What is it about some oders that get you pumped about hunting. Some of my favorites are the smell of cedar in my archery shop, dry leaves in the fall, the musty canvas tent that has been stored since last year, and last but not least skunk. I pourposly will run over an already dead skunk just to get the smell on my truck. I have asked my wife to wear skunk scent instead of perfume, she thinks I'm joking.
You're a strange dude
gringol, thank you
kill shot, you need to hunt javalina. You would be in Hog heaven. :laughing:
Love's "Fresh Lemon", but I digress......
:jumper:
Crisp new uncirculated $100.00 dollar bills. If they have been around you may end up with a snout full of drugs.
Napalm in the morning....
But, black timber with the scent of elk is pretty good, too.
Hunting related:
My property has sweet fern mixed through out, I love that smell! I bring some home to remind me of hunts up north.
Musky deer smell tells me things are going to heat up in the season.
other:
Bacon cooking
ribs cooking
pies and cookies cooking
Good one Andrew, these other guys have no instinct. I think they would rather eat a twinky.
In the fall.......the woods, Hemlock, decaying leaves, catching a whiff of a scrape before you get to it. The smell of coffee while on stand. :thumbsup: In the summer........fresh cut hay, lilacs right now, wild flocks and the smell of rain coming! :goldtooth:
Fresh black coffee and bacon at hunting camp, my fathers cigarette smoke within reason, new boot leather as I hand rub mink oil into the grain, the faint but distinct fragrance of rotting apples adrift in my favorite orchard/ravine, smoke from a crackeling campfire after a damp cool fall hunt, the smell of the cabin stove drifting through the woods as you return after dark from your hunt,
Pine, Hemlock, on the first frosty morning, almost takes your breath away
Bowstring wax had a smell in the old days, kind of fishy smelling. When I showed someone my 60s Hill brochures and old magazines with Swinehart, I could smell that old string wax.
Bacon Frying and a broken cedar arrow.
I keep my tips from my part time job in a drawer stacked up and when I open the drawer I'm greeted with the smell of money. I use the tips to pay for all of my hunting, fishing and golf trips for the year.
Elk!
A close second would be Autumn Olive in the spring (turkey season).
An easy one for me....Lodge Pole Pine about midday when the summer sun warms it. :thumbsup:
Fall mornings in the woods after a rain,just puts in a different frame of mind.
Nothing like a good whiff of "ELK" on a crisp September morning.
Port Orford Cedar and Hoppe's #9 Nitro Powder Solvent.
I'm reminded how God answered my prayers after many years from the smell of my three little adopted girls hair when it's dry after they have had their evening baths.
Now come Fall the smell of Autumn!
Wood fires
Damp Concrete Garage
Ocean
Cedar Shafts when cutting the point/nock tapers
x2 on the Hoppe's. How can it smell so nice to me, but make my wife want to puke?
Campfire cooking,woodstove smoke,and just prior and post a good rain. rat'
Bacon
Duck marsh
A just fired shotgun shell
Gun powder on a skeet field, wet bird dogs and the distinct smell of a fresh killed grouse. Just a few things from my years gone by.
Grouse
All the above except skunk road kill! No thank you sir...
The boral forest in Quebec !
I love the smell of a new Bible with a genuine leather cover and india paper pages.....WD-40.....a just spent .22 case.....fletch-tite glue.....and a cool fall morning in interior Alaska.
Nothing better than the scent of a rutting bull elk!
As for plants, I think sage is one of my all time favorites.
Balsam fir.
I love the cedar. Most of my stands are in cedar tree's and the whole time I am up in them I am crushing and rolling the the green goodness all over my pants. Smells great!
Wet wool drying by a wood stove, freshly oiled leather, and the camp fire on a nippy fall evening.
Fresh venison searing in a cast iron skillet, and yeah, skunk...
Honeysuckle in the late spring.
Dry leaves in the fall.
