Just because it’s hot doesn’t mean the deer don’t move. Here’s how several Louisiana hunters deal with the problems associated with early season hunting.
Marck “Doc” Smythe was sitting in a tallow tree in the Cameron Parish marsh, waiting on the sun to push past the horizon and, hopefully, for a deer to walk by. He was psyched at the thought of sticking a deer. But just as the first rays of light invaded the darkness, Smythe’s enthusiasm flagged. He was hot, and boredom soon took over, but something other than sweat and fatigue literally sucked the fun out of the hunt. It wasn’t long before he forgot about deer, forgot about the thrill of the hunt, just wanted to get home.
“Just before light, the mosquitoes came out,” he said. “I was just about carried away.”
The little marsh mosquitoes — arguably the most-voracious of the blood-sucking species — covered every inch of exposed skin. And clouds of their thirsty brethren buzzed about the unfortunate Smythe like sugar-crazed kids in a candy store.
Smythe swatted, stuck his hands his pockets, pulled his shirt as high as possible over his face, scratched and moved around schizophrenically in vain attempts to find relief.
Soon, however, he could stay in the tree no longer, and he jumped down. But that put him right in the mosquitoes’ dining room, and more insects rose from the marsh grasses to join in the buffet.
“I had to wait on somebody to come get me,” Smythe said. “They had dropped me off in a boat, so I didn’t have any way to get back until they came and got me.”
The wait felt like an eternity.
When his buddies finally arrived to retrieve Smythe, they found a welted mess of a man. He was also filthy, looking like Rambo hiding from his enemies.
“It got so bad I actually got in the marsh and got some mud and smeared it all over my neck and face and all my exposed skin,” Smythe said.
That hunt was back in the 1960s, and most would think that hunting under such hot, mosquito-infested conditions just wasn’t worth the effort.
But Smythe didn’t give up. Instead, he learned from the experience. Almost 40 years later, the now-retired dentist is still climbing into tallow and live-oak trees as soon as the season opens.
“The deer still move. They’re going to still do their thing,” he said. “I’m not going to say it’s as good as if you have an early cool snap, but they’re still going to move.
“You just have to do things differently.”
That fact was illustrated several years ago when Smythe was sitting in the marshes, and watched a doe pick its way through the soggy environs.
“About 3:30 p.m., I stuck her,” he said. “It was 98 degrees that afternoon.”
So the issue becomes more about how badly hunters want to be in the woods. That’s particularly true when hunting in Area 3, which opens Sept. 16.
“It’s hot,” Smythe said. “You’re just wringing wet. I’m talking about when you get home you pour the sweat out of your boots.”
But for hard-core hunters, it’s also the first opportunity to put venison in the freezer, and that makes it worth all the discomfort.
So Smythe and other die-hards have developed ways to up their odds — against deer, the heat and, especially, the mosquitoes.
Of course, the first challenge is minimizing human scent in the heat, and most hunters begin working on that problem before they even leave home.
“I take a shower with scentless soap,” Smythe said.
Sweet Lake hunter and fishing guide Pat Hebert takes this precaution, but he also washes his clothes in scentless detergent and does everything he can to prevent them from soaking up a lot of foreign odors.
“I let them hang out on a clothes line to air out,” Hebert said. “I also put them in a garbage bag or plastic container to keep them from picking up odors.”
But most of that goes out the window on the walk in to his hunting site, especially when temperatures in the mornings are still in the upper 60s.
“I believe scent is the No. 1 enemy,” Prairieville’s Darrell Cornelius said.
That’s why Cornelius, who begins hunting his West Feliciana lease Oct. 1 when temperatures are still too hot for many hunters, takes measures to minimize sweating.
“I use non-scented antiperspirant,” Cornelius said.
But that’s not the only measure he takes.
“I’ll even leave my shirt off and go without a shirt until I get up in a tree,” he explained. “I’ll also shave the hair off my arms. Hair gives you warmth, and it’s cooler when you shave it off.”
Smythe said he sometimes even leaves his shirt off to remain cool once he reaches his hunting site.
“I remember a couple of times sticking deer without my shirt on,” he said.
Hebert doesn’t go to quite those lengths, but he also doesn’t ignore the issue.
“Usually, I’ll carry my hunting clothes in my duffel bag and put them on when I get in a tree,” he explained.
However, he said it’s wise to get in the stand early and then wait before changing into camo.
“I wait to cool off before I change,” he said. “You’ll still be sweating, but you want to cool down as much as possible before changing.”
But there’s no way to get around sweating.
“By the time you get to your stand, you’re a ball of stinking sweat,” Greg “Bull” Byrley of Lake Charles said. Byrley is retired and hunts the Cameron National Wildlife Reserve almost every day of the season.
Because sweating is inevitable, Hebert sprays down with Hunter’s Specialties’ Scent-A-Way while he’s cooling down, and he continues using the scent-absorbing spray throughout the hunt.
However, he believes scent is a much more important issue during afternoon hunts than mornings.
“In the morning, it seems like the thermals are going up more than the evenings,” Hebert said. “During the evenings, thermals are going down.”
Of course, the afternoons are when the temperatures peak, so Hebert said preventing overheating, which produces sweat, is an even greater concern.
“Taking your time getting to your stand helps,” he said. “Don’t be in a big hurry.”
Smythe said he owns a charcoal-impregnated suit, but prefers to leave it at home when hunting in the marshes.
“It’s going to get muddy,” he said. “I just don’t want to contaminate that thing. I guess I could wash it, but I don’t want to have to do that. It costs too much.
