Tozetre As someone who's rarely hunted but likes to cheat, I present the less honest alternative; 1) Find a source of food that tasty critters like. If you are farming or gardening already, you're growing bait. 2) Wait near this area at night. 3) Shoot critters. Farm pest control and unskilled hunting that nonetheless provide meat have a happy overlap. That said, listen to the hunting guy, because honestly there's good reasons to learn tracking and proper hunting, and not all of them are related to warfare. Oh, and there's native methods, too; 1) Find big cliff. 2) Find big herd. 3) Run herd off cliff. OR 1) Find big migratory grazing herd. 2) Get a whooooole lotta guys with ranged weapons. 3) Slaughter big chunks of the herd. Of course, both of these methods also lead to 4) Spend a month or three preserving meat, curing hides, converting bones into needles, etc.

house !!HbKbEh/x0Lk this is going to be more of my musings on what tracking and distance hiking i have done on various game trails. this has been done mainly in the northern arkansas ozarks, across land between the white river and the western border of the state. i hunt mostly white-tailed deer, though i have successfully snared the basic small animals and a few unexpected medium-sized ones. this is all done with tracking in a historical sense, and i'll continue to explain this tonight. this first post is going to outline what i want to discuss and open up the question line. when it comes to finding an animal, you have to eventually get to the point that you are distinguishing one track from the next - separating out a particular animal based on weight, the way it is walking (injured animals are very easy to spot and a likely target for the true hunter). this becomes more difficult on heavy trails, but it becomes easier during colder weather and you can "train" yourself a little easier with the aid of snow, or a good day-old heavy rain in a soft area. i will try to lean the following posts towards teaching yourself sign and what i believe is going to be the easiest way to go about doing so. those with strong legs and a good heart are going to excel here; covering ground is the most important part and you need to find room to do a LOT of it. when i hunt (with bow or rifle) it is perpetually in the stalk, the molasses movement from one section of cover or shadow to the next. this typically happens across a broad overlap on any one selected game trail, or single animal's track. this offers multiple vanage points for observing not only the sign, but the area 's intersections and a slightly broader "sense" of the countryside if you are not familiar with an area. by this i mean topography, and USGS section maps are GREAT when observing animal traffic; start collecting now. the problem i should briefly address with baiting is that it leads to an area becoming overhunted. most game animals large enough to sustain even a small group of people do not travel very far when compared to their life spans, and counting on breeding and locally repopulated herds to sustain a person for any significant amount of time is hoping and dreaming. witnessed this in 3 separate locations, one where a documented (trail cam) deer herd thinned after only four years and began leaving far less sign than normal. after talking with hunters on an adjacent public hunting area, as well as hunting it after the fact, i was inclined to believe it effected the game in at least a six-seven mile radius, taking in a large portion of a six-mile-deep public area. this is where tracking comes in. from the example above, i was able to see that the animals were bedding and doing their afternoon grazing on a property that began in fallow fields to the south-western corner, while doing bulk feeding as their travel-to area during the latter days of fall. this was when my friends first began feeding the locals a corn-and-carbohydrate blend from some 55 gallon drums. the next season, we already had less female presence in the area (large herds of doe came the first year) and more solitary bucks, and sometimes paired ones (pre-rut), but few breeding doe. by the third year. we recorded a total of seventeen animals across an entire fall (cameras came down each winter) compared to near eighty individuals that first year, in several relatively distinct, observed groups. the cameras typically took in shots from late-mid august all the way to early december and occasionally later for bowhunting. the check interval was typically three to four weeks since cheaper cameras meant shorter battery life. to supplement the camera observations would mean a whole host of field notes from my own slow-moving observation of the amount of sign in the area. i stayed with my friends just about every early fall for the purposes of doing a few days' worth of tracking and scouting, eating a few heavier meals and setting in wood for the coming season. we hunted 400 acres and some public land as well (or i did) among nine guys. my general observations came down to this: > first year much doe-group activity given the wide wear tracks on every trail, and the way they tend to space out when walking across open areas. i would assume this scattering behavior is not limited to whitetails but i do not have