“The hounds have to work for their scent, that’s the most important thing,” says Kiely. “It took me months to get the right mix. The main goal is to get the hounds to speak. I want them to look like a pack of hounds hunting a fox.” When Kiely joined Myopia several years ago, he’d never even seen a drag hunt, let alone mixed up the scent. “I got advice from different people, and if you ask 10 different people, you get 10 different answers,” he says, noting that his inquiries stretched from an English bloodhound pack to the Aiken Hounds in South Carolina. “Most people say that less is more with scent: the weaker it is, the better they hounds hunt it. That’s very true, I think. I think the biggest challenge is to get the hounds working and hunting the line properly like it’s a fox. The scent and the way it’s laid are key.” That’s Kiely’s main goal: to simulate a live fox’s intricate, tricky line rather than inspire a screaming race across the country. “I use a mixture of fox urine, a small bit of anise, and glycerin,” Kiely says. “The scent is mixed up in water and is mostly water.” Kiely mixes about five gallons of hot water for each cup of fox urine and glycerin, then adds half a cc of anise. Before a hunt, he dips a kitchen towel in the mixture, ties it to a six-foot rope on the back of his “fox,”
a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle that speeds across the countryside 10 or 15 minutes ahead of the hunt. There’s an art to the drag line, too. “The four-wheeler goes quick quick, and the lure bounces along the ground,” Kiely explains. “When a fox runs, he doesn’t drag his tail leaving scent all over the place. And a lot depends on the terrain you’re crossing. If you’re going in high grass, I’d put a chain on the end of the rope and then the towel at the end of the chain. But if it’s in flat, open country, I just put it on a rope.” Kiely devises curves and checks in the line as a live fox would, and he doesn’t strengthen or weaken the scent to improve natural scenting conditions. “I never change the mix,” he says. “Some people lay it stronger on hot days or cold days or snowy days or rainy days. I always lay it the same, and the reason for that is I’m trying to make it look as realistic as I can. You can’t say, ‘Hey Mr. Fox, you have to smell better today.’ I mix it the same every single time.” Unusually, at a drag hunt live fox and coyote — other hunts’ desired game — are considered riot, says Kiely. “That’s why I use a little bit of anise,” he explained. “I’m sure there are millions of foxes in the world, but not one of them smells like anise.” Leave out any element, Kiely believes, and the hunt changes dramatically.
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“Somebody suggested using just anise and glycerin,” he recalled. “They would run the anise and glycerin, but they wouldn’t speak on it.” Substitute the glycerin with vegetable oil, and the scent mix becomes more of a suspension than an even solution, in Kiely’s experience. “The vegetable oil just sat on top of the mixture,” he says. And the job of scent artist can be hazardous.
“To be honest, you do have to be careful,” Kiely acknowledges. “If you get it on you, it’ll stick, because the glycerin makes it stick. Obviously, you don’t mix it and get it on your rubber boots or gloves and then walk into kennels. You just have to be a little careful.” Glenye and Christopher Oakford live in Lexington, Ky., and are frequent contributors to Covertside. summer 2014 | 23