How to become a highly effective tracker

[justinspicher]

I did a man tracking course while I was in the military, back in 2005. It was pretty legit. The instructor was a Rhodesian SAS cat and I learned a ton from him.

Fortunately, I have only had to track a few animals in my hunting career, but I’ve always been able to find them.

My most recent tracking job was last month when a buddy shot a bear. We tracked it 1200yds from where he was initially shot to his final resting place.

Patience and perseverance are keys to tracking.

 

[Beagle1]

Tracking at night is a whole different game than during the day. Have a good headlamp and least two sets of batteries. Have a good backup headlamp/light and spare batteries. I like Zebra lights with a handful of spare 18650 batteries Do not depend on your phone light as a backup. If you don’t have light it’s game over.

Know the weather that’s coming in. If it’s rain the often good conventional advice to break for the night and come back early the next morning won’t work. You just have to go full bore until your lights run out or the rain completely washes out the blood. For flagging in those conditions toilet paper is a bad idea use surveyor’s tape.

If you find the deer and will be dragging it out with an ATV that’s a long ways away hang one of your lights above the deer. Then set an Onyx track back to the ATV so you can follow it back to your deer.

Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. There will be highs and lows during a difficult track. Numerous times you’ll want to give up. Just ride those emotions out then get back to tracking.

A couple nights ago I found an 11 point I tracked for three hours during a light rain. As soon as I found him it started pouring like hell. I made some mistakes during the track I shouldn’t have but I had a good light, kept at it and had a bit of luck.