It won’t be long until we’re drawing our next Great Gear Makeover winner! Get your entries in soon!!!

Please submit a photo to be put into our drawing for Scent-Lok products as well as products from our other fine sponsors such as G5, Quest, Nikon, Pelican, Summit, Carbon Express, and ScenTote.

It couldn’t be easier to win. Here’s what you do:

Take a picture of yourself or someone you know in the worst camo you can find. Then go to the Sweep Stakes tab above and click on Great Gear Makeover Enter Sweepstakes and enter your info and photo. That’s it! It’s so easy!

We will be drawing one name each month to win a free Scent-Lok suit as well as other great prizes from our sponsors. Then at the end of the year we will take those names that were drawn from each month and enter them into a drawing for a chance to win a prize package worth over $5,000 in Scent-Lok and other sponsor gear!!!

Trust me you don’t want to miss out on this awesome opportunity to win some unbelievable free gear!!!

Below are the general rules of the contest. For the full terms and conditions of the contest please go to the Sweep Stakes tab and click on Great Gear Legal.

Thank you for your entry and good luck!

The Contest began 12:00 a.m. ET on July 15, 2010 and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on December 1, 2010.LIMIT ONE (1) ENTRY PER PERSON (REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ONE PERSON HAS MORE THAN ONE E-MAIL ADDRESS) OR E-MAIL ADDRESS (REGARDLESS OF WHETHER MORE THAN ONE PERSON USES THE SAME E-MAIL ADDRESS) OR MAILING ADDRESS (REGARDLESS OF WHETHER MORE THAN ONE PERSON USES THE SAME MAILING ADDRESS). Winners will be selected from entries wearing hunting gear.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, it’s finally that time of year. It’s time to get those trail cameras out and start taking inventory on your properties. Now I understand that with that comes about a million and one things to think about: is that 4 ½ year old bruiser going to be back this year? Do I put my cameras on food sources or travel corridors? Which food source or travel corridor should I key on? Should I focus up on the ridge or down in the bottom?…the list goes on and on.

Although there is a ton of things on your mind, it is very important that you don’t forget one of the most important factors that plays into your preparation for the season; your scent control. It is just as crucial to remember good scent control when doing your summer scouting as it is during the hunting season. Picture this…

You get out of your truck in your short sleeves and sweaty hands. You cross that old wire fence and make your way along the field edge brushing the overhanging limbs and long grass out of your way as you make your way to the spot where you want to put your camera. Once you get there you clear the area out so blowing grass and shadows don’t trigger your camera and finally you attach your camera to the tree with those same sweaty hands.

So you’re done, you got in and out quietly and didn’t bump any deer as far as you could tell and all you can think about is all those great pictures you’re going to get. So everything should be good right? Wrong, literally everything you touched and even things that just brushed up against your clothes leave behind your own scent trail. Now you may be thinking, “So what it’s just the summer”. Yes it is the summer, but that is all the more reason to be cautious. The deer are on a very strict and consistent pattern during these months. If you go into their area and leave a bunch of your scent behind you are educating that deer each and every time they get a whiff of you. This can alter their patterns greatly and even cause them to change properties. But with good scent control and a little caution this can be avoided.

Wear your Scent-Lok while doing your summer scouting. Remember to properly store your clothing, dress away from your vehicle, and always wear your gloves. Believe me I know that putting on long pants and gloves when it is 90 degrees out is not the most fun thing in the world, but the moment you get lazy with your scent could be the moment you let the buck of a lifetime know that he is being patterned.

Scent-Lok Technologies

GET CLOSE. GO UNDETECTED

Congratulations to Eric Gittinger from Alton IL                                                                                          for being the first winner in the Scent-Lok Great Gear Makeover! His photo was randomly drawn from about 300 qualified entries and wins his choice of Savanna EXT, Full Season or Ladies gear! Congratulations Eric!

Congratulations to all of you and you are still in the running for the Grand Prize that includes over $5,000 of gear from Scent-Lok and these other fine sponsors.

Chris Stone is a California archery hunter who is absolutely eaten up with blacktails. His hard work has paid off for him in big ways over the last couple of seasons. Last fall was no different.

