How to Track a Buck in the Big Woods

“Where did you get the money from, Ernie?” I asked, amazed at the animal. He casually pointed into the darkness. “Up on that mountain.” I gazed at the vast and seemingly endless shadow that formed the distant horizon. “How did you find him up there?” I asked. “Tracked him down,” Ernie said with a shrug – and that changed my life as a deer hunter forever.

In the modern whitetail world of food plots, trail cams and tree standings, the art of spotting a buck is becoming a forgotten practice. Yet in states like Vermont and Maine, where deer densities are often less than a dollar per square mile and finding the right spot to stand is like playing a full-length game of Where’s Waldo, tracking remains an efficient and rewarding method of finding a trophy buck . Also, having tracked bucks from New England and New York to Indiana, Montana, and Wyoming, I can say that for hunters who like to walk, the technique works anywhere there is wide open spaces, lots of buck, and most importantly, snow are .

Snow is critical to a successful pursuit. Although it’s possible to find and follow tracks on bare ground, in the snow you can determine if the tracks you see belong to a trophy buck and follow them fast enough to catch up. According to Hal Blood, the legendary deer tracker and author of the book Hunt for Big Woods Bucksbeing able to identify large buck tracks is the most important skill a deer tracker can have.

“You have learned that the tracks before you were not just made by a buck, but they were made by a buck worth pursuing. With practice, they’re easy to spot,” said Blood. “The footprints of a large buck are, of course, larger than those of other deer tracks, but there is more to them than that. Big bucks go a certain way, a sort of swagger where they swing their legs outward. They have a long stride, trailing their feet a bit and the dewclaws are perpendicular to the hoofprint.”

There are other signs to look for to determine if the tracks you see belong to a buck. They leave imprints in the snow with their antlers when they lower their heads to eat or sniff at scratches, and walk around tight gaps in the trees or areas with a lot of thick scrub where their antlers can get caught. Unlike those who squat to urinate, bucks pee on the move and splash signs across the snow. Such clues can tell you that you are on to a buck’s trail and even give you an idea of ​​what its antlers look like, but you can only really find these signs by following the tracks.

“In the beginning, you’re not a tracker, you’re a track follower,” Blood said. “But if you stick with it and learn to read the sign, eventually it will become second nature. You can see the tracks, know they’re from a good buck, and know they’re fresh enough to follow.”

Recognizing the freshness of buck marks is critical to success. You don’t want to waste your time following the trail of a buck you can’t catch. The best way to do this is to follow the weather. Knowing when snow fell, how much has accumulated, and how much has melted over the past few days will at least give you an idea of ​​when the buck made the track. Fresh tracks have sharp, well-defined edges and won’t melt in warm weather or fill with snow when none has just fallen.

Finding fresh buck tracks in large swathes of otherwise empty woodland can be one of the most difficult aspects of tracking. Trackers like Hal Blood spend a lot of time walking in the woods before, during and after the season scouting out spots and noting areas that have produced in the past or appear to have great profit potential.

“I have certain areas that I like. So I try to get where I want to be early in the morning so I can be in the woods by daylight,” Blood said. “When I set out to find a trail, I go to the top of a ridge and then walk the length of it because the bucks usually come down one side or the other. Once I’ve cut a good track, I’ll see where it takes me.”

This is an efficient way to find a good buck trail if you know the area and have had plenty of time to scout. However, if you find yourself in new and unfamiliar territory during the season, it is still possible to find and track a large buck by quickly covering the ground and finding tracks or potential hunting spots from a vehicle.

“I work a lot on the road when I’m exploring unfamiliar territory,” said veteran game finder Rodney Elmer. Elmer co-hosts the Mountain Deer YouTube channel and podcast with his sons Taylor, Rion and Casey. “Almost everywhere in the forest there is some kind of board with old logging roads or trails that you can drive a truck or ATV around and learn about.”

Elmer is particularly fond of searching from a vehicle when he’s with multiple hunters because he can drop them off in a wooded area and then drive to another area to pick them up and make a plan for the rest of the day – depending on whether or not they found a good buck track.

“It’s like playing Battleship where you fire a line across an entire board,” Elmer said. “If you circle the truck around a spot, you have many opportunities to narrow down the bucks, and with hunting partners we can zoom straight through a new area and search a piece of forest for tracks first thing in the morning. It’s one of the best ways to find out what happened during the night and make sure you’re following a fresh lead.”

Tracking a large white-tailed buck is a nuanced thing. You need to move fast enough to make up the time from when the buck made the trail to when you found it, but not so fast that you end up crashing into the deer . During the rut, when large bucks are either following females or covering much ground in search of females, their tracks move in large, steady strides in a straight line through the forest. That’s a dollar on the move and you should be moving fast to catch up. However, when the buck begins to slither, makes several turns through the forest, stops to eat or stand in place, it’s time to slow down and start looking for the deer. Many beginners make the mistake of focusing so much on the track and looking at the ground that they run right into the buck and have him run to the next county. So it’s important that whenever you feel you’re getting close, keep your head up and your eyes on the forest in front of you to take the shot.

“You always have to try to figure out what he’s doing,” Elmer said. “If he’s slower and wandering around and eating in tiny areas, it’s time for you to slow down. I always say to myself, ‘Okay, I’m at his house, now I have to slip into his bedroom.’ I’ll start making a little phone call and see if I can get him to come to me, or I’ll just start crawling forward and looking for him. You have to take it easy, that’s the best advice I can give, take it easy and work your way right into it.”

Before that day at the general store, I had tried all kinds of deer hunting. From sitting in stands of trees to probable spots to bribing my friends to cheat for me, none of this has ever really worked for me. I just wasn’t a hunter who could stand still and wait for a buck to come my way. I had to go out and find him. After talking to Ernie, I bought every book I could find on white-tailed buck tracking. The following season I was off the hook and on the lane.

Tracking works because it allows you to rely on your own woodcraft for success and fully immerses you in the hidden world of a buck. From a buck’s tracks, you can see where it likes to go, what it likes to eat, whether it’s looking for or following a deer, and where it likes to perch. Tracking takes the guesswork out of deer hunting. You never have to wonder where the buck is because it’s right in front of you and if you read the sign and keep your chin up you’ll catch up with it soon enough.

Feature image via Matt Hansen Photography.