Of all the senses a whitetail deer has, its nose often receives the most interest, for good reason. The nose on a whitetail deer is outwardly its largest feature, hence it gets the most press, so to speak.

The average deer has around 290 million — give or take a million or so — olfactory receptors. The sense of smell is a deer’s ultimate superpower, superior even to its hearing and sight. Although those big ears give them an advantage in collecting sound, the deer’s hearing range is similar to a human. Therefore, it’s nowhere near as powerful as their sense of smell. Estimates state that a whitetail deer can detect human scent for up to 10 days after it’s left.

What makes a deer’s sense of smell so elite? First, consider the interior of a deer’s nose. It has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of nerve cells. In fact, there are probably thousands of groups of cells in the nose, and each group can detect one odor. This means that a deer has a group of cells in its nose that can detect acorns, and others that detect alfalfa, corn, certain twigs, dead leaves and dogs. There are nerve cells dedicated to detecting other deer, human deodorant, gasoline on gloves, and so on and so on.

You name the odor, and a deer has a group of cells located in one tiny region of the nose that can smell that odor.

Once that odor hits those receptor cells, it triggers an area of the deer’s brain. For example, when a deer smells an acorn, that activates the acorn nerve cells in the nose and that then sends a message to a part of the brain which leads to a pattern of behavior. Therein lies the key to how deer get you. If a young deer has a bad experience with a dog, a pattern of behavior is created in that deer’s brain. The next time the deer smells a dog, the deer flees. But if this deer grows up in a park where there is no hunting, and people walk their dogs on a leash all the time, then a dog’s odor probably won’t trigger that same negative response.

Let’s take a look at this way, which many of us can relate to. If a deer grows up in an urban environment, then the odors it smells related to humans won’t trigger a negative response. But if that deer first smells a human odor in the wild and the initial encounter was negative, then the moment the deer gets a whiff of the same human odor again, it bolts.

Let’s put this in perspective. Just as rabbit hunters know how well a dog can smell and what they can smell, this may assist us in gaining insight in regard to just what we are up against with the nose of a whitetail deer and a deer’s ability to smell. The reason this information is important is because you must realize the whitetail deer’s sense of smell is nearly one-third greater than that of a canine or dog.

Smell is the dog’s dominant sense, thus because of this we can assume a whitetail deer’s sense of smell is also the dominant sense. So much so that a huge part of its brain is devoted to analyzing odors. Dogs and whitetail deer have two giant olfactory bulbs attached to the brain which decode every smell they encounter. The bulbs weigh around 60 grams, four times as much as human olfactory bulbs. Given that a canine brain is 1/10th of the size of a human one, that means the canine brain has 40 times as much of its brain devoted to smell as we do, and the whitetail deer sense of smell is far greater than that.

Little wonder then that a dog’s sense of smell is reckoned to be so much greater than a human. In tests, dogs have been able to pick up chemical solutions that form one or two parts in a trillion. That is the equivalent of smelling one bad apple in two billion barrels. This is relative to a whitetail deer’s sense of smell as some hunters believe they can cover their human scent with cover-up scents.

If the whitetail deer can smell better than a dog, even a dog can pick out different scents from the same area, at a rate of two parts in a trillion. I don’t mean to hurt any whitetail deer manufacturer’s feelings, but you cannot cover your human scent from whitetail deer, you can only attempt to control it.

The source of the dog’s and whitetail deer’s exceptional ability to smell is its wet snout. The moist leathery surface of the snout acts like velcro, catching even the tiniest molecules of smells, then dissolving them so that the dog’s internal, smell receptor cells can analyze them properly. To keep his nose wet, a dog must produce a constant supply of mucus through its nasal cavities. Scientists reckon the average dog produces a pint of this mucus every day, and that a whitetail deer produces even more.

Dogs really can smell fear. If a dog goes into a room where a frightened dog has just left, he will appear anxious and agitated. This isn’t, as many would claim, some kind of ESP-type response. It’s caused by a scent, an alarm pheromone, which is produced by the anal glands of frightened dogs.

We understand the nose of a whitetail deer is so great that the animal can smell emotion. This is why if you’ve ever had a whitetail deer come in that didn’t see you, you’re high up in the air, not moving, and then suddenly the deer looks straight up at you like it had a sixth sense. It’s very possible the whitetail deer can smell your emotions to some degree. Snicker all you want, but we have far more to learn about the whitetail deer sense of smell.

