Far as the SS, I have been taking scent free showers, scent free deodorant, scent free clothes wash. Boots do touch the truck floor, but I always have deer walk right over my trail with no ill effects. I use no other scents normally, sometimes I put out the trophyblend evercalm equivalent, but no real effects I've seen from that. I have been smoking up prior to every hunt. I'm thinking about smoking my clothes every few days and then just a quick minute smoke to get some on my body/pores. I have been using the hickory chips. Before I secured the chips, I was using leaves. I don't like the leaf smell, it stinks, but the hickory smell smells like I just left a BBQ joint. Most every deer reacts to it, most just continue on about their business, just knowing they smell something. I had one doe that wouldn't cross where I walked in. Her fawns didn't react at all, no surprise. When she finally decided to cross my path, she bolted across it and walked on about her business after a 20 yard sprint. The buck that blew out stopped and angled off after catching my scent. He didn't blow until he was probably 80 or more yards out, more so in the wind stream. The different buck who caught me stopped as soon as he got into my stream. He didn't bolt, but stood there for a bit. Finally decided nope, turned around and went off another way. I've had other deer downwind that didn't even offer up the slightest notion they smelled anything, and they were definitely downwind at some point. Can't say for sure what the instances are from, I'm going to keep using it. Just changing up useage tactics a bit to experiment.
Far as the rut, I've skipped four planned hunts since I got back to NJ. I can't talk myself into sitting in a tree here to in the slim hopes I have a maturish 80-100 inch deer come by I want to shoot, which I really don't want to shoot. Especially after I logged about 80 hours in a tree in Ohio and didn't see a deer over 100 inches. A friend saw a buck breed a doe last night, couldn't see how big, just saw the humping going on. Finally talked myself into jumping in the shower and heading out for one last hunt on public before I head back to work on Monday. I doubt I'll get out tomorrow.