Gun Oil Getting Me Busted?

[dmcianfa]

ORIGINAL: hunter480

ORIGINAL: Gafrage

Hunter 480, I guarentee you there are deer in North America that haven't smelled "equipment/macheriny, oil/lubricants".  Sorry to burst your bubble...but if you want to get technical, there are lots of deer in remote parts of Canada that haven't, and in addition to that, I'd put your 401k savings and Roth IRA's on deer in WI who haven't smelled "equipment/macheriny, oil/lubricants".  I understand your logic here, but don't try to sound more intelligent than you are with powerful statements, that not only cannot be proven, but are quite radical.  There are some deer however, that the last thing they do smell is "oil/lubricants" but that's just before someone pulls the trigger, but I bet you those fawns dropped this year, there are plenty that haven't yet.  Like I said, I'm not trying to burst your bubble, just don't make crazy comments.  You sound like my uncle.  He's lives in Indiana too.

Talk about crazy comments that can`t be proven, "......I guarantee you, there are deer in North America that haven`t smelled.........". You really shouldn`t try to sound more intelligent than you are by making powerful statements that can`t be proven.

I stand by what I said. As habitat shrinks, as more hunters are crowded into less hunting area, deer are not on an island, cut off from exposure to people, just the opposite.

So it`s ok that you think my comments are crazy, ok that you disagree, and you couldn`t ever burst my bubble. I do usually have a pretty good handle on what I`m talking about.

 
Maybe in that cess pool you call Indiana, deer smell those odors in their life, but in here in the U.P. of Michigan, there are acres and acres of forest with no roads let alone skidding trails that would allow human access, unless by foot and you would have to hike for at least 50 miles in.  I'm willing to bet my gun cabinet and everthing in it that there are deer there that havn't smelled so much as "faint whiff" smell of lubricant/oil/machinery/human.  Tisk Tisk  I'm gonna have to go with Gafrage on this one, your out of your element!

[dmcianfa]

ORIGINAL: OHhunter

ORIGINAL: hunter480

Certain odors frighten deer and put them on high-alert. Human ordor would be the number one ordor to frighten deer and cause them to adjust travel.

Additionally, white-tails are bombarded with different ordors daily, and oils/lubricants are one of them. From the scent of fuels for vehicles, farm equipment, to any other ordor asscoiated with machinery imaginable, they smell it.

Even with human ordor, it`s most critical factor, is where it`s smelled. The deer know and expect to capture human ordor in the field when farmers are working their crops.

If you`re doing even the least amount of work to minimize the ordor from your weapon, you`re fine. The slight odor emitted will seem to deer like equipment off in the distance, not in their backyard.

Wouldn't this work the same for lubricant odors, if a deer smells lubricants way back in the woods where it doesn't belong, wouldn't work the same as smelling human odors where they do not belong. 

 
I would agree with this statement OHhunter! I think it would be the same effect.

[hunter480]

ORIGINAL: OHhunter

ORIGINAL: hunter480

Certain odors frighten deer and put them on high-alert. Human ordor would be the number one ordor to frighten deer and cause them to adjust travel.

Additionally, white-tails are bombarded with different ordors daily, and oils/lubricants are one of them. From the scent of fuels for vehicles, farm equipment, to any other ordor asscoiated with machinery imaginable, they smell it.

Even with human ordor, it`s most critical factor, is where it`s smelled. The deer know and expect to capture human ordor in the field when farmers are working their crops.

If you`re doing even the least amount of work to minimize the ordor from your weapon, you`re fine. The slight odor emitted will seem to deer like equipment off in the distance, not in their backyard.

Wouldn't this work the same for lubricant odors, if a deer smells lubricants way back in the woods where it doesn't belong, wouldn't work the same as smelling human odors where they do not belong. 

 
Two things here, first, unless you`re way over lubricating your weapon, the odor should be extremely faint. Secondly, again, the smell of machinery isn`t typically an odor that put`s deer on alert. Between being an un-threatening odor to them, alongside being very faint, it won`t be a huge issue.

[dmcianfa]

I'm not agreeing with this statement at all.  A mature buck, say, that roams the woods and has not encountered a machinery/oil/lubricant (non-threatening) odor ever before, but encounters it for the first time in my opinion will be very cautious if not sneak back the way he came in without you or anyone else ever seeing him.  It is a new smell that can bring only two things for his future:  Reward or Consequence.  Since machinery/oil/lube scent has no appeal or lure to it, as attractants do such as acorns, molasses, hot doe, invading buck, and whel you get the point, why would he continue on his path and investigate the strange smell or engage in risky behavior.  I believe a mature buck at the very least will vacate the area before you even know it and actually live another day and not worry a lick about choosing to flight and not fight, only that he survived it when he smelled it and lived to tell the story, so to speak, by exiting stage right he lived to breed another year!  I will go as far to say a matriarch will do the same and with greater efficiency as well.  Now associate the gun oil smell with a predator smell (humans) and you can bet that deer and its offspring that it rears, if a doe, will give you the old white flag every time they get a whiff of it!  That is why I do not believe gun oil is (nonthreatening) to begin with.  It almost always accompanies human smell, does it not?  And more often than not a shot along with it where a herd member was lost at some time possibly.  Something to think about for sure!

