In a strange case that smacks of a legal fee windfall with a dangerous precedent setting outcome, skeptical hunters from Minnesota have won their ‘case’ against the makers of Scent-Lok, ALS Enterprises Inc.
The Chattanoogan reports this about the the lawsuit,
“Last week, in the United States District Court in Minnesota, Judge Richard Kyle ruled that ALS had falsely claimed that its products were based on ‘odor-eliminating technology’ or were ‘odor-eliminating clothing’.” Entire Article Here
I don’t use the clothing. I can’t afford it. Besides, my hunter orange clothing tends to take on the smell and savor of the most recent meal in our hunt camp. Sometimes, it is fresh ‘bacon and eggs‘ scent or ‘mom’s NEW hot and spicy chili‘ scent. I doubt the carbon clothing could hide those realities of a hunt camp.
I am NOT saying carbon clothing does not work. I don’t know either way.
What troubles me is how could your prove, either way, that the clothing worked or it didn’t work in actual hunting conditions. The experiment would have so many variables like wind direction, wind speed, were any body parts uncovered (ie. neck, wrists, ankles), hunter noise, what the deer saw, deer nose sensitivity, the weather, exterior odors on the clothing, the height of the the treestand, timing of the hunt, the smells on other pieces of equipment, and many more.
A lab won’t take these factors into consideration.
In entering the scent-lok lawsuit into a popular search engine, it was easy to find more details about this case. It seems that the plaintiff’s major ‘issue’ was was not so much that ‘carbon scent filtering systems’ did not work. Test cases found that the odour removing function of the systems DID ACTUALLY work. It was just that, Scent-Lok’s advertising use of the words ‘human scent eliminating…’ and ‘gets hunters close to big game undetected…’ were misleading.
Saying scent removing is ‘good’ but saying ‘scent-eliminating’ is taboo.
It was also claimed that rulings on some of Scent-Lok’s patents were such that Scent-Lok could not claim ‘odour-elimination’ on their ads. Put your ‘brainiac-cap’ on and follow this link to an individual’s site that may have started the advertising fury for Scent-Lok. If credible, it appears to spotlight the issues surrounding the patents.
So now what?
I think most hunters can still sleep well tonight. Lab tests DID show that Scent-Lok’s clothing did remove human odour. Scent-Lok still has my vote as being potentially effective hunting clothing.
Some hunting equipment companies may want to take another look at the wording in their slogans. For those hunters who aren’t sleeping well because you actually believed that because you wear Scent-Lok clothing, when you hunt, you should be able to walk up to wild game undetected. I have some advice:
- If the label says, Realtree, you won’t actually look like a tree, grow roots and develop a thick skin known as bark.
- Despite their website blurb, Winchester ammunition will not actually help you ‘win the west’ or any part of a country
- When Browning clothing says they will protect you from the elements and keep you comfortable, your leg may still fall asleep on a treestand and your are not immune to fire
- When Gorilla Treestands label their safety harness as ‘shock absorbing’ your fall is still going to be uncomfortable and you might be shocked that you actually fell
Just F.Y.I. and common sense of course…
For Scent-Lok’s response to the lawsuit, follow this link to their blog.
For another Canadian’s view of this topic, visit Othmar Vohringer’s blog.
The crew at the MyNature app company have created 2 very handy apps that could help anyone, with a smartphone, to identify the things they see in the wilds of the great outdoors.