Fresh tilled dirt
Rain
Damp leavesof the forest floor
Wood burning
Cedar
I'm looking a cologne that smells like a steak being cooked on a grill.
Honey suckle
And the pretty girl at Lowes that always rings us up in her checkout line. Man she has good smelling perfume.
Elk in the September forest.
Homemade bread bakin.
Well just about goodie being baked in the kitchen.
And the smell of sweet success on any hunting trip...
Deer guts!
A GOOD FART!!! HEY WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM A PLUMBER.iT SMELLS LIKE MONEY TO ME.
A freshly cut alfalfa field, dry hardwood burning, turkey & shrooms in the fryer & the smell of bows you get walking in the door at Black Widows shop.
Fresh cut hay
Pine mixed with wild honeysuckle
Wood smoke
Shotgun shell smoke
Cedar
My wife
There is something about the first smell of fall that gets me going, when that first cool front gets to you. I don't know what it is, but my old bird dog and I would get it about the same time, then we were pretty much no good until hunting season started.
Old peaches or apricots laying on the ground.
The fall woods on a slightly damp day, the smell of wood and hay and old farm machinery in a barn, pine and cedar in my wood shop, and pipe smoke. (I don't smoke, but it reminds me of my Grandfather). Thanks; this thread brought back some nice memories.
Dave.
Love the smell of sage when hunting on the east side of the state.
Coffee on a campfire in the predawn hours with the smell of damp sage in the air on the high plains of Wyoming!
Mike
Cooking pine pitch glue . :campfire:
Woodsmoke, skunk and cedar swamp. Hoppes solvent forever.
The smell of burning White Birch bark. My favorite camp fire starter.That smell always congers up many fine memories.
The fresh scent of ELK at first light on a mountain sidehill covered with a light frost with cow calls poppin' all around and the rakin' sound of herd bull antlers within a stones throw to the front and the top of a small subalpine fir dancin' back and forth against the horizon with an arrow, tipped with a razor sharp Kodiak, nocked on the string of my favorite longbow....
:campfire:
Shoot straight, Shinken
:archer2:
Wood smoke and bacon frying over a camp fire
Just fired paper shotgun shells
Hoppe's #9
That's one involved smell Shinken! :eek:
I would have to say the faint smell of skunk, it reminds me of October and a old archery shop I would go to when I was just starting , he must have had a bottle spill in the shop a little. And the smell of maple and poplar leaves in the fall, gets me pumped.
Our deer season opens Aug15....so I typically notice the smell of fresh cut grass and pluff mud from the marshes around then....but there is a cedar tree I used to walk by on way to my lease for years that I would always grab a handful and crush and rub on my face and hands...so eastern red cedar (juniper) brings back memories of early season bowhunts.
Turkey season is tied to the smell of honeysuckle...whether in field or riding motorcycle...the smell takes me back to lush green forests, oak glens on the edge of cypress and tupelo swamps.
Nothing skunk related-if you smell them, there is a problem!!
Fresh Earth and White Oak Acorn Scent wafers, or the real stuff. Those scents tell my brain its hunting time!
There is a smell of rotting vegetation in the elk woods in the fall, usually at the head of a small creek.
Lots of great smells, really. I would hate to lose that sense.
Yeah, coffee over a fire, broken cedar shaft, string wax, feather burner at work in the garage, my German longhaired pointer coming in from the snow, a girlfriend (since passed away) had the best smelling hair and skin...miss her.
Here are just a few, in no order.
- broken POC
- oak campfire smoke
- a conifer woods
- a fall deciduous woods
- a pristine river
- my wool hunting cloths
- my dads old 30-06 (up north hunting camp)
- when you hit two rocks together
- my two children
- my wife
I really enjoy things that smell good!
Kris
Inside: Fried venison tenderloin, egg's and freshly brewed coffee.
Outside: The October fall woods in WI.
