If you are hanging a new stand mid-season, does anyone have any protocols they follow in attempting to make their stands as scent free as possible?
Any chance of just letting it sit outside the house for a few days??? If it got rained on that would be ideal. Other than that i would say spray the seat with ddw and dont worry about it.
We store ours in the barn. Usually we leave them outside for a couple of days. It is better if it rains.
We do the same thing. We keep them in a old lean-to. All the straps and ropes go in a bucket with a lid so they don't get chewed on or UV.
I try to get my stands out weeks before season comes in, even my climber stands just to make sure by the time I'm ready to go hunting they don't smell unnatural. I agree with what most said, if you can, set your stand outside for a couple days or just spray it down with some kind of scentless spray and you should be fine.
Color me crazy but I've never worried much about my stand holding scent. Aside from the seat pad which I spray down with Dead Down Wind before going out, the entire thing is metal. I'm no scientist but I have to believe the odor absorbing power of aluminum isn't all that great. I've hung stands and killed deer from them within a few hours without any issues.
I agree. I would just spray the seat down and off you go. I keep my blinds (which I mostly hunt of) and my ghillie in plastic bags/totes until the season starts and then take them out, air them out for a day and into the woods they go. I hunt farm country and the deer are used to a lot of non-human scents. They walk right by a garbage can at the end of our gravel driveway without giving it a second thought. BTW, read a good article the other day where a magazine asked hunting guides their thoughts on a variety of subjects, one being scent control. I liked Ted Marum's response, which was he believed the scent "control" craze is pretty much a bunch of huey. He said, you'd have to follow the regimen to a tee, every time, all the time, for it to have some results. And BTW, what fun is that? He'd just rather have fun hunting and play the wind as his scent control. He also said, "I've never had a hunter say, that huge buck was 20 yards downwind and didn't flinch because my scent control was so good." Paraphrased. Finally, on the subject of leaving scent on the ground, he said he agreed there are wary bucks but most are curious. If you stuck a stick in the middle of a logging road and hacked a big goober on it, every buck in the vicinity except for one or two would stop to check it out. Not bashing the scent control companies. It likely gives you some edge and if you want every one possible, go for it. I'm just not so sure to what degree it impacts your success. I used to do all that scent control stuff. Now, I take a shower, or just make sure I don't stink, pull my clothes out of my hunting closet under the stairs that are reasonably clean, and head out, sitting in the blind I have that is appropriate for the wind direction.
Just spray down the stand or let it sit for a day/overnight outside. For putting it up, be slow and quiet, don't overdress (to prevent sweating), wear rubber boots, wear gloves, shower and spray down as if you were going to hunt, use field wipes if you start to sweat and put them in a ziplock baggie when finished. Seems a bit much but spooking off a big buck this close to the pre-rut and you could be shooting yourself in the foot so better safe than sorry in my opinion. In addition, try to put the stand up when the wind is to your favor but of course you may not be able to wait for that.
