Tracks

[mheichelbech]

When you locate various deer tracks, do you pay close attention to all tracks, big, little, doe, buck or just mainly the tracks you suspect are a mature buck or know they are from the buck your after?

What about predator tracks? What do you do with these I.e., do you factor them into any of your thinking about your hunting?

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[Tufrthnails]

I'm way new in this, but I have been using the small tracks to find the big tracks. Basically at some point following a transition with lots of doe tracks I am going to find a parallel trail and that is wear I tend to find the big tracks. not always but most of the time. I basically ignore predator tracks unlessit appears like it is a predator highway then I log it as a spot I might want to taget the predators while predator hunting. Predators cover so much ground where I hunt I would not have anywhere to hunt if I stayed away from predator tracks.

[tbunao]

I pay attention to all tracks but I'm 100% focused on finding large tracks. The smaller doe tracks give me info on what's using those areas and are a good source come the pre/rut time. I try and relate those tracks to known bedding.

I don't really give predator tracks to much attention as far as a pressure situation. It's more of a mental note on how high the population could be. I don't really know if a deer will avoid an area with yote tracks in them as I feel yotes wander in away. I've seen areas in the winter with multiple deer and yote tracks running through.

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[mheichelbech]

One of the things that still surprises me and I don't know why is the amount of deer travel I have seen through observation and trail cams in which there are either no or few tracks or sign yet the area gets travelled frequently by deer.

And...areas I observe a lot of tracks and sign but don't see deer, which tells me they are moving through an area nocturnally.

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[CNYarcher88]

I pay very close attention to tracks. A lot of the guys have already made points that I really agree with but one other thing I use the tracks for is determining trail camera and treestand location. In many areas deer especially mature ones can be sensitive to trail cameras so by paying attention to the direction of the movement based on tracks I can make sure I position the camera where it will never be in their direct line of sight. I also use the same info when deciding how to hang my stands. It still blows my minds that guys hang stand in a position where they are in direct line of sight to the deer.

Also last year despite having many cameras out I stumbled upon some very large buck tracks and found a trail that the bucks were using for no apparent reason that did not pass by a single one of my cameras. There were no terrain features or anything else to my knowledge that made that path anymore appealing than any other however that path led me to a relatively tiny swamp maybe 15'x30' that was clearly a buck bedding area. I hung a camera on a major trail leading into it and within a week had pictures of over 20 different identifiable bucks (only 1 shooter but still). This spot is on the edge of 3 properties all of which have hunters with trail cameras all over them and no one else was picking up on this spot or any of these bucks.

It all started with one set of buck tracks.