When the smoke is hanging low

[South Texan]

One evening about an hour before dark and about 10 or 12 years ago, I pulled up to my brother's house to pick him up to go cat hunting. He happened to be burning the trash and as I pulled up the first thing I noticed was the smoke from the burning trash was hanging about 2 1/2 to 3 feet off the ground and had drifted out 40 or 50 yards from the fire. But even at 50 yards out the smoke was still hanging right at ground level. I never thought much about it, till after we made our hunt. That night the dogs couldn't do anything wrong, trailing or running, it didn't make any difference. We started 3 cats that night and caught all 3 and was back at my brother's house by about 11:30 pm. As the dogs would trail on a cat, they would never bobble, always just consistantly pecking away and moving the trail forward till they would jump the cat, then same thing after the jump, just run the cat like they were tied to him and never making a loose. It would make a fella think he had pretty good dogs but I think it was mostly perfect conditions. That was my first experience with low hanging smoke but I have sure watched it ever since then and always had excellent hunts under these conditions. I just always assumed that scent was doing the same thing as the smoke under these conditions, hanging low and not rising. I'm not sure what causes this, would it be high pressure? Or is it a multiple of things? Any of you cat hunters ever notice this before? All I know for sure is when I see the smoke hanging low, I'm loading my dogs.

[come-hunt]

I learned this in the early fifties.Believe it or not from a Lone Ranger comic book.In the back of the book they had a section about Tonto's observations or old Indian tricks. This was one of them (when smoke is laying close to the ground, expect rain, when it is rising straight up fair weather. It stands to reason scent does the same thing.
I smoke a pipe and use the smoke as a indicater of scent conditions. If that smoke goes out and goes to the ground , so does scent. Your dog will run head up on airborne scent hanging nose high.

[mike martell]

you will see this out west while rigging. when you have conditions like mentioned, you can confirm this by driving in a road and not striking, turn around and on the trip back discover your rig/ vehicle actually stirred the air allowing the scent to rise and dogs strike on the trip out....

[Gary Roberson]

Rob
I remember Richard telling me this story and your observations. All makes sense. My problem at the present time is we have been in a burn ban for over a year. The good/bad news is we don't have enough fuel to cause a fire.
Adios,
Gary

[Dan V]

I had an old timer tell me one time when we were talking about scent: "go and build you a little fire next to the creek, build another fire 10 yards away from the creek, and another 30 yards from the creek. Watch the smoke. Try this in the morning, mid day and evening."

It can be pretty good watching.

I remember in Wiley Carol's book he said "an hour of hunting in the morning is worth 2 hours in the afternoon."

[South Texan]

Dan V,
I kinda believe like Wiley Carol. But...here in south Texas right now under these dry conditions, I wouldn't trade 2 hours of a morning hunt for the other 22 hours of the day.