In 2008, I was rewarded with a monster blacktail buck that took eight days in the stand to bring down. It was August in my home state of California and that means extremely high temps in the 90’s – 100’s. During those days I was sweating before I even got to my stand and it’s no secret that sweat means scent. However, I religiously practiced scent control by using Scent-Lok Savanna. Due to its light and breathable construction, I kept cooler and most important, as scent free as possible. On the eighth day, my trophy came in down-wind and I smoked him at seventeen yards. He was a monster blacktail that officially scored 167 5/8 gross as a non-typical, which put him number three over all for the California Records of Big Game for the archery Inland blacktail category.

After 2008, I was hungry for more and knew if I hammered a buck like that once,

I definitely could do it again with hard work and persistence. In 2009, I found a monster droptine buck a few weeks before the season opener in August. He had a droptine, long main beams, double eye-guards and lots of heavy mass. Since I had yet to harvest a droptine buck, he was definitely on my hit list. The second afternoon of the season I decided to try my luck with the droptinebuck. The afternoon started slow, but just before the sun began to set things started to move.

Just before the shooting light faded, I heard a group of deer moving towards me through the brush, then I saw three bucks. The droptine buck was leading the group. He quickly came to within thirty yards of me and I did not hesitate to put an arrow through his boiler room as he turned broadside. The buck ran only thirty yards before expiring.

I was so pumped as I watched him go down, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him. As I walked up on my buck I realized he was way bigger than I originally thought. He ended up having mass measurements from 6 4/8″ to 5″, totaling well over forty inches of scorable mass, an incredible buck. Once again I have to tip my hat to Scent-Lok Savanna for performing awesome and allowing me to go undetected to another awesome monster blacktail.

NOTE-Later I had him officially scored and as the measurements were being added up, I was wondering if he would better my 2008 buck. As I watched, I saw the score “167 5/8″ written and I thought I was seeing double. It was the same score as my previous blacktail the year before! I blurted out “Are you kidding me?” and after the measurements were added up several more times the score did not change. Don’t get me wrong I was happy and to have two monster blacktails in the book tied with each other, but I didn’t think the odds were possible. As you can probably guess, my next goal is to better the 167 5/8 score with a blacktail and unless California’s climate switches to that of the North Pole, I will be wearing Scent-Lok Savanna on my future hunts.

One of the greatest adventures of my life started with a simple conversation at a 4^th of July get together.  Four of my good friends and I decided we wanted to experience a caribou hunt and try our hand at taking one of the gray ghosts of the Canadian tundra.

We began the trip by driving to Montreal, and then we took a commercial flight into Shefferville, Quebec, ending our journey on a float plane into the Canadian tundra. The landing was rough as we bounced off of the water several times. Finally, we reached our destination. “Nowhere land”, nothing commercialized for as far as the eye could see and beyond.

Given that we landed late in the evening we quickly made camp and started to do a little scouting for the morning hunt.  While scouting a serious thunderstorm rolled in and one of the members in our camp found himself spending the night out in the elements.  He had seen a big caribou from the plane as we landed and went after it right away.  While looking for the caribou he got turned around and with the darkness coming sooner than expected due to the storm, he became lost. Fortunately, the search planes had found him the next day around noon, two lakes over from our camp; he was soaking wet and freezing.  At 72 years old, he said he had learned a valuable lesson about safety. He was a real trooper, and the incident generated a lot of buzz with the other hunters and guides from the surrounding camps.

Day one of hunting had an uneventful start, especially compared to our first night, but by mid afternoon I was zeroing in on my very first caribou. He was lying in a rock outcropping with several other caribou. As I came up over the tallest hill in the landscape, I spotted the group.  With no cover I had to go back down the hill and move around to the other side just to be able to get within range.  I am not talking about just any hill either; this hill was the nemesis of the entire trip. It took an hour to reach the other side and that was just creeping around the top, just below the line of sight of my prey. Once there, I set my rifle up on my pack and slowly belly crawled to the top of the ridge where I could get a shot. I carefully glassed them to pick out the biggest one in the group; he had tremendous tops and good bezzes, but only one developed shovel and a post for the other.   It didn’t matter, he was the one and the reason I was here.  At 320 yards I anchored my gun and touched off the shot. Down he went. As I approached my caribou I was amazed at how big they actually are.  My two buddies, one of which being my brother heard the shot and came over to investigate. Before you knew it another group of caribou were coming in and we had two more bulls on the ground.

