What do you wash your hunting clothes in

John Y Cannuck

John Y Cannuck

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Or do you?

I studiously avoid washing my hunting coat. I hate the brightenners and smelly crap they put in commercial washing soaps.
Now days, there are fancy soaps out there for hunters and I wondered if any of you use them.

This year I have to wash, it's just too dirty. I doub't it qualifies as orange under the law :lol: .
I'm trying an experiment.
I stuck my nose in the laundry detergent, and said NFW!
So, same as I do for my greasy coveralls, I grabbed a scoop of automatic dish washing soap, (works great on grease) and chucked that in.
I'll let you know how it turns out, it's running right now.
 
I often hang my hunting stuff outside for a week or so to get the smell out. Rain helps :arrow:

Trouble is that are so many foriegn (to a deer) smells that we come into contact with and it's pretty much impossible to avoid them all.

SC.......................
 
I had read a pretty good book about hunting whitetails. They did a good study on how and what deer see. The conclusion was that colour wasn't so important (blaze orange vs camo), but to avoid detergents with brighteners as deer see very high into the UV spectrum.

Oh yeah, to answer the question, I don't think my hunting coat has ever been washed. But that study is good to keep in mind for things like pants and shirts that may be visible when on the hunt.
 
When the clothes are dry, just hang the on the line or in the basement.

JYC:

You know better, this sould have been done months ago, so that the chlorine etc can evaporate.

RePete.
 
Ok, it's out of the machine, looks much better, it did not come squeeky clean, but that's OK, and it doesn't glow like a neon sign either.
I'm most conscious of bright colours drawing attention to movement. Deer may not see Orange, but they do see it as bright.
 
As for the smell : through in a piece of cedar or pine bough or an apple cut in 2. In a garbage bag. Depends where you hunt. DAN>>> :D :shock: :wink:
 
I dont know about this whole smell/scent thing. Two guys that hunt in our camp area have two very distinctive aromas. One guy doesnt wash out his hunting gear and smells like a combo of smoked ham and oil. The other guy shaves every morning complete with after shave. Between the two of them they shot and seen more deer over the last 50 years than I can ever dream of. One can actually smell these guys before you ever see them and I can only hope to be as good in the woods as either of these guys.
 
EnfieldMike said:
I dont know about this whole smell/scent thing. Two guys that hunt in our camp area have two very distinctive aromas. One guy doesnt wash out his hunting gear and smells like a combo of smoked ham and oil. The other guy shaves every morning complete with after shave. Between the two of them they shot and seen more deer over the last 50 years than I can ever dream of. One can actually smell these guys before you ever see them and I can only hope to be as good in the woods as either of these guys.
Click to expand...
True enough! Goes to show that you gotta watch the wind and most importantly rely on luck :!:

SC....................
 
RePete said:
When the clothes are dry, just hang the on the line or in the basement.

JYC:

You know better, this sould have been done months ago, so that the chlorine etc can evaporate.

RePete.
Click to expand...

You're right, I should have, but a few cedar boughs in a garbage bag should fix it.
Just make sure it's a clear garbage bag. Wouldn't want any mistakes made. :shock:

There are a lot of things I screwed up on this year, like getting a load sighted in.
I've been shooting all summer, but come moose season, I still don't have the load I want sighted in. Looks like that will have to wait for moose camp now.
I'm taking two rifles, just in case. :roll:
 
"Between the two of them they shot and seen more deer over the last 50 years than I can ever dream of. "

Way different rifle and bowhunting though- I only bow hunt deer here- if you have a strong scent, you dont get em in the 30 yard range most times, no matter the wind
Dave
 
Hanging the clothes at this time of year will take a long time for the chloine smell to go away....
Heat dissapates the chlorine....
I just washed my stuff in Hot water and baking soda after a regular washing in Allergen free Soap (no scent and we had it already..)
Then I hung it in the apple tree in the back yard for a couple of days...
 
I tried an experiment with the UV killer product and we tested it with infrared night vision based on "scientific" information on deer vision.....we found the untreated clothing was highly visible and the UV kiler dulled the clothing "shine" to the point it was almost undetectable when treated with UV killer. So I know UV killer works well.

I have washed clothes in Sportwash, after rinsing the wash machine with a hot water rinse first. It has no UV brighteners.

Most of the time, I just hang my clothes outside for a few days and that works well too......

I think wind direction is always the best..I have camo clothes but usually I just wear warm old wool and head out.....I suppose if a fella was bowhunting it might make a bit more sense to practice diligent scent control but I usually rifle hunt so I get a bit of a break due to distance......

I think a guy can go overboard with scent control.. I read about a guy in Michigan who used a rubber suit and he claims he gets up close to all the big deer. My brother in law stomps on that theory as he has a house full of big bucks and elk and he hunts in his work coveralls.......go figure.

I think there are too many gimmicky things in hunting that claim they make things easy for guys to get big animals if they use them.....personally, I think being quiet, walking slow and looking around and keeping the wind in your face is the best.
 
As far as scent goes, the moose camp isn't bad, but the deer camp gets pretty ripe by second week.
I pitty poor notenough coming in to camp for the first time on second week last year. We must have been really ripe after a first week that was warm.

Lets hope that a clean coat and coveralls can lock in a bit of that odour.
 
The laundry Detergent but out by Simply Clean that is supposed to be good for what your looking for ( no phosphates ), or that is what the driver that used to deliver the stuff told me, and he is a bow hunter.
I've used the stuff and well as the dogger I don't see to many deer
 
I have a freind who bow hunts lots and his method is to put his hunting duds into a garbage bag with a couple of tobbacco cans woth of deer #### in it. He figures deer aren't gonna spook from smelling deer ####. :shock: Be fun to ride with him in the truck on opening morning :wink:

BC
 
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