Wearing Elimitrax Booties

Jared from Illinois asks,

I was recently listening to a bunch of different podcast that have been on over the years, in a couple of them I heard you talk about Elimitrax, I was just wondering do you use them every time you hunt? Do you use the rubber sole part that comes with them? Do you still where rubber boots? Just looking for a few more details, I bought 2 pairs after I heard you mention them a few times. Thanks Jared

Bill responds,

Topic: Wearing Elimitrax Booties:

Jared,

I wear them in certain situations – and yes, I do wear the moccasin too (over boot). It comes down to how deer detect ground scent.  They don’t generally smell it on the ground itself, but on low growing vegetation.  I wear them whenever I have to go through low brush, weeds, etc. that are close to my stand.

I don’t want to leave ground scent anywhere, but it is not practical to wear them the entire time when walking.   They are just too awkward and slick for general walking, but close to the stand (within roughly 100 yards), they make a lot of sense and that is when I wear them.

I don’t wear rubber boots. You don’t really need to as much as you need to keep your other boots clean and away from contamination like gas, etc.  I only wear my boots for hunting and take them off after reaching the truck.  That way I can wear more comfortable boots for walking (rubber boots can be really sweaty and often don’t have good support for climbing, etc.).  As I mentioned, it is where your pants touch the low vegetation that the deer smell you.

Good luck. (11/3/21)