You need two separate drag lines for this ruse. The first is the rope or piece of nylon that you’ve always used to pull one scent wick. The second is a double drag that you make for pennies. Cut a string about four feet long. Cut a second string one foot long, and tie it toward the front of the first string so that it rides about a foot from your boot as you drag along the lines. Now tie a wick to each end of the string. One of those wicks with a big hole at the top works great.

When you’re 150 yards or so out from your stand, pull out your double drag. Juice the long line’s wick with buck urine, and the front, shorter line’s wick with hot doe. Sneak the rest of the way in.

Why use both doe and buck scent on your double line? You create the illusion of a buck trailing a hot doe. All studies show that whitetails communicate heavily through their smells, though scientists cannot say which individual scents the animals react to best or most often. Strange as it seems, a buck is just as apt to come to the scent of a buck as to the smell of hot doe. You never know, but by using both smells you give a buck the option.

A scent trail can work anytime during the rut, but it might work better the first week of the post-rut in December. Go heavy on the hot doe now. There are fewer receptive girls left to be bred, but the bucks still prowl for action. One of those randy boys might cut your trail and run to your stand.