I am inexperienced in hog hunting. So a couple easy questions.

1. Can hogs detect thermacell if they are downwind??
2. How scent consience should I be when hunting them??

Thanks for the input
Ramsey

I am not an expert but I have shot several hogs between 10-15 yards w/ a bow and Fri nite the wind was outta the N and 4 hogs came right in from the south. I had on no scent control and had my thermacell going. I was in a treestand so I am sure that helped.

I've seen pigs catch wind of people from 200 yards and take off. I've also seen hogs stand right down wind of someone who was sitting by a fire all day long. While scouting, I wouldn't go out of your way for scent protection like you would deer. When hunting, just be as careful as possible. Not sure about thermacell. They can smell 25ft under ground. Let's just put it that way.

If you are spot and stalking or just trying to catch them on a trail they are just as or more spooky then deer. Now if your hunitng over a feeder or waterhole they hit on the reg...dnt matter at all.

Thanks for the info. I was in a box blind about 50 yards upwind of the feeder they always go to. Spent 7.5 hours in the blind and no pigs. Always want to correct my mistakes and get better at the sport.

Happened to me way to many times this past winter, it will pitch black out and you can see them in the thermal freeze up and haul @%^ away pisses me off every time without that nose every hog in Texas will be dead......

I am no expert, but I asked the same question and was told that it is all relative. Depending on how much the hogs regularly encounter people and/or their odors and sounds will determine how much the odors/sounds bother them. If they are used to strange smells and human noises, then there is a chance it won't bother them at all. If they are not used to it, then I would expect them to run at the sound of a squirrel fart. I have noticed this with deer, but I was told it was the same with hogs.

Navasota, ImE it has been about the opposite for me. I can go stake out a feeder from a deer stand (archery) and have the wind and my scent control be spot on and yet have them hang up or bust me over the absolute slightest thing. To me a hog coming to feeder at archery range during daylight hours is a weary beast. On the other hand, I have pulled off spot and stalks more often than not. One that sticks out is a stalk I put on a group of hogs across 400 yards of open field by just crouch walking into the wind in blue jeans and a yellow shirt and making a 40 yards shot on a sow. It has always seemed if they are already interested in something such as food or a water hole they can be snuck up on, but if they are on their guard walking into a feeding area te feral hog can be a suave dude.

Take this for what it is worth.

My buddy and i were walking along a tree line this weekend and heard a hog rustling around in a thicket. We were walking back to camp after taking a few out by our feeder a little earlier. We stopped, popped out some squeeky lawn chairs, and sat there for an hour waiting for him to come out. We were getting eaten up by mosquitos, so we sprayed some off all over us. Then, we started laughing so hard that i bent over and my binoculars fell out and hit a rock, making a loud bang. We laughed even louder. Just like in church when the old man in front of you lets one rip and his wife hits him with her bulletin. We couldnt stop laughing. Just a few minutes later, the hog popped out with a few buddies along with it that we didnt realize were there. We lit them up from less than 20 feet away.

We made more racket than any serious hunter would admit and they didnt care one bit. I know people's mileage may vary but i think hogs get a lot more credit than reality says they should.

My hogs'll wind you at 200+yds too. Kinda sucks. Just keep the wind in your favor, my pigs and most people's don't seem to see, hear or have tingly spidey senses much more than any human. I've walked right up on them (while downwind) and spotlighted them repeatedly with white light to about 10 feet and shot them with pistols. I've also been winded while setting up to take a 150 yard shot... Scent is the ONLY thing I worry about when hunting these guys.

Caveat: That was in brush and they were eating corn (read as they were REALLY distracted) when I spotlighted them that close.

25 feet under ground?

If they hogs are hunted heavily or shot at around the feeders they will become nocturnal first. Then they start becoming real leary of the feeders. I sat in my blind 100 yards away a couple of weeks ago and had 3 sows and 12 piglets come in. They took about 10 minutes time just smelling the air checking to see if anything was out of place. Now with that said last weekend we backed the truck up to fill a protien feeder and the 3 sows and all 12 piglets were bedded down less than 10 feet away and when I got about 5 feet away they busted out of there in every direction! That was scary!!! This is what makes hog hunting such a challenge.

Busted by smell at 200 yards or spotted at 200 yards?
Most folks don't realize this, but a pig's vision certainly can be better than that of a human in regard to seeing objects at a distance. They don't see as many colors, but can see better. For example, pig eyes have about 78 diopters. Humans have about 40. With 78 diopters, hogs have a focal length of about 260 feet. Humans with 40 diopters have a focal length of 131 feet. So hogs can actually see better at distance than humans can.

http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/animalwelfare/1_download.pdf
http://visacuity.com/readingglasses.info/diopter101.html



Wow, I have always heard it was 10 feet. At those depths, I don't think it is possible for a hog to smell what is there. At 10 feet, you are going to already be below the root systems of most vegetation. There isn't going to be much in the way of gas exchange to bring the particles of the buried item up to the surface where they can be detected by the pig. Even if there was enough gas exchange to bring the particles to the surface to be sensed by the hog, it isn't that the hog can smell that deep. It is only smelling a few inches (the distance from the nose to the ground).

