Coastie, like you said look for the animals breath, it is alot easier to spot sometimes than the animal itself. As far as a deer spotting you, I once got done hunting my morning post and changed weapons clothes etc, and went pheasant hunting when I walked up on a nice 6 (I saw its breath). It saw me and we both just starred at each others breath. For 5 min it was a stand off and I realized I wasn' t going to shoot it so why waste time on a stare down . So I continued my hunt and he trotted away. So in conclusion the breath alone didn' t scare him it was when I moved. By the way he was only about 35 yds away,and I was in an orange vest. That was the last time I split my day hunting both deer and small game.