much experience with other similar creatures. the general pace of these deer was slow, and they often meandered west and north onto the public ground, then back east to the posted property just across our hunting area's northern boundary. lots of browsing and day-bedding in the thickets, much buck sign during the rut and lots of activity at the two ponds on the public ground. everyone took at least one animal, the five bowhunters out of us took another each. > second/third less doe activity but still heavy buck sign, and still one herd of a dozen that we harvested older animals out of. between both bow and rifle, a total of ten were taken in the second, and even less on the third. the animals were staying further away from bedding in and around the canned feed area, and i observed heavy activity on a good trail crossing from our lands onto public ground for heavier browse and bedding. the return tracks were often weaker. > fourth year we were seeing small groups of no more than five animals, and the trails became night and day: some were used like cattle paths, others saw the occasional single buck running a scrape/rub line. this is where i should mention that the hunting pressure on the adjacent ground seemed to decrease as time passed, with me finding hunters that ranged shorter and all of us hearing fewer shots. the last year my excursions onto the public lands ended without meeting a single hunter throughout the seasons, and yet our local feed-and-kill operation was still fading. the animals were not even pausing on the public ground, and this is regardless of the strong white oak acorn deposits that are typical of the area, and weather conditions that did not vary enough to be considered a factor. we simply drew in and killed enough of the local population that the surviving animals learned to avoid us, or at least changed their habits enough to render the same bait-and-kill method less effective (which is why i began stalking further onto public lands). to end my tirade, taking animals across a broader region seems to have less of an effect on their habits, and i have told this to two groups of hunters since (one set including my son and his friends) who have since learned that the cost of corn was really not holding up over time. > back to tracking now when it comes to tracking, we have to know the animal we're looking at. the particular habits of an ozark deer are going to vary greatly from an elk, or any high-altitude game animal really. those along coastlines may follow a similar climb-and-descend lifestyle, where the whitetail has a fairly consistent "circuit" routine that one can predict and head off in nearly any situation. in the morning, they leave for either water or graze. the middle of the day, and often earlier rather than later, leads to bedding and waiting until sometimes nearly dark, depending on the weather and mood of the group. now "bedding" is usually more than one location, with browse in between. if you watch a group of deer, they are a fickle animal. one may move back and forth on a bed until it finds a spot it likes, multiple deer may stand up and move away from other members of a group or just decide to walk away entirely, where the group might begin to trickle off in their direction over time or even stand up relatively fast to join up with the others. older doe are usually the first to stand and move away to another bed, but are always the slowest on the browse, and typically younger doe will pause ahead of them as if they need guidance. the older deer will stick to trails while younger ones tend to cross the more open areas in a bolder manner. the bucks, as expected, will travel in small groups or alone, and they are less intent to browse. they more often than not will graze and browse in wide-open areas, leaving close woods and thicker areas for faster travel, or checking up on a circuit of rubs. this is not a very set routine, though many hunters will call out a given interval. it is my observation that they will hit them within a month, but sometimes a younger animal will be back in a few days, and often does not make as many rutting marks or spend as much time on rubs. they also do not travel as far and will begin to "curve" their track a lot sooner. the oldest bucks i have tracked, and often never harvested, will many times shoot what is basically a straight line out from their favorite bedding area and travel miles in a loop designed to alert the local doe. and while the younger buck will often put his sign in open areas or on heavier trails, the older one will travel to places that are higher up, and often near heavy cover or right in it for what i can only guess is paranoia that comes with being a desirable meal. okay, so you have the area to hike. you have a good stick and pack. maybe even binoculars or a camera. but how do you go about finding animals? first, know the track of the animal you want. there are plenty of resources for this, the best is by far being there but books help those who haven't been doing this since childhood. know the type of area your animal frequents, and start there. ponds are universal, having a river or large stream nearby puts a damper on this but does not exclude it. it just makes one route a definite