Tinks #69
You never know what will show up
QuoteOriginally posted by kill shot:
I have asked my wife to wear skunk scent instead of perfume, she thinks I'm joking.
What's keeping you from wearing it? :biglaugh:
The damp woods in October, especially areas heavy with pine and cedar.
Wool.
Bacon.
Coffee.
My beagle Daisy has a mild dog smell that I love. I "snuffle" her a few times a day. It actually cheers me up.
One of the best smells ever....coming home after a morning hunt on Thanksgiving Day. Walking into the kitchen with damp wool on, and having it all mix in with the smells of turkey, pie, stuffing, etc.
Skunk, damp wool, wet happy dogs, broken cedar shafts, sweet fern, bacon and coffee in the morning.
This is a good thread that may be a topic that has not been covered 100+ times. I think most of the world is unaware or unfamiliar with their olfactory sense on the level of a bow hunter. Although I think I would certainly miss my eyes most, ears 2nd - it is my sense of smell I appreciate the most having all of them working correctly. I often fantasize the value of having a bears(or even a dogs) sense of smell and how that would change my approach to hunting.
-A sweat soaked woman.
-The morning woods after a night of rain.
-Vanilla
-I like a mild skunk smell too
-Livestock
That's a pretty good list, Roger. :thumbsup:
Another one for Hoppes #9... brings back a lot of good hunting memories from my childhood.
Too many other good hunting smells to list, but definitely coffee perc'n in the morning and chocolate chip cookies baking the night before hunting season starts!
actually skunk too... it reminds me of my start in archery when that was all that was available as a cover scent, sage, turkey in the oven, my kids hair especially my son, at times his hair smells like a puppy?? and pine trees...
I love the smell of some of the hunting camps i've been in. It just seems like they have this old musty smell that reminds me of deer camp.
You folks are bringing up a lot of good memories for me with this thread. I would just add a young pups breath to this great list. Not a big fan of skunk, something to do with getting sprayed, not being allowed back into the truck, or the house, no good memories there for me.
By far, my favorite is the smell of the autumn woods, followed by the smell of wood smoke and bacon frying in camp. The smell of cedar is also very nice. I like the fresh smell of the woods after a rain, but I admit I don't like to hunt in the rain. Sometimes, during the rut especially, you can smell an old buck, even though you can't see him at all. That is really exciting to me.
I love sage brush, pines, and the smell of elk. That gets my blood pumpin'.
Yep the scent of elk on the breeze before daylight in a high basin as you move into position.
Either that or tloin on the grill the next day. LOL
Mike
yeah forgot about my wool...love that smell. I also got a thing for walking through woods and smelling the musky smell of a deer or a fox that passed through....or the tannic filled waters of a lowcountry wetland.
The smell of a largemouth bass on my hands just after release brings back great memories too...This is a great thread.
Mangrove trees in the back country of Everglades National Park, Pines, rotting leaves, and Elizabeth NJ
I forgot wood smoke, new leather and that broke cedar arrow. Also the smell of wild flowers on the Blue Ridge in Va. and N.C.
Forgot vanilla or anise near bear camp.....brackish water and marsh grass chasing redfish...the sweet aroma of the Doe Estrus scent wafers...yeah I am sick. LOL
There is a few odors I could do without (like the fart) but all in all I can't wait to smell these aromas.
Nothing that hasn't been said.
I roll down my truck window to smell woodsmoke/burning leaves in the fall.
smelling bacon and eggs puts me at a camp morning with my brothers and sons. (farts are put up with, usually)
gunpowder reminds me of our final sight-in at thanksgiving at my grandmothers house three days before deer season.
Hoppe's is just a classic. I was responsible for cleaning the guns as a youth.
Just a slight twist. There's a handful of songs that come on the oldies station that will instantly put me back in a gray Jeep CJ5, riding in the snow through some pine trees, with my uncle, on our way to hunt some grouse.
Good times.