[JPH]

Wow! I skipped over this thread b/c I have often wondered the same thing as the OP, but have given up on it. I thought it was a question with no answer. Boy have I been missing out!

After reading this, I find myself wondering if I should spray down with gun lube before heading into the stand.

[OHhunter]

ORIGINAL: JPH


After reading this, I find myself wondering if I should spray down with gun lube before heading into the stand.

 
That's my problem, I've been using silver XP all fall, when I should have been using Rem Oil.

[shaman]

See, it's this issue that always stuck in my craw-- how can scent be all that important when firearms have a clear stench and deer are supposedly not minding?  Ditto for rubber boots.  Ditto for ATV's. 

Mind you, I've been following this whole scent suppression business since before some folks on this forum were probably born.  Also mind you that if you'd asked me about this in 1989, I would have said that there wasn't enough you could do to lower your scent profile.

Now that I'm on my own 200 acres for 8 seasons and have gotten to know my herd and they me, I can offer this bit of tempering to the debate:

1)  A little bit of sodium bicarb goes a long way.   I do my clothes in it. I bathe with it.  I use it under my arms and on the rest of my body.
2)  Changing your clothes goes a long way.  That which can be replaced should.  That which can't needs to be aired out whenever possible.
3)  Removing outer layers and carrying them in a sack so that you don't sweat goes a long way.

 . . . but after all that you really need to mind the wind.  If the wind is against you, you're screwed.


Just as a for-instance.  I helped #3 son take his first deer back on Oct 12.  On Oct 18, we had the ML Opener.  #3 son wanted to go out, and I gave him the option of sitting on his own in a treestand-- not to hunt, but to just watch with binos.  It was in sight of my stand.  He took me up on it.

I'd been in that stand scouting a month earlier-- no scent control-- smelly sneakers and all.  At 200 yards, I'd gotten picked off by a doe, and I watched as she went from chewing clover to eying my position to making the decision to move off.

It was now the afternoon of the 18th.  #3 is in that stand, I'm in a stand at the other end of the field, in the woods.  The same herd of doe comes out to feed on the clover. The wind changes and that old doe is between #3 and me.  The same thing happens-- she gets wind of #3 and slinks off towards me.

There's probably someone who's drunk the Atsko Kool-Aid who is going to tell me that if I'd sprayed the kid down with their preparation, this would not have happened.  Somebody else is going to tell me their charcoal MOP suit would have made my son invisible.  I say Hooey!

You also have to remember that I had been in a stand watching this the whole time, and for the first half of the encounter, I was directly upwind of the doe.  I could have nailed her with that stinky old smokepole, smelling of sulphur, Crisco, and old leather any time in that 20 minute period.  What's more, I was playing "I crush your head!"  on that deer the whole time.  I was lining up shots and pulling the trigger without the hammer back, just to practice.  I just wasn't in the mood to bust a cap on a doe.

The diff?  My guess is the little goober was moving-- he's quite a squirmer. He was excited to see deer. He was probably sliding around on his seat. His little orange head was probably bobbing up and down.  The total gestalt:  there's a hunter up in that stand, and he means to do me harm.

Me? I'm a shaman.  Years of training in Zen and  the Tao have left me a master of the woods.  When my prey appears I am able to still my mind and become part of the forest.  I am nothing. I am the wind. I am a leaf on the tree. My powers of deception reach fully into the mind of the deer.

"These are not the 'droids you are looking for."

. . . who the heck knows! Honestly.  It's just as much a mystery to me as you guys.   The one thing I can tell you is that I didn't change my poly-pro the next morning. Mooseboy, #2 son, had forgotten his, and I loaned him my spare set the previous afternoon.  I got snorted 3 times before sunrise and then saw nothing in 4 hours of hunting.

Meanwhile, my spare set of polypro came back to me reeking of Mooseboy, Mooseboy cologne, Mooseboy aftershave, Mooseboy deoderant, Mooseboy body wash . . .the total effect smelled like a moose that had run through a perfume store-- yet, there was his deer on the meatpole.


Go figure.  Here's a pic of me and the Mooseboy with his doe.  He's already taken off his polypro shirt, because he's hot-- it was close to 60F.  Me?   I'm being stupid.















 

[dmcianfa]

ORIGINAL: shaman

See, it's this issue that always stuck in my craw-- how can scent be all that important when firearms have a clear stench and deer are supposedly not minding?  Ditto for rubber boots.  Ditto for ATV's. 