implausibility. you can usually find track in the soft stuff, but the goal at first needs to be FRESH track. want do find an animal on the first day? your chances improve as you get closer to tracking near daybreak. animals move at low light the most readily, and you must also suck it up and start walking at twilight. go to your pond, find your fresh track, and squat next to it for a while. just by observing the immediate radius that you can spit on, you might try to pick out the animal's back feet. for a deer, this is always going to be far enough away from a pond's edge that it lands in harder material. this is perfect for the novice, you get to see the same animal on both soft and hard(er) ground - depending on the kind of water source you're at. now, while it doesn't hurt to know how the animal moves, it can be deduced from what you see. the first indicator of movement is the lip of the track the animal makes. dip your own knuckles into the ground next to the best track and pull them out, tending towards one direction. from this you can see what the ground does right after the track is formed, and start drawing conclusions. if it's a wet day (easiest for you to learn), you will see moisture seep into the track and possibly deform the sides or bottom. this is how you determine age. so you've got easy stuff like age, size/shape of animal (an injured one will make a lighter track, or drag itself out of/deform its own track when moving) and possibly its own level of haste. a slower animal makes shorter steps and will make clearer tracks, where the hurried or worried will slip and slide. now it's time to look at the more difficult ground, and this happens immediately after the water: the turnaround. it might look like a confusion of small disturbed leaves, you may find a depressed sapling stem or even broken-down compost in the form of rotting bark, branches or pieces of wood. a side-stepping animal may have rolled over any one of these features, disturbed moss, or simply dumped the water out of a few leaves where the surrounding set is still dewy and untouched. whatever it is, you must "see" this without looking directly at it. situational awareness is FAR more important in hunting that simply studying the ground with a microscope, and my reminder is that when you feel it in the back of your neck, it's time to look up for a few minutes. when you study the ground, looking at your feet will not benefit you because the top-down view eliminates shadow and shine. by "shine," i'm talking about the distinct appearance of ANY item that has been crushed, trampled, dragged, or even gently moved within the last twelve hours. the crushing and trampling will be apparent for days at a time unless it is raining or snowing, in which case the best indicator comes from looking even further ahead; the best lesson i can communicate with this is to search the ground in front of you, and not below you. if you can't see roughly the level of the horizon, you're looking too far down. it's perfectly fine to squat and study something, but i recommend you do something physically - squatting, kneeling, dropping your hiking stick, etc. - to remind you that you have hit "zoom," that you're out of hunting mode and into sign-studying mode, something. so more on "shine." you're moving through the woods and you've found track, but you're not sure where it leads. on the perfect morning, and especially a dry one after an overnight rain, all animal trails will seem to glow grey in the way a yard will turn a different shade of green when someone rolls over it. this is also apparent after a heavy dew - any recent activity will stick out like a sore thumb after knocking off the random, but fairly regular pattern of moisture collection on anything and everything. i see this more often than not in the saplings, briars, vines, and limbs on trails, and in the leaves that rise from the ground in a curled way. those that are down present more of the crushed/depressed shine that will stay long after the passage of an animal. but this can be more difficult to see given different lighting conditions. let's say you've identified a larger animal with deeper and bigger tracks that seems to be moving more slowly - the easier one for you to catch up to. it is possible the animal is still near enough to be currently watching you, and having this mentality makes the tracking ultimately more rewarding. the best tracker in the world will not have a use for it if he isn't peripherally aware of surroundings and their relative motions on any given day. you move slowly yourself, you stick to shadow, you use your eyes rather than your head to scan laterally, and you tune yourself into the sounds of your surroundings like a radio. this is more experience than anything, but it is not very complex when you get down to it. birds are your best helper because a crow will caw at anything, a woodpecker will run from the slightest disturbance, small finches and sparrows will likewise scatter when anything comes too close to a nest, and squirrels will bark at anything that runs them up a tree, or brings them out of their holes. ow that big animal's out there somewhere - your next goal is to determine the general direction of travel. was it raining