Needless to say the work began here. We were three miles from the boats, although it was mostly downhill, we had to make three trips each to pack the meat and hides out. It turned into an uphill, downhill, 18 mile, five hour, nightmare journey.  It was dark by the time we brought the last of the meat to the boats and let me tell you with no city lights nearby, the skies are as black as it gets. Trekking back across the lake in the darkness we found ourselves in uncharted waters, at least uncharted by us. Somehow we got turned around and went back into a big bay, knowing we were at least on the right side of the lake we just followed the shoreline and eventually found camp.  It was a great day for everyone in camp. With a total of twelve hunters we took eleven caribou on our first day. The meat shack was full and eleven beautiful sets of antlers were displayed on the dock.

For the next two days I decided to video for one of my good friends, Dave. It was his second trip to the tundra and he wanted to take a caribou with a bow this time and I wanted to capture a hunt or two on film. This is where our Scent-Lok Climafleece Base Slayers came in handy, they were just the right apparel for the high winds rolling across the tundra and it would help both of us get closer to those big bulls in the inconsistent winds.  As it turned out, we did get close to some big bulls, but we were unable to put it all together on film. If not for the Scent-Lok though, we never would’ve had an opportunity to get as close as we did. Some of those bulls were a mere 20 yards away.

As the week came to a close the rest of the camp tagged out with two bulls each including the 346 inch monster I took the second to the last day of the hunt and the giant 373 inch Boone and Crockett bull my brother took.  We all had an unbelievable time on the Canadian tundra and hope to someday return.

US Patent Office Board confirms that Scent-Lok Technologies’ innovations are patentable!

Since 2004, Scent-Lok Technologies has been engaged in a lengthy Reexamination process before the US Patent Office regarding one of its five US patents relating to odor adsorbing hunting products and practices.  On March 29, 2010, the U.S. Patent Office’s Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences issued its long-awaited decision confirming the patentability of 40 of the 68 claims at issue.  Specifically, the Board ruled, among other things, that Scent-Lok Technologies had proven that its hunting products and processes integrating activated charcoal were not obvious modifications of the known products and practices.  This decision validates Scent-Lok Technologies’ longstanding assertions of the patentability of many of its innovations.  As we take the time to celebrate this important victory, we want to thank our loyal customers, licensees, suppliers and retailers for their support through this long and arduous process.

This story comes from Matt Ward of Arkansas. He traveled to Kansas this fall with his father in pursuit of one of the monsters Kansas is famous for. After his dad scored on a nice buck the first morning, Matt knew his chances of connecting were just as good, but little did he know what would come down the trail and into his shooting lane.

Our trip to Kansas started on Monday, November 16, 2009. We drove from Arkansas up to Kansas a day early to hang stands and do a bit of scouting before our hunt actually started on November 17. My father and I had a five day hunt booked with an outfitter, we were extremely excited for our first hunt in Kansas.
After arriving, we set up our stands in what looked to be a great area. We decided to sit those stands that afternoon without our bows just to see what kind of movement there was before the next morning of hunting officially started. With several bucks and does milling around that evening, it was clear to see we were in the right spots, so our confidence was high for the next morning’s hunt. My dad and I hunted our first morning and we saw a total of 15 different bucks. My dad shot a nice 10 point the first morning. His buck was five steps from his tree and never knew what hit him. He was very confident that his Scent-Lok suit played a vital role in helping him go undetected at such a close range and close the deal on his nice Kansas buck.

After going in and having a quick bite to eat, we returned to our stands that afternoon around 1:30. The weather was gorgeous; 45 degrees and sunny. My Scent-Lok Full Season suit was perfect not only for controlling my scent, but also for keeping me comfortable in the stand all week. The lows were in the low 20’s and the highs were mid 40’s, so it was nice to be able to deal with the different temperatures all with one suit. I also utilized the Scent-Lok Base Slayers since they not only are very comfortable, but added an additional layer of odor protection. The Scent-Lok Savannah gloves were also a must since it was warm enough that I didn’t need any insulated gloves, but could still control my scent with the light weight Savannah gloves.

