Recovering a deer in thick cover at night. Use Your Nose.

[Mustangs Rule]

Some years ago I shot a mule deer buck from a high ridge just as he was about to step into some thick, tall sagebrush at the mouth of a dark steep sided canyon.



I shot him with my 6.5x55 Model 70, literally in the last few minutes of legal light. My scope was a low fixed power, okay in the poor light. The shot seemed good at let off. And the buck jumped into the tall dark sage.



It took me ten minutes to get down to the canyon where he disappeared. It was now so dark I could not see my hand in front of face



The evening thermals were already falling; I checked with a little squeeze bottle full of ashes.



I dropped to my hands and knees and began to try and smell him as I was crawling across the mouth of the small canyon. I picked up his buck smell. I went into the sage there, kept getting a stronger wiff and going deeper. Then I found him



He only got about 50 feet, but in such thick brush in the dark a buck could easily get lost.

 

[howl]

I find bucks in rut by smell. I like to ease around the woods and slip up on them of they're in an open enough area. If it's too thick I'll get around and set up crosswind to wait for them to come out. These are whitetails in the SE.

I have tried to teach others how to do it, but most people don't have the nose for it. I find the same in cooking.

 

[BAKPAKR]

My smeller doesn’t work very well so I would have to go back a week later to find one by smell.

 

[Bullshot]

My post-Covid nose just isn’t the same. My smell/taste senses were completely gone for a few days at the time. They came back but apparently are permanently blunted as food has never tasted as great since, but also I notice (or should say fail to notice) a distinct drop off in the quantity of bad smells too. So I doubt I could track even a week old dead buck by smell unless I was within 25 yards, let alone a fresh one.

 

[MTTW]

I have smelled elk before I saw them many times but have also smelled elk beds before I could see them many times also. I can't tell the difference. I have never smelled a buck until I was standing over it.
My wife's nose is about 100 times better than mine.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I find bucks in rut by smell. I like to ease around the woods and slip up on them of they're in an open enough area. If it's too thick I'll get around and set up crosswind to wait for them to come out. These are whitetails in the SE.

I have tried to teach others how to do it, but most people don't have the nose for it. I find the same in cooking.

In this situation i got really close to the ground, on my hands and knees with my head low. That evening thermal of cold falling/sinking air seems stronger lower. I could see that from the ashes in my squeeze bottle.

This was later in the season after a few days of cold. I would not have done this early in the season when rattlesnakes are active.

 

[howl]

In this situation i got really close to the ground, on my hands and knees with my head low. That evening thermal of cold falling/sinking air seems stronger lower. I could see that from the ashes in my squeeze bottle.

This was later in the season after a few days of cold. I would not have done this early in the season when rattlesnakes are active.

I'm faster bloodtrailing at night because blood is shiny. If the trail is sparse and it's recently rained I'll stick my finger on any wet spots and smell to see if it's of the animal. If it's not too warm and near nightfall and the bloodtrail isn't real obvious I'll wait for dark.

Your sense of smell is variable. Around here we ask each other if something tastes "right" because we think "our taster must be off today."

I suspect part of the equation is whether you have a strong and accurate recollection of what you are trying to detect. If you only get one buck tag each year you are at a disadvantage. We used to kill one a day in some periods, which meant helping drag and clean multiples each weekend over a couple of months.

 

[howl]

I have smelled elk before I saw them many times but have also smelled elk beds before I could see them many times also. I can't tell the difference. I have never smelled a buck until I was standing over it.
My wife's nose is about 100 times better than mine.

Women are more sensitive and instinctively reactive to odors, but men are better at using their nose. That's probably why practically all the world's great cooks are males.

 

[Gellar]

My post-Covid nose just isn’t the same. My smell/taste senses were completely gone for a few days at the time. They came back but apparently are permanently blunted as food has never tasted as great since, but also I notice (or should say fail to notice) a distinct drop off in the quantity of bad smells too.

I have had the same experience. I don’t really notice it unless someone points out a smell

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I'm faster bloodtrailing at night because blood is shiny. If the trail is sparse and it's recently rained I'll stick my finger on any wet spots and smell to see if it's of the animal. If it's not too warm and near nightfall and the bloodtrail isn't real obvious I'll wait for dark.

Your sense of smell is variable. Around here we ask each other if something tastes "right" because we think "our taster must be off today."

I suspect part of the equation is whether you have a strong and accurate recollection of what you are trying to detect. If you only get one buck tag each year you are at a disadvantage. We used to kill one a day in some periods, which meant helping drag and clean multiples each weekend over a couple of months.

I was smelling his "rut" chemistry

 

[Gellar]

I like to think I use all my senses when hunting. I know the few bears I’ve been close to I could smell them before I encountered them. The elk I’ve recovered in September have had a distinct smell. I don’t notice it as much with whitetail but I usually harvest those after the rut in December or January.

 

[Boarmaster]

Works for rutting whitetails as well. I found a buck I shot last year when I caught a wiff. He was ten feet away down in a low spot in a thicket. I may have found him anyway but I would have walked past him on my initial search.

 

[Straight Arrow]

I am not going to nose around in thick cover at the night in Montana!

 

[devon deer]

This is what makes it a lot easier....thermal imager.

 

[Bill Zent]

My dad hunted deer by his nose and bucks did not have to be in the rut. He taught me as a young boy and I have done the same for over 65 years. We never shot does.
Knowing the scents of the area hunted may take a long time, but once mastered, finding deer by your nose is easy if you are gifted in the right sense.