Kill shot, I trap a lot and still can't stand skunk!!! I have 3 skunk "sacks" in a pickle jar buried in my backyard, just waiting for someone "worthy" but if you want you can buy them from me lol
Apple blossoms for spring turkey and sasafrass in the fall for deer.
I have too many,lol. Im going with pipe tobacco, my hunting hero smoked one when I was a kid. So did I for quite some time when I got older of course. Also the smell of the old fish smokers we made out of old refridgerators and one from an old outhouse,lol. I used to open the doors on them and take a sniff even when they were not being used,lol.
The whiff of swine on the breeze when scouting in the local WMA prior to the season opening.
Broken cedar shafts
The woods anytime after a rain
Burnt gunpowder
Campfire smoke...and what ever is cooking on it
Charcoal grill...and whatever is cooking on it
freash cut grass and hay
freashly tilled dirt
dipping and cresting paints
my camo when i pull it from my tote with earth scent waffers in it
X 1,000,000 on Hoppes #9 and I dig the skunk smell too. Not up close and personal, but just enough to ID.
Bacon, coffee and woodsmoke in the pines as you are walking back to camp after a morning hunt. I never developed a real taste for coffee, but I sure love the smell.
A fresh pouch of Levi Garret opened just before slipping into the woods to hunt up some pigs.
A hog wallow, an elk wallow, a deer scrape, a duck marsh...
Man there are a lot of great smells that I associate with hunting adventures.
The smell inside a saddle shop...
The scent of skunk on a brisk fall night...
The smell of rotting leaves on a rainy fall day in the timber...
The smell of fresh brewed coffee first thing in the morning...
Hoppe's No 9 solvent is pretty good...
Freshly mowed alfalfa field...
Woodsmoke on a frosty evening...
These are just a few of my favorite scents. Great thread!
Beaver caster while bear baiting...nothing like it!
Just think....Imagine, just Imagine, if you couldnt smell what life has to offer!!!
Red ants
banging two rocks together
Sphagnum Moss
Cherry pipe tobacco
Adirondack Balsam
wood smoke
Sweaty woman after a day of scouting together
Autumn leaves
Beaver Castor
Wet Wool
Montana Pitch Blend
Mink Piss
Struck match mixed w/ burning cedar shavings starting my campfire in Adirondacks
Sap boiling on my evaporator as it turns to fresh hot maple syrup
Downed pronghorn mixed in with Sage flat
For you Africa hunters, the smell of a downed springbok when rump hair flairs for few brief moments. Literally smells of sweet honey!!
cedar
Honeysuckle
and I will have to throw in with you on the Skunk.
I used Skunk scent when I was young as a cover scent. it just smells like deer season to me.
Ponderosa pine smoke
Hoppes gun solvent
Sam Adams Boston Lager right after you pop the top off
My all time favorite...roast turkey!
You guys who get off on skunk are just plain weird!
Most anything cooking on the grill or in the smoker.
I love the smell of tarsal glands.
Freshly mowed grass!
1. Walking down the trail to Trestles before light when the sage is open and fragrant before a good surf session.
2. Bull elk in rut.
camp fire smoke is a very comforting smell especially when shared with friends :campfire:
1. Outboard motor on a cool morning.
2. Pork chops on the grill.
3. My Grandads Browning A5.
4. Fresh cut timber.
5. Deer camp cookin.
6. Pine sap
There is something about Tigress or Chanel #5 and a teenage girl that got me married. Or was it the scent of orange blossoms on a hot summer night? Hmmmm
Back there in second place is applewood smoked bacon frying and French roast coffee perking . Then is the smell of a good barbeque and a fresh cut lawn mixed with blooming roses and honeysuckles.
You all can see that I like good combinations. That first one has lasted for over 50 years and never got over it. LOl
God bless you all, Steve
The dry dusty smell of an old tractor, when you're setting in the seat.
