probably, East of the Rockies.

I dunno, I learned over the years, once you think you got em figured out, they show you something that says, no you don't. :haha:

smelly lube

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