all day yesterday? if you're not at water now, you will be heading there because animals like fresh rain, especially if local sources of water are standing. if you are already at water, the next most likely guess is going to be grass. wether it's green and healthy or brown and dead, deer will get a lot of moisture off of grazing very particular parts of grass. in the fall it tends to be bushy tips of smaller weeds, and the nubs of saplings. in the summer they will randomly clip grasses that don't require much lowering of the head, unless they find a patch of clover - then the rest gets basically ignored. so if you know local fields and such, just plan on that being the animal's destination. turn in this direction and go into zoom mode, looking for his turn into this direction. if you cannot find it, walk a ways from your starting sign and look back - see it yet? make a radius around the track, and keep widening it until you find something. upon finding the main trail, follow it a ways. be careful to keep looking ahead, and be most mindful of the direction you THINK the animal may be ultimately headed. you might not know he's bedding up in briars just a half mile from your location, but hunches are more often than not well-founded and you will learn to trust them as you continue to track. during the rut a buck's movements will largely follow local doe and their scents, so it is possible that a buck's track is lost among doe sign that seems to come from the same time of day. if the buck's tracks are noticably newer, however, it is possible at any time for a buck to wander straight off of a main trail because of his nose - and this applies year-round. chances are this will always happen into a wind, and towards a thicket or good bedding area, rather than a browse/graze area or watering hole. now the biggest issue i had myself was distinguishing track, and i'd expect it's this way for just about anyone. a good, healthy deer looks about the same as another good, healthy deer with a few exceptions. deer vary greatly in their pace when solitary, or depending on group size, and chances are that if lots of deer are occupying almost exactly the same track, they are traveling fast. this leads to heavy sliding deformation at the backs, and furrowing/breaking of ground at the front. a doe almost always walks a wider track than a buck, and this is made even more true when the buck is moving slow and the doe are moving fast. so look for these details and it will soon become more apparent when animals are separate. this is the easiest way to track and i hardly follow after bucks that are hounding doe, simply because you do not easily run up the backside of a group that always tends to move more quickly - as any grouped animal does - and possess more eyes to catch you running (which you basically need to be). a single track, and especially a slow one, means an easier kill. the mindful hunter will try to make it easier on himself. even if the track doesn't deviate from trail that much, it is still likely that a lone animal deviates from its intended destination more easily in the event of unrest or fear, where the herd basically needs a roadblock to deter it from continuing forward. a buck outside of the rut, especially a well-fed one, may also occasionally drop to his belly and rest for the fuck of it, sometimes in a position to watch his back trail. they might do this once every mile on a warm day, and often it will be in the area of a rub, intersection in the trail, or downwind of an area they want to travel into. more than half the time, when i notice a buck move off of the trail and not circle back towards it (to watch for followers), he is preparing to move across open ground straight into the wind, and he is waiting to smell out any threats. if a buck is about to look onto his back trail, it will begin first with a very slight deviation from the main trail, usually onto the onset of another ridge, when the main trail begins to ascend again. sharply and without warning the deviant track will veer off and stop changing altitude, and this is the point where i always stop and watch the area for a while. i have killed two animals standing at this exact spot i speak of, and one i am proud to say is the widest, heaviest eight-point buck i have had the pleasure to see alive, in person. the thought process of the deer at this turning point is to quickly get away from the trail and circle back to it in a way that obscures itself from view and offers a good look at the trail it was taking. these places also happen to be near good intersections or other points on the trail where a run away from the track leads to either a thicket, a bedding area, or some other location familiar to the animal. i don't consider this coincidence. being familiar with an area and keeping a running record (mine's on my topo maps) of animal movement goes a long way towards making meat. doe will not exhibit such a paranoid nature and often move fast enough that perpetual flight must be easier on them, but they will stop short of a bedding, watering, or feeding area and sometimes skirt the location downwind to determine if it's safe. at this point i am tired, but i will bookmark this thread and answer any questions tomorrow.