What the hogs are smelling in many cases such as with truffles, they are smelling various volatile compounds given off by the truffles. Essentially, the truffles are outgassing.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1387380606000224

Truffle outgassed volatile chemicals can reach the surface from as deep as about 3 feet.

In other words, hogs cannot project their sense of smell down to a buried item, but can detect vapors and such from the item that actually reaches the surface.

Detecting truffles by their vapors and coming up with 3 feet deep is from truffle hunters who apparently have determined this with their truffle hunting hogs. I cannot find any study to say this is correct. Three feet would be an unusual test for hogs by truffle hunters as truffles usually don't grow below a foot or so.
http://www.natruffling.org/faq.htm

I can't find any information to indicate that tests have been done at 10 or 25 feet for detection. Do you know of any studies where they was tested or verified? Given the plethora of web sites stating hogs can detect at such depths and that there apparently aren't any tests to support the claim, it would seem that these great detecting depths are more folklore than reality.

I have noticed that a lot of hunters will state that they were apparently smelled by the intended prey (deer, hogs) which subsequently ran off. I have to wonder how they knew it was a smell issue and how it was that they ruled out other factors. In the case of hogs, we now know that they have the ability to see quite well. Obviously, if you don't think the pig can see well, you won't blame being spotted is why the pig(s) ran away. On several occasions, I have noted hogs and deer being spooked and taking off for no immediately apparent reason and then seeing a new critter enter the area moments later. In other words, when your prey gets spooked and you don't know why, assuming that it was you or your scent may have had nothing to do with the issue. The issue would be with the other critters in the forest that you may or may not actually see yourself.

200 yards away sitting in grass/sage 3ft deep in full camo. Wind shifted to my back, 20 seconds later pigs look up, smell the air in my direction, take off like a light. Waited 3 more hours there, no more pigs (or anything else). Pretty sure they smelled me.

@ Double Naught Spy. I didn't mean to make it sound like they "project" their sense of smell downwards. Rather that they can detect low densities of "gases" that rise from the ground from things in the earth. Even if my nose was 3 inches from the ground, I couldn't smell much of anything. And while a pigs nose may be the same distance from the ground, it could surley catch notice of more things than a human.
I also assume all of these assumptions to be exactly that. Assumptions. Whether it be 10ft or 25ft, I guess it doesn't really matter to the hunter. No one's going to dig a 10-25ft hole to bait.
About their eyesight. I 100% agree with you. I've heard people say hogs eyesight is awful. It's not! They just cannot look up.

@OP. When hunting, everything you do either increases or decreases your chances of being successful. In the long run, I believe being 100% scent free will increase your success rates. The question to ask yourself is whether or not the work you put into being "scent free", or anything else for that matter, is worth the increased odds of you being successful.

ProneOutfitters, so where did you get the information that hogs can smell 25 feet underground? Without something pumping the vapors or particles to the surface, hogs aren't going to be able to smell anything that deep. You are right. You don't have their oldfactory capabilities, but that does not mean that their capabilities are supernatural either and discussing them in such a manner isn't productive. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Do you use scent free gun oil that has been tested and proven to not be able to be detected by hogs? Probably not. I don't think there are any such products advertised, although many claim to be scent-free...which isn't the same thing at all.

So if hogs are as smart as folks think they are, they mess up every time they take their trusty and well maintained firearms into the field. If you have a woodent stock gun that you have used for a long time, there is a very good chance that it has a long record of chemical imprenated into the stock inclusive of oils, cleaners, and wood treatments.



I get this from a variety of hunters with a variety of game being hunted. You are pretty sure they smelled you? You were the only threat in the area? How would you know? Have you know ever seen animals take off for other reasons? I have been downwind of deer, hogs, and raccoons at night and using night vision and have watched them take off. The problem wasn't me given the distance and the physics of sound and smell relative to wind direction. On a few of the occasions, the cause has revealed itself to be a predator, or in the case of deer, an incoming hog. There are, after all, other sorts of predators out there in the wilds that may have an interest in the animals you are pursuing as well and there are other animals out there that may scare off your prey. It is really interesting to see a group of animals under a feeder and to have them all of a sudden turn and face in a single direction before nerves get to them and they bolt off, the direction they were looking wasn't toward me, and then to see the frightening animal finally appear, though they don't always appear.

i thought thermacell was for keeping the bugs out