Though I agree that scent control is very important but there are times when I believe, to the big bucks it really doesn't matter. I always hunt the wind but the biggest buck (not antler size, though he had a 21 in. inside spread, 4x4 with one tine broken off. I believe because he was a real bruizer. Field dressed on an official weigh in scale at 265 3/4 lbs.) I shot when the wind was at my back and I was finishing a smoke. It was last day with 30 min. to go and I was walking back to the truck, down a ridge, and across the last frozen swamp when I thought my season was over so I sat on a rock, had a smoke and just contiplated how good the season was, even though I didn't harvest a buck during the rifle season (had havested a nice doe during archery, and a good buck during ML). After finishing the smoke, I stood up and grunted one last call not thinking that there was anything around (due to a good wind at my back), and to my total surprise out of the willows not 50 yards from me, dead down wind, this big bruizer jumped up snorting, grunting and looking me straight in the eye. I lifted the gun and dropped him. He was so full of piss and vinegar (I can only guess a real late rut), that he just stood there and challenged a hunter with a gun. Two months before would he have acted the same way? Most likely not but when they are in the rut sometimes anything goes. Over the 30 plus years I have hunted I have seen this reaction a couple of other times but I know it isn't the norm. Yes practise scent control but also know that whitetails are very unpredictable and that's why they are the most ellusive game to be hunted in North America.