I was finally settled in and ready for my afternoon in the stand when at 2:30pm, I caught movement to my left. I grabbed my binoculars to see what was heading my way and I could see what I thought was an extra long brow tine sticking up among the other many points and I instantly knew it was a shooter. The wind was swirling that day, but he was actually coming at me upwind. He started to veer off to go to a creek bed and the path that he was going to take would not present me with a shot. I grabbed my grunt call and grunted twice, loudly away from him. He instantly turned and circled back around my way. As he circled, he began to come around to my downwind side. He was on the opposite side of a cedar thicket, so I grunted again very softly since he was only about 40 yards away. At this point, I knew he was a giant, but I had no idea what was going to come crashing through the cedar thicket in response to the grunt. As he cleared through the cedar thicket, all I could see was horns! I let him take a few steps to clear out and I bleated him to a stop. He was standing broadside at 30 yards so I let my arrow fly. My shot was a bit back and after replaying the previous few moments, I realized that he was quartering towards me more than I realized. I watched him for several minutes as he slowly walked away. He was hurt bad, but when he didn’t fall within eyesight, I started to worry. I got down at 4:30pm to go check my arrow. It was a clean pass through and after inspecting the shaft and fletching, I knew the hit was good. I met my dad that evening back at our rendezvous point and told him what had happened. After telling him all of the details, we both decided that it would be better to let him lay overnight and make sure he had time to expire.

It was a wise decision. We began looking for him the next morning and found him about 150 yards from where I shot him. The woods erupted in celebration when we got our hands on this Kansas giant!
There is no doubt in my mind that if I had not been wearing my Scent-Lok suit on that hunt the big bruiser would have winded me and headed a new direction. The wind was swirling around from the north and west but he never knew I was there. Several other bucks and a few does had been all around my stand the morning before and were oblivious to my presence.

Scent-Lok has been an important piece in my bowhunting arsenal. In fact, it may be the most important thing that I take into the field with me. I have worn and will continue to wear Scent-Lok products for years. The quality of the materials and its effectiveness has never let me down. This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last deer that I kill wearing Scent-Lok hunting apparel.
Thanks for making an incredibly effective product!

Matt Ward
196 5/8 inch Kansas Whitetail

Southwest Michigan bowhunter Chris Phelps is a scent
control fanatic. By having property with good whitetail genetics and taking his scent control to the max, he has taken 13 bucks in the last 22 years, grossing over 130” all of which were harvested in Michigan. Phelps harvested the largest deer of his life last year, a 157” stud!

“Hunting is just something I was born with,” Phelps said. “I shot my first deer, a four point, when I was 14. I remember the feeling and the whole hunt like it was yesterday, I have been hooked ever since.”

Phelps said that he would never have had the success he has had without the use of Scent-Lok products. According to him, his Scent-Lok gear is the most important equipment in his arsenal.

“I have always believed fully in the capability of Scent-Lok products. Having fooled quite a few nice bucks as well as countless does and yearlings that traveled down wind of me and not so much as lift their head in my direction before going on about their business, the stuff works.”

According to Phelps, Scent-Lok technology has always worked for him well, but he really became an advocate after the hunt that took place last year that resulted in him harvesting the biggest buck of his life.

“I went through my usual routine of dressing away from my vehicle and spraying down my boots and equipment. As I started the walk to my stand I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I froze and turned my head to see a young buck and a doe stand up and begin to browse. They were 30 yards away, directly down wind.

I slowly and quietly dropped down to a knee to wait for them to move off. Then I heard a deep grunt. I knew there was no way the young buck made the sound. I quickly fastened my release and nocked an arrow. I rose to a crouch and just as I did a huge buck rose and took a few slow steps toward the hot doe. The weeds were too tall for me to shoot from my knees, so I slowly rose to a standing position. All three deer were still just 30 yards away and straight down wind!

