“Smell that?”

I nearly walked into Ned’s back. I’d been following the Alabama man as he walked in complete darkness down a trail he knew by heart. I’d been feeling honored and lucky to be in his company. He was a Seminole Indian from Florida who’d retired to Alabama; his daughter had invited me to hunt on the family farm.

I whispered that I did smell something. Although the smell was new, there was something about its faintly sour, musky tinge that made the hair tingle on the back of my neck.

“Got your light?” Ned said. “Turn that thing on.”

The “thing” was a headlamp. I hit the button and aimed it where Ned pointed. A large snake laid calmly along the bank of the creek to our right, coiled but not poised to strike, its head resting on its body.

I knew without asking that it was a poisonous snake; the huge diamond-shaped head was obvious. The smell seemed even stronger, yet hard to describe – it was like something rotting, something stale, bordering on skunky.

“Cottonmouth,” Ned whispered. “Now you’ll always know.”

If possible, when we started off again, I walked even more closely behind Ned. Soon we reached an open pasture. Ned laid down in the grass and purposely rolled in the cow paddies, motioning for me to do the same.

“Cover scent,” he explained. Yikes, I was thinking, but I did it. Only then we covered the final 100 yards or so to the base of a ladder stand. I saw more than a dozen deer that morning, and although some looked around carefully, none smelled me. I didn’t see any “shooter” bucks but arrowed a fat doe.

It made me wonder what it would be like to bring an American Indian forward through time and show them the new products available to hunters. Imagine it: showing a hunter from another century products such as illuminating nocks, fiber optic sights, releases, mechanical broadheads, bows with cams, crossbows, ozone air purification systems, trail cameras and more. And yet even if we purchase and employ all the available new products, we can spoil a hunt with the simplest of mistakes.

For example, when I reached for that ladder stand in Alabama, Ned grabbed my wrist. “Don’t touch that,” he said. Duh, I realized how right he was. I was about to climb into a stand, where I’d don my scent blocking head cover and again spray down with scent killing spray. Yet I was about to touch the ladder rungs – at deer nose level – with my bare hands.

We were in Alabama and it was hot – but I did have gloves in my pack. Ned dug them out for me. He also said that he’d walk out to get me, so that his approach would spook out any deer in the area and prevent those deer from seeing me climb down from the ladder stand. Another good tip I took home with me, along with a cooler full of venison.

Good luck to archery hunters on this opening day. Enjoy the advantages of all the new products that are available, and pay attention to all those little details that will help you be a successful hunter.