Dogs can detect odors that are up to 40 feet underground, thus deer can detect them even deeper than that depth. They have been used to detect leaky gas pipes. They can also smell insects embedded in the ground or in woodwork. In the United States dogs are used to sniff out termite infestations. Dogs can also pick up the faintest whiff of other creatures.

Dogs can smell human fingerprints that are a week old. If dogs can do this, then you must know that a whitetail deer’s ability to smell human scent must be far greater. That is why one shouldn’t be checking game cameras all the time or continue to ramble through your hunting area out of sheer curiosity. Estimates state that a whitetail deer can detect human scent for up to 10 days after it’s left.

Dogs’ noses are so sensitive that they can even smell electricity. While conducting an experiment, a researcher found that a dog could smell which of two compartments contained an electric current. He concluded this was because the charge resulted in the release of tiny amounts of ozone which the dog could detect. Now we can also assume that if a whitetail deer’s sense of smell is far more advanced than a dog, that whitetail deer can smell objects such as electricity. Are you starting to understand just what you’re up against when you try and figure out how great a deer’s sense of smell must really be?

Dogs and whitetail deer can tell from the smell of a cow’s urine whether it is in estrus, or heat. Farmers train dogs to do this so they know the best time to introduce a bull for breeding.

Dogs react in different ways to different smells. In tests, for example, it has been found that dogs relax when the aroma of lavender is fed into their environment. Camomile also makes dogs calmer. Maybe sometime whitetail hunting will figure out what smells make whitetail deer calmer so we can hunt them with more ease. Rosemary and peppermint, on the other hand, makes dogs more excited.

As far as dogs and whitetail deer are concerned, all humans have a unique smell. They can pick people out according to body and other odors they project. Scientists think the only way a dog wouldn’t be able to tell two people apart would be if they were identical twins on identical diets. The twins would also have to remain silent.

Therefore, think about this. The deer you’re hunting may quite possibly know the difference between how the farmer smells that works in the field that is not a threat to them, and you, the hunter that seeks to kill them. This is why oftentimes when hunting a place where cattle are present, I will purposely walk into a big nasty fresh cow pie.

Let’s go a step further with the ability of whitetail deer to smell. If you are the hunter that wears cover scents, then know the whitetail deer are probably associating your cover scents with those of a predator.

As a result of this, dogs can track human smells over long distances. Scientists think they can pick up on the difference in odors from different footprints to work out which direction their prey is headed. They can do this 20 minutes after a person has passed by even though the footprints are made a single second apart. If this is true, then again with the whitetail deer having a keener sense of smell it is very possible whitetail deer can smell which way you are headed and avoid you by going the other direction. Laugh all you want, but it is this kind of knowledge that puts trophy deer on the wall. You must understand the whitetail deer’s sense of smell.

Honestly, there is no way to reduce human scent 100%. In a mirage of products that really don’t assist whitetail deer hunters, it’s tough to figure out just what deer hunters can do to prevent being smelled by whitetail deer. After all the smoke clears, really only four tools are available to minimize detection by whitetail deer because of their acute sense of smell. We shall talk about all four to assist in your harvest of a trophy buck. They include silver ion clothing technology, playing the wind, stand heights, and products that help you stay clean so you can stack the odds in your favor. For the whitetail deer’s sense of smell is acute and should be addressed honestly and forthright.

The very best way to avoid the whitetail deer’s sense of smell is to “play the wind.” This means in a nutshell that the hunter always hunts and approaches a hunting area from a direction where the wind isn’t taking human scent into where he or she believes the deer are positioned.

Never hunt when the wind is wrong, even by only a few degrees. It’s tempting to take advantage of every opportunity to get away from work and hunt, but resist that temptation to go anyway. All it takes is one good close-range sniff and a mature buck will abandon not only his pattern of movement, but also the immediate vicinity, maybe for the entire season.

Deer use their nose to survive every day, 24/7/365. As hunters, we spend a very short time in the whitetail’s world. When trying to beat the nose of a deer, no matter mature buck or yearling doe, hunt the wind. Use the wind to your advantage, don’t push it. If the wind isn’t right, change your set-up. None of us want to be blown at and see that white flag running away in the distance.