As the buck followed the doe into an opening I drew my bow and settled the pin. The smaller buck saw me draw and took a few quick steps and stared at me. The big buck slowly turned his head in my direction, but it was too late. My fletching disappeared into the buck’s vitals. He wheeled and ran over a hill out of sight.

After getting over the shock of shooting one of the biggest bucks I had ever seen in my life, I couldn’t get over the fact that none of the three deer had winded me when I was just 30 yards away on the ground! At that point I believed more in Scent-Lok technology than I ever had before.

By the look of these photos it’s obvious that with attention to detail and making sure you and your equipment are as scent free as possible, that Scent-Lok Technology really does work. To have as many bucks on the wall as Phelps has in a state where the hunting pressure is the more intense than just about anywhere else in the country, it’s easy to see that Phelps can’t afford to make mistakes with his scent. That’s why he as well as hunters all over the country choose to wear Scent-Lok.

GET CLOSE, GO UNDETECTED!

Alex Gyllstrom
Scent-Lok Technologies

Here is a story by a very close friend to us here at Scent-Lok Technologies. Pete Odland is the founder of Hunt For A Cure. HFC (Hunt For A Cure) raises money for research in the search for a cure for cystic fibrosis. Pete’s son Dylan suffers from this terminal disease. To learn more about HFC and how you can help their cause and join Pete and many others in the mission to cure cystic fibrosis visit www.huntforacure.com. Now please enjoy Petes incredible hunt for a canadian moose.

It all started when I received an invitation from my friend and rock star Ted Nugent to accompany him on a moose hunt in Ontario Canada with WFO outfitters out of Thunder Bay. I got to know Ted about 10 years ago after my son was diagnosed with a terminal disease called cystic fibrosis. I founded a charity called Hunt for a Cure and Ted has been a big supporter ever since. Helping us with the charity gave me the opportunity to get to know Ted and accompany him on some very exciting hunts. Mike Neely from Missouri would be accompanying us on this one as well. Mike is a friend of both Ted and I and is a great guy so I knew we were in for another great hunt!

We arrived in Thunder Bay on September 18 so we could get our licenses and head out to camp and be ready to hunt the next morning for the archery opener. Garth Matyasovszky of WFO outfitters had our camp all set up with a very sturdy tent for Ted, Mike and me to stay in during the hunt. It had a nice wood burning stove with plenty of wood to keep us warm during the nights. We all shot our bows to make sure everything was still in order from our travels, ate a hearty supper, and after making a plan with our guides we turned in and got a good night sleep.

The Ontario bush in that area was absolutely breathtaking. My guide Matt Yoller was on a mission to call in a moose for me. That first morning was very exciting for me. We set up on a beaver dam and Matt began his calling sequence. It was very interesting to see and hear how it was done. He was doing a great job and although there were moose tracks everywhere, we didn’t have any luck that first morning. The weather was unseasonably warm. In fact, it hit 89 degrees that first day, breaking a 90 year record. Not what we wanted for moose hunting, they like to hunker down and not move when it gets that hot.

Unfortunately it stayed warm and it seemed that our only chance was either very early in the morning before it warmed up, or just before dark after it started to cool off again. So our method was to hunt early and late and stay near water. With that in mind Matt took me back into a small town and I picked up a fishing license. We’d hit a different beautiful lake or river every day and troll along fishing while Matt called for Moose periodically. We caught limits of Walleye and Pike and hunted for grouse with our bows, which was very fun and great practice. I was having a blast, moose or no moose.

While I was preparing for this hunt, one of my first thoughts was if moose would be able to smell as well as whitetail deer. Matt assured me that moose have that big “snorkel” and it’s hard to fool. I was thankful I brought two full sets of Scent-Lok gear with me. I also noticed both Ted and Mike had Scent-Lok suites. We were all very careful about keeping them in a scent free container when not in use. The Scent-Lok gear was critical because Matt would usually place me where he felt the moose would try to get upwind from where he was calling, usually a little ways off from me. It was obvious to us that the boys from WFO were doing their best to get us on moose, even with the weather conditions as bad as they were.