Mind you, I've been following this whole scent suppression business since before some folks on this forum were probably born.  Also mind you that if you'd asked me about this in 1989, I would have said that there wasn't enough you could do to lower your scent profile.

Now that I'm on my own 200 acres for 8 seasons and have gotten to know my herd and they me, I can offer this bit of tempering to the debate:

1)  A little bit of sodium bicarb goes a long way.   I do my clothes in it. I bathe with it.  I use it under my arms and on the rest of my body.
2)  Changing your clothes goes a long way.  That which can be replaced should.  That which can't needs to be aired out whenever possible.
3)  Removing outer layers and carrying them in a sack so that you don't sweat goes a long way.

. . . but after all that you really need to mind the wind.  If the wind is against you, you're screwed.


Just as a for-instance.  I helped #3 son take his first deer back on Oct 12.  On Oct 18, we had the ML Opener.  #3 son wanted to go out, and I gave him the option of sitting on his own in a treestand-- not to hunt, but to just watch with binos.  It was in sight of my stand.  He took me up on it.

I'd been in that stand scouting a month earlier-- no scent control-- smelly sneakers and all.  At 200 yards, I'd gotten picked off by a doe, and I watched as she went from chewing clover to eying my position to making the decision to move off.

It was now the afternoon of the 18th.  #3 is in that stand, I'm in a stand at the other end of the field, in the woods.  The same herd of doe comes out to feed on the clover. The wind changes and that old doe is between #3 and me.  The same thing happens-- she gets wind of #3 and slinks off towards me.

There's probably someone who's drunk the Atsko Kool-Aid who is going to tell me that if I'd sprayed the kid down with their preparation, this would not have happened.  Somebody else is going to tell me their charcoal MOP suit would have made my son invisible.  I say Hooey!

You also have to remember that I had been in a stand watching this the whole time, and for the first half of the encounter, I was directly upwind of the doe.  I could have nailed her with that stinky old smokepole, smelling of sulphur, Crisco, and old leather any time in that 20 minute period.  What's more, I was playing "I crush your head!"  on that deer the whole time.  I was lining up shots and pulling the trigger without the hammer back, just to practice.  I just wasn't in the mood to bust a cap on a doe.

The diff?  My guess is the little goober was moving-- he's quite a squirmer. He was excited to see deer. He was probably sliding around on his seat. His little orange head was probably bobbing up and down.  The total gestalt:  there's a hunter up in that stand, and he means to do me harm.

Me? I'm a shaman.  Years of training in Zen and  the Tao have left me a master of the woods.  When my prey appears I am able to still my mind and become part of the forest.  I am nothing. I am the wind. I am a leaf on the tree. My powers of deception reach fully into the mind of the deer.

"These are not the 'droids you are looking for."

. . . who the heck knows! Honestly.  It's just as much a mystery to me as you guys.   The one thing I can tell you is that I didn't change my poly-pro the next morning. Mooseboy, #2 son, had forgotten his, and I loaned him my spare set the previous afternoon.  I got snorted 3 times before sunrise and then saw nothing in 4 hours of hunting.

Meanwhile, my spare set of polypro came back to me reeking of Mooseboy, Mooseboy cologne, Mooseboy aftershave, Mooseboy deoderant, Mooseboy body wash . . .the total effect smelled like a moose that had run through a perfume store-- yet, there was his deer on the meatpole.


Go figure.  Here's a pic of me and the Mooseboy with his doe.  He's already taken off his polypro shirt, because he's hot-- it was close to 60F.  Me?   I'm being stupid.

 
So, after all that rambling, where do you stand on gun oil?  I'm not sure I made it out anywhere in your text?  Just curious to know if its
A.) Doesn't affect the deer's behavior
B.) Positively does influence a deer.
C.) Undecided

[DeanoZ]

There's probably someone who's drunk the Atsko Kool-Aid

 
LOL...too funny Shaman...I think #3 got busted because he did not apply his UV Killer
 
I'm of the opinion that you take proper measures to ensure the wind is in your favor and control your scent footprint as best you can, without going crazy!  I've heard of people who wipe down their equipment with scent eliminator; bows, guns, arrows, broadheads, etc.  Does it make a difference?  Can't say for sure except to my knowledge non-porous/fiberous objects generally don't have a scent to them (unless of course you've applied gun oil/lube to it) so thats probably taking it to the extreme.  But as I've always maintained, if it gives you greater confidence in your abilities, go for it!

[hunter480]

ORIGINAL: OHhunter

ORIGINAL: JPH


After reading this, I find myself wondering if I should spray down with gun lube before heading into the stand.

That's my problem, I've been using silver XP all fall, when I should have been using Rem Oil.

 
That`s seriously funny.....[8|]
 
C`mon, be reasonable...how have we ever killed deer?