Yesterday I was helping my dad on a elk hunt in some high desert country. The elk there like to get into the flats that are covered in pinion pine and juniper. It can make finding the elk hard sometimes. So I cut a track of a bull we had seen and followed it for several hours and close to 5 miles before catching up with it. I was able to get in on the bull in close range twice. I had never used tracking as a main hunting tactic before so it got me wondering how many have used tracking an animal as a hunting tactic?
Interesting. I know back east there are a couple guys who dog a big whitetail buck for miles, tracking him, until the shot presents itself. Its their main strategy.
I have never done this myself, but I believe it is a viable method in the right area. Where I hunt elk its NOT a smart option given the terrain and timber. They would just walk off to one side of you, get the wind, drift away into the distance.
Joshua
I have done it in the Adirondacks on snow. Makes for an exciting hunt if all goes well. You have to be ready to go for a long time in some cases. I'm getting a bit long in the tooth to do it anymore, but it is a great way to hunt! :thumbsup:
I have tracked elk and deer like that a lot here in montana. also bear in the spring. I have also seen them hook up hill and back track then bed. Watching there back trial? maybe being that I found empty beds that held elk moments before I showed up. I always glass the up hill side of a track now.
I do it a lot for Roosevelt elk. If I find fresh tracks I can almost always catch up to them within a few hours.
John
Wow! I could see trying it on Midwest whitetails with a tracking snow, but I can't imagine it on elk from my very limited experience. It seems to me that when they are strolling and feeding at a leisurely rate, they are still moving at twice my speed! I'm impressed with whomever can pull it off.
No easy task, but FUN. Win or lose.
Have a damn good compass that DOESNT require batteries.
It is a tough way to hunt with a short range weapon.One of the problems,especially in the mountains is wind direction.Not a problem if the animal is way ahead but you are having to stay within sight of the track regardless of wind direction.It is easy to say just make a wide loop when wind direction is wrong and come back to the track but in mountainous terrain,such detours can wear you out long before you hit the end of a long track.Animals also tend to watch their back trails and when bedding,they often make a loop and lay watching their back trail,with the wind at their back.Most animals,mature ones for sure,are very aware they are leaving tracks.
"It is easy to say".....you got that right Jim. Mountains, swamps, briar thickets....it can happen anywhere. Natural roadblocks(including wind) that can kill a good tracking session on the spot.
Roosevelt elk usually do not travel to far or to fast when feeding or going to bedding areas.
Tracking is actually one of the most common ways of finding them, mainly because a lot of the areas they are using the visibility will be from a few feet out to maybe a hundred yards.
John
Seems to be a western thing over sitting in a treestand. The late blacktail season out here provides this type of hunting in the snow. The bucks are cruising for does and allows you this opportunity also.
Yes when I lived in Colorado, not so much in Texas... hard way to hunt without deep snow..
QuoteOriginally posted by Gentry:
I have tracked elk and deer like that a lot here in montana. also bear in the spring. I have also seen them hook up hill and back track then bed. Watching there back trial? maybe being that I found empty beds that held elk moments before I showed up. I always glass the up hill side of a track now.
Yep, some books speak about this, whitetail hunters almanac is a decent source for this sort of information.
Anybody remember the Benoits in Maine about 30 years ago? That's how they did it.
i trac during recon to find where they're moving routs are which are most current and figure out all their options so that when i'm hunting,i can consider from my intel gathering and the conditions that moment where they may spook to from where the wind puts me that day,then of coarse it really gets to be fun when the wind changes and weather turns you gotto think in the moment,those are my favorite ways and days to hunt coastal and columbian blacktail.tracking is the only way for me.even if i'm gonna ground hunt from a natural blind,my tracking gets me to the choice ambush position.
Thanks for your responces everyone. I have know a few people to hunt this why over the years but just didn't know how many trad gangers did. Personally I have always been more of a ambush and still hunter more than anything else.
My Dogs Do
I know this is an older post, but I'm new here and didn't get to chime in...
When I was fishing in Big Bay, Michigan this summer I stayed at a small cabin for the week and there was this old (from the late 80s) vhs of deer hunting in the upper peninsula. In the video, there were these two brothers who mounted all their big deer from over the years and it wasn't that many years, they were probably in their late 30s... It was ridiculous how many huge deer were on this wall, ridiculous. They said they hunted only by tracking.
I've also seen a documentary about this tribe in Africa that hunts by tracking/running down the bull with the biggest horns. Apparently the heavier the horns the harder it is to long distance run in front of a pursuer. After a long time the runner finally catches up to the animal that is so exhausted its laying down barely breathing. Then he spears it from 3 yards or however close he wants to get.
I just wonder where anyone finds enough public land to track whitetail. How far can they go before you catch up with them?
Ill track hogs when the conditions are right, after a hard rain and in wet conditions. Where i hunt if its dry the tracks are hit and miss and that,s most of the time, at these times its spot and stalk or still hunt.
Have done it when hunting with a rifle but never a bow.
I've done it and actually worked real well for me. The only time I've done it is when I bump a deer. I let things settle down and then I take up the trail. It's nice to have options.
