a cougars sense of smell is good but not as good as their hearing or eye sight, and from what ive read and heard you dont have to pay that much attention you would with deer or elk, but you dont want to smell like a perfume factory, movement is the big thing, i just bought some calls and a cd from rainshadow and i thought i had a good handle on the big cat until i listened to his cd, its amazing the amount of info he has about cats and its first hand no b.s info