Gum For Hunters

Gum For Hunters FARM HOME Miscellaneous 29-1-5 Neil Bretl has invented a new kind of gum but it's not exactly Juicy Fruit. "It tastes a bit like a pine tree," he says. Nor is it cheap, at $4.99 for 12 Chiclet-style green tablets in a blister pack. But in the world of deer hunting, where some will pay $300 for scent-control coveralls or try to mask their odor by rubbing themselves with horse manure, Bretl just might have a hot new money-making idea. For now, what he has is a promising start and a warehouse stacked with what he calls "Gum-O-Flage" - a new chewing gum that he says will protect hunters from detection by deer. It started about seven years ago in the cedar swamps and woods of northern Wisconsin, where Bretl, a gun hunter since boyhood, began going after deer with bow and arrow. That meant hunting at closer range, and Bretl took precautions to eliminate his telltale human odor. He used special soap, shampoo and detergent. He wore carbon-lined clothing and kept it in sealed plastic bins with pine boughs. Still, he said, deer picked up his scent. Frustrated, he turned to his brother, Nicholas, then a dental student. It's probably your breath, Nicholas suggested. The brothers started researching the question, and they became convinced that breath was indeed the source of most human odor. How best to eliminate it? Bretl talked with three accomplished hunters in Antigo, where he lives, and found that they had been chewing chlorophyll tablets, which, in addition to any odor-suppression effects, turned their teeth green. Another hunter used Bazooka bubble gum impregnated with spruce needles. Bretl contacted an organic chemist friend and began cooking up gum recipes in a microwave. "My first few batches were hideous," he says. "It was tough chewing." But experimentation led to more satisfactory results, and ultimately Bretl settled on a formula that incorporates anti-microbial agents, chlorophyll, and three kinds of pine oil. He contracted with Ford Gum & Machine Co., of Akron, N.Y., to make Gum-O-Flage. Bretl has sold about 25,000 packs since the middle of August. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Neil Bretl, Hunting Science, P.O. Box 236, Antigo, Wis. 54409 (ph 715 539-9721; website: www.huntingscience.com).

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