Only in snow and when scouting. I make loops on the downwind sides of track direction and try to get ahead of the deer and wait them out.
In the mountains with snow it works great. On the coast in wet weather it doesn't work at all. I like to hunt cougars this way up by CleElum. Cut a track and follow them. The cougars either cut back and drop in behind you or hole up in brush. Always take two hunters when playing this game! The rear hunter most often gets the shot.
COLongbow mentioned the Benoit's from Maine. There is an article about them on page 60 of the Dec-Jan Field and Stream. It has some good tips, especially if you're in Northern Maine where the woods are big. I tracked a nice buck in fresh snow on the Maine/New Hampshire border in high school. I got within 75-100 yds when my cousin shot it. Oh well, it was a fun morning.
I use tracks for elk a lot to be honest, especially in the thick timber(snow is a must here in Montana as the ground is too dry the rest of the year). The trick is figuring out when to follow quickly and when to slow WAAAAAYY down...It also helps if you have some way to neutralize your scent. Fresh falling snow, high wind, mist, and smoke on the clothes all make tracking a much more viable option.
**Good binoculars and patience are a must.**
If it is not in snow, then you can bet I'm hunting turtles.
The Benoits were (and are) rifle hunters but their books and the articles about them in magazines are some of the best whitetail hunting exploits I have ever read. Really good stuff.
The best tracking job I ever did was once when I picked up an old buck's track in October and tracked it back to its birthplace six and a half years earlier. I picked up the sheds along the way.
Wait, I may have drempt that.
Bill
I have done it alot in Africa but using firearms
Ive tracked hogs in the early morning in summer when there was a lot of dew on the ground. Same in winter with a frost on the ground. Just gotta try to catch up to them before the frost melts or the dew dries up.
So far I've only tracked down one buck, in the snow with a muzzleloader here in VT. It is a great way to hunt if you have the mobility and stamina.
The Benoits are the real deal, despite some commercialism creeping into what they do. They do have their detractors, but not people who actually know them. They hunt in Ontario, Quebec, Maine and Vermont. They have the time to scout for weeks prior to the seasons. What they do takes physical stamina, excellent eyesight, knowledge of the quarry, and a huge knowledge base of track assessment to track deer in very difficult terrain.
The patriarch, Larry, is in his eighties and still gets into the deer woods on a limited basis. My dad and he were acquainted back in the 70s, and I still remember having dinner with him when I was a teenager, and talking deer hunting. Even then, the number of huge whitetail mounts and antlers from his family members and himself on the walls of his small home in Duxbury was staggering.
Back in 2006, I drove over to his house one blustery winter day, and asked to talk about tracking. Over that afternoon, and two subsequent afternoons, I picked his brain as best I could about tracking. And yes, the number of trophies on the walls was even more mind numbing than 30 years before.
His best advice, "get out in the woods and try it in the winter---practice. Get in shape. Scout before the season. When their tail flickers---freeze." "Can't a man have one day a week to call his own?" (said when I said it would be tough to consistently take a weekend day off from kids, work, chores).
All his advice is in his book, How to Bag the Biggest Buck of Your Life, from back in the 70s. Mr. Benoit did not approve of the latest printing by Peter Miller, and so if you look for one of these books, get an older copy out of respect for the man who shared that hard earned information.
Two years later, I took a nice 8 pointer by tracking in freezing rain that was crusting over 8" of snow. I sent Mr. Benoit a photo and a thank you letter, and he called me to congratulate me.
I think to take a mature whitetail by tracking, with a barebow, would be some of the most difficult hunting in the world. It was all I could do to get within 50 yards, how does one get within 20 yards? I almost can't fathom it. I can say that tracking deer is the most exciting hunting I've ever done. I do not know if I will ever be able to do it with a bow.
Some on this website probably do it, and I'd love to hear from them.
You could never do this in South Alabama!!!
i was in Idaho following what looked like fresh elk tracks in the snow but gave that up when some wolf tracks intersected and mingled with the elk tracks. I figured that elk was either long gone( miles away) or a goner( got ate).
Otherwise the small woodlots that I hunt in Indiana do not provide for tracking.
Won't work many places put it does with muskox in arctic Alaska!
In Florida it is almost impossible to track any game but I do try and track hogs by following fresh sign and tracks.
Used to do here in North Dakota before all the land changed hands and got posted. Get out DURING the storm and find a track. It always led to a deer bed! You just had to spot the deer before if saw you.
I will if I find tracks in new, light, snow. If the snow is only an hour or so old and I find tracks, I'll follow them. Eventually there will be a deer standing in them.
I read a lot of people saying "you can't track here in my neck of the woods." Tracks don't dissapear they just get harder to follow until they are too difficult for our human perceptions. No matter where an animal moves it leaves tracks, even fish in the water and birds in the air.
I learned to hunt whitetails in Michigan in the 70s and 80s when both deer and hunter densities were very high if you tried to track back then on oublic land you stood a high chance of pushing them in front of another hunter. or having some old doe bust you and clear out the whole section. I think for hunting deer low hunter and deer denssity is the key to making this work. nit to mention being in good physical shape and very patient