Great thread. Scent has incredible power for evoking emotions and memories. Some that take my mind to bowhunting...
-The leather smell of my arm guard and shooting glove.
-Fresh Earth scent elimination spray
-tinks 69 (which I inevitably spill on my hands or clothing)
-Coffee
-Rutting whitetails
-Fresh cut hay field
-Deer being skinned smell
The smell of a campfire with friends and an awesome dinner cooking.
Steamed crabs with old bay after being on the river all day.
Horses, the smell when you bury your nose in their hair.
Fresh cut leather
Smell of the first cold front in the deer woods.
So many that could be listed...but the first ones that come to mind that are bow hunting related:
The smell that hits my nose after I make a 2 hr drive to the Ouachita Nat'l Forest in SE Oklahoma to hunt black bears. (It's a heavy pine scent that isn't usually present in the NE region of the state.)
The smell of the campfire that I start using the pine needles from the forest floor, later that night.
Fresh Earth scented ANYTHING! (I LOVE that stuff! LOL!)
The first cool evening in the fall. Such a welcome and exciting aroma after a long hot summer! It's the smell of hope, and of wonderful days afield ahead, to me.
The heavy dew on new green growth just before the sun breaks the horizon in the early spring. It's kinda bittersweet to me though, because it means that turkeys will be available for hunting again, but also that my favorite seasons are over, and that hot weather isn't far away.
Honeysuckle in the air means it's full-on 3D season again, and that is always great times with family and friends.
The smell of gunsmoke, the scent of a woman, they get my blood pumping like any other man, but well, that's another topic altogether....
Great topic!!!!
The combination of that wild apple tree I walked by on way back to my car and the turkey. I took the time to stop smell the flowers.
cedar, pine forest in the fall, wet wool. rain, coffee, (I also white water kayak, so) the river,
dark timber that elk have been in...
Love the smell of a new bow just out of the shipping box that I have been waiting on forever! I also love the smell of morning air when the temp is around zero and there is a cover of fresh snow on the ground. Being down wind of a grove of fir trees. And the distinct smell in the air of a rutting buck. And I could go on and on and on, I thank my creator Jesus Christ for the wonderful blessing of a sense of smell!!!!!!!!!!!!! :thumbsup: Ain't we got fun! Gary.
Another smell I like is my man cave. It is a combination of Hoppe's # 9 and the leather of my bow quivers.
Buck tarsal glands (The ruttier :archer: the better)
You guys are right, Hoppes#9 is about even with skunk with me. My wife wont wear hoppes either.
Ponderosa on the continental divide - Gila Natl Dorest -NM- end of September. Haven't been since 2004 and can recall it at will - that smell is the trigger that brings back all the memories
Bacon.
"that smell is the trigger that brings back all the memories" I like this feeling.
My favorite :
- The smell of the wind coming up from the valley in the evening when you are in the mountains.
- The smell of dry leaves and humus in the fall.
- And of course the smell of the hair of my childrens and of my wife.
It is said the sense of smell carries with it your greatest form of memory. I love the smell of my child, while that last. Similarly I love the smell of puppy breath, again, while that last.
The oddest and most memorable smell eluded me for years. It was a smell that I knew I had smelled before and just couldn't put my finger on it. It was the smell of fresh caught halibut. It is a really unique and perhaps slightly offensive to some, but it reminded me of something that was too close to my heart and my being to go unsolved. Things like this can have a haunting effect on your psyche.
It was only a few years ago while I was visiting my family in California that my mom and I went to a huge flower convention that was for wholesalers only. That's when my memory was finally relieved of the gap that was inadvertently created. It was poppys the smell of poppys! My grandparents had a decorative flower bed that had poppys and I always remembered how I thought why would anyone want such a stinky plant in their yard.
Both G-parents have passed and they where the salt of the earth type of people that showed countless acts of selflessness. Now every time I put a halibut on-board I take a big whiff of the darn things just in the memory of them...