Finally, on the fifth day we caught a break. The weather was slightly cooler and we were on a river in the boat. Matt called and immediately we heard a bull moose a few hundred yards off answer back, “Ugh, Ugh, Ugh!” Matt quickly moved us into position with the electric trolling motor. We stashed the boat and set up in some wild rice. I had been practicing out to 70 yards and was comfortable to that distance if absolutely necessary with my archery tackle.

The excitement really started to build at that point. The bull started coming toward us crashing brush and snapping sticks around 45 yards away, all the while announcing his presence with his “Ugh, Ugh, Ugh! He sounded like a freight train as he crashed through the brush. Matt continued to coax him with more soft calls and the bull continued to move toward us. The anticipation was killing me and my heart was in my throat!

I was waiting with arrow knocked. Finally he sounded like he stopped about 10 yards in the bush just off the river. I was praying he would come the last few yards and not bust us. The excitement was unbearable! There was a narrow area along there river for him to clear the brush on the river bank and I sat waiting for him to step out. He was too close to call so Matt slowly reached over the back side of the boat and just splashed a little. That was all the bull needed and out he stepped. He stood facing us and stared right at us sitting there in the boat, with no cover, for what seemed like an eternity! I thanked God that I was wearing my Scent-Lok suit because at that point any hint of human scent and it would have been all over for us! We didn’t move a hair and since he couldn’t smell us, he finally looked down river and put his head down to sniff the ground. When he did this Matt whispered, “Draw your bow” I drew and as I did the bull lifted his head and looked back up river. Then he stepped a bit that direction and presented us with a quartering to shot. Matt gave me the green light. I released my arrow and watched as the arrow entered just behind the shoulder. The bull bolted off into the bush and stopped about 50 yards in.

[Matt agreed that the shot was good so we waited an hour and entered only to jump him from where he had bedded down. We heard him go only about another 50 yards and stop. We decided to back out and go get help for packing him out. We got back in the boat and headed back to camp. We had lunch and returned with the entire gang. When we reached the bull, much to our dismay he jumped again! We ended up jumping him once more before we finally found him crashed over a log. The horns measured 45 inches and were a beautiful caramel color. I was over whelmed to say the least. My emotions were at an all time high.

The hunt was nonstop fun! The antlers of my moose are gorgeous and will be a beautiful addition
to my collection. It was my first moose hunt, but I’m
guessing it won’t be my last.

Well it seems to be that time of year. The majority of the mature bucks are being seen on trail camera pictures after dark, we continue to see the same spike and six point every time we hit the stand, and of course the usual parade of does that strolls by with nothing chasing them. But alas, the rut isn’t far. After hearing a series of soft grunts right at dark the other night while leaving my stand, my excitement and spirits about where the season was going shot up. The lull however, still seems to be here, which is why I like to use this time to put some meat in the freezer by harvesting some does and spending much more time observing than hunting.

I have found that these few weeks in the middle of October, at least for the Midwest, is a great time to really observe general deer movement and fill some doe tags. From past experience, I have found it is more beneficial to basically stop hunting bucks during this time so as not to pressure them and watch the doe travel keying in on main doe bedding areas. This better prepares me for the rut, so I know what doe travel routes are best to set up on to intercept a love sick buck. I like to think of it as a second scouting period other than the summer months.

This is a good time to utilize what I like to call observatory stands. These are stands on the edge of field edges or stands that can watch travel routes from a distance. I like to hunt these stands at this point in the season because it allows me to watch a high quantity of deer from a safe distance so I won’t spook deer out of my best spots during this lull period. By hunting observatory stands it allows me to formulate a game plan that is determined by how the deer’s patterns have changed as they transition from the early season to the rut. My first priority is to watch the does closely to pattern their movements, sometimes you will get lucky and spot a good buck nosing doe trails and you can move in and set up on him, but normally I have found during this lull time the buck movement is marginal at best.

So if you are experiencing that famous October lull, maybe rethink your game plan. Lay off the bucks for a while and watch the does and the food. This will prepare you as best as possible for that special time when those first couple does go into estrous. I know it sounds a little odd to not hunt bucks, but if you give this a try I think you will be please with your results. Remember, hunt smarter not harder and you never know, Mr. Big might just walk by you stand anyway.

GET CLOSE, GO UNDETECTED!
Alex Gyllstrom
Scent-Lok Technologies