“And it’s hot.”
Because scent is such an issue, all four of the hunters take great care in choosing hunting sites. Each of these hunters pays close attention to wind direction.
“My property runs east to west, and I try to play the winds,” Cornelius said. “Usually in October, you have a good chance of having a south wind, and we have a cutover on the south side of the property.
“I’ll hunt north of the cutover, and try to catch deer coming out of there.”
Byrley said time in the woods before the season can really pay off.
“Do your homework and scout a little,” he said. “That way, you know where the deer are likely to come from, and can hunt downwind.”
Smythe said using the wind to his advantage is why he doesn’t even use stands.
“If I’m on a ridge in the marsh, I’m going to play the percentages,” he said. “I don’t want my scent to blow across that ridge.
“If I’m in a stand, I’m stuck hunting certain spots, so I just climb into trees.”
He carries five or six screw-in tree steps to help him get into the trees.
“You can’t really get that high in tallow trees or live oak, so you might only use two or three of the steps, but every now and then you come across a sycamore tree that you can get in,” Smythe said.
Hebert, Smythe and Byrley of Lake Charles also wear hip boots for a couple of reasons.
First, they all hunt the marshes, and it’s just plain wet.
“We have to walk from ridge to ridge (through the marsh). This way, you can maybe stay dry,” Hebert said.
However, the rubber boots also help prevent deer from detecting the hunters.
“It kind of keeps the scent off the bushes as you walk through it,” Hebert said. “I’ve seen deer hit your walk-in trail, sniff it and take off. Wearing boots keeps that from happening.”
Hebert said he was reminded of a final reason for the hip boots last year during the early season.
“I saw the biggest conttonmouth I ever saw last year,” he said. “When I saw it, it was right between my legs. Down here, you run across them pretty regularly, especially when the water’s high.
“At least with the rubber boots, they might not be able to get into your skin.”
Mosquitoes are the only remaining concern, and all of the hunters said the worse times are right at sunrise and dusk.
“Evenings usually aren’t as bad as the morning,” Smythe said. “But they get worse at night.”
Hebert said that morning hunts can be absolutely maddening.
“It seems like when that sun comes up, they come up in the tree with you,” he said.
It’s not an easy problem to deal with, but only Cornelius said bug spray plays any part in his warm-weather hunting.
“Sometimes you just have to use it,” he said, pointing out that gnats are more of a concern in his neck of the woods.
Smythe and Byrley, however, said that simple cotton clothing has served them well for years, as long as it covers as much skin as possible.
“Cotton breathes, so it’s cooler than synthetics,” Smythe said.
Byrley said he wears a long-sleeved shirt and cotton gloves along with his long cotton pants, but admitted that mosquitoes can find ways to steal sips of blood.
“They sometimes bite me through my pants,” he said. “I usually come home itching.”
Smythe said layering clothing can further reduce the odds of getting bitten.
“I wear short pants, cotton bibs that cover my chest and back, a cotton shirt and uninsulated cotton jacket,” he said.
Every one of the hunters wears head nets, but, again, Smythe goes all out in that area.
“I wear two head nets,” he said. “If you have one on and it touches your skin, they’ll bite you in those areas. You know how it touches your ears? They’ll bite you on the tops of the ear.”
The double layer of netting increases the odds that one layer will be too far away from exposed skin to allow mosquitoes to feed.
However, the nets still allow access to the forehead and nose.
“I don’t use nets that cover the bridge of my nose because that flap interferes with my vision, and the nets have to touch around the eyes,” Smythe said. “I put soft camo tape around the eye holes and ears to prevent mosquitoes from getting through the netting there.”
He then keeps one hand close to his face to brush off mosquitoes focusing on those areas.
“I sort of knock them off,” Smythe said. “I don’t swat at them, but sort of brush them off.”
He admitted that his experience in the Vietnam War has come in handy in dealing with mosquitoes.
“I served 11 months in Vietnam with the Marines, and I promise you weren’t slapping mosquitoes over there,” Smythe chuckled.
Uninsulated cotton camo gloves also were named by each hunter as important tools, but Smythe said he discovered that he could increase the resistance to biting by adding another layer of protection.
“I use vinyl or latex gloves like I used in my (dentist’s) practice,” he explained. “You can get them anywhere. I put these on first, and then put the camo gloves on over them.”
The three marsh hunters said Bug Tamer suits have become important in their hunting.
“Four or five years ago, I had some friends who were using them, and they swore by the Bug Tamer jacket,” Smythe said. “I got one, but I still brought my (uninsulated cotton) jacket just in case, but the Bug Tamer jacket worked.”
That has allowed him to shuck the long-sleeve cotton shirt on the warmest days.
“The Bug Tamer is still hot, but it’s not as heavy on you as a cotton jacket,” he said.
However, the key is to buy a Bug Tamer that is slightly larger than actually needed.
“If it’s too tight, the mosquitoes will find a little spot here and there where the netting touches you,” Smythe said. “That’s where they’ll bite you.”
However, he advised against wearing jackets that are more than a size or two larger than normal.
“You don’t want it too big because it will interfere with your shooting, especially when archery hunting,” Smythe said.
All of the hunters said they had yet to try ThermaCELL technology, but Smythe, Byrley and Hebert were planning to put the units to the test this year.
But no matter how well the scent-free repellant works, they’ll be prowling the marshes in search of deer.
“I’ve got two choices,” Smythe said. “I can sit at home or I can go hunting. I just love the outdoors.”