Cool thread thanks!
I like a birch or oak campfire or the same woods in my Franklin wood stove. in the cabin
The smell of POC, of course.
The fresh barnyard smell of elk when I'm among em.
The smell of sage carried on a warm breeze up the mountain in the afternoon.
Aspen and tag alder leaves on the forest floor in late September.
The icy freshness of a 0 degree morning in northern Wisconsin in early November.
At the end of the day, the smell of a good cigar and glass of bourbon.
Honeysuckle..when Mother Nature's feeling gracious
and the high sage around Meeker after evening showers blow through.
OK..throw in "pacon" pie while we're at it.
Honey suckle nothing like it. Also like gardina. The smell of wood smoke in the fall, especially hickory cause that usually means something good is cooking. The smell of the leaves in the fall. And what we call Confederate Jasimine.
But Honey Suckle has got to be my favorite.
The first time the soil is turned in the spring after layin up in winter. Yes I am a farm boy. Every time I see a tractor in the field tilling I roll down my windows and slow down. It soothes like nothing else, literally its like Prozac for the soul.
Dave
My wife's special perfume :D --next would probably be bacon frying in the outdoors.
Besides bacon, fresh cut grass, honeysuckle, wysteria when it blooms, poplar when it blooms. What smell gets me ready for the hunt? I can't think of one. when the leaves turn and the air cools gets me in the mood to shoot something fuzzy. seeing a squirrel on my bird feeder also inspires such a feeling.
I love the smell of the inside of a deer when I am cleaning one.
Clean babies and Johnson's No More Tears Shampoo. Missed many a hunting trip with those smells and never regretted it for a second.
Clean babies and Johnson's No More Tears Shampoo. Missed many a hunting trip with those smells and never regretted it for a second.
So many great, memory-inducing smells already listed above. As I read through your lists I was reminded of so many that mean so much for so many reasons.
But as I thought about just WHAT made the smells special, I realized that the circumstances around the smells brought more meaning to my mind than the odors themselves.
A wet dog for instance - the particulars of the odor may be the same, but drying a wet dog from letting it out to do it's business in the rain doesn't appeal to me; but gently drying an exhausted, wet, hardworking bird dog after a day afield together and then smelling him/her on the way home while they are curled-up in the front seat and your hand is resting on their wet fur is one of my all-time faves.
I don't like to get hot and sweaty and smell myself most times, but after traipsing miles after elk in the morning and being bone-soaked wet from rain or dew on the outside and sweat from the inside as the mid-day sun and dry air turn from humid to arid, the dried sweat and salt leave an acrid reminder of effort that makes me smile.
There are many other examples, but possibly the most stark one is the smell of a locker room at the end of football camp. It is simply disgusting if you're not on the team. But, oh how I miss and can recall it over 30 years from last suiting-up.
One more, bow-hunting related, I always snap off a few sassafras twigs when able and carry them in my pocket. I chew on the twigs to freshen my breath and then periodically crush the leaves in my fingers to smell it while roving around the woods.
Deer estrous...even though I don't use it anymore. Reminds me of putting it out as a kid and hoping a huge buck would come running.
The smell of evergreen on frosty sept. mornings. Also the stink of elk or pronghorn smells good to me.
at the moment.....tahr
Great stuff I got a couple more. Rabbit and squirrel guts. the smell of that pretty girl at lows I agree with that . A damp foggy morning. A wet dog that wants to rub all over you. Wet rotting leaves. Cow patties.
Ihad a 10 acre piece in so humbolt and I had some pepperwood trees below the house.Whenever I smell them anywhere it reminds me of that place in time.30 yrs ago now.
Fresh venison in hot butter.
Donuts, chocolate wafting up from my bear bait!
Gun Powder, Hoppe's #9, wood smoke from a campfire, cedar from an arrow, bacon and a long legged good lookin woman!
LD