EagleLake

How can you tell when your on the trail of a buck or doe when following tracks. Also how do you know if the track is fresh or not????

zak123

Buck- the front hooves are on the outside and the back hoofs are on the inside. Since the hips aren't far apart, this is able to happen.
Doe- the front hooves are on the inside, the back on the outside since a does hips are spread out.
If the track is old, The dirt around it is cracked and has fallen in the track. If there is rain water in it it happened before the rain.

j3k2c1

A buck on general weighs more than a doe so often the dew-claws show up in the track. But on wet ground this info is quite useless...

Rack-attack

if the deer is standing in the track it is fresh

If it is a buck standing in it then it is a buck track

The only truths I go by

extreme1

LMAO at rack-attack

Shootem up870

buck tracks are almost like 2 parallel lines and dont touch each other (each prong on the hoof) but a does tracks make a V. the older the track the more it will be filled in. if the buck is a big one it will be newhere from a little over 3 fingers wide to almost 5 fingers wide.

JimboHunter1

There was an article in "Deer and Deer Hunting" recently that explained that bucks will "roll" the leaves forward when they walk on moist ground, but that does do not. That was the first time I had heard of that but it sounds interesting. Is it true? Who knows... You can't believe everything you read.

hunter60

the first buck i ever shot was walking threw the leafs just draging his front feet kicking up all the leafs they will do the same in about 2'' of snow if you find their bed or track them for awhile in the snow you can see how they piss

Tazman

Rack-attack hit the nail on the head about telling the sex of tracks, there is no sure fire way of telling, normally larger tracks are bucks, but there are some large does that leave large tracks. As far as aging tracks, that all depends upon the ground/terrain. Fresh tracks for the most part are very crisp and the moisture of the soil will be the same on the edges as in the center, the older the track the drier the sides will be. A track in very wet soil may fill in with water right away or as already said rain may fill it. The freshest tracks you can find are ones in grass where the grass is just springing back up out of the track as you approach. Tracking and aging track is an art that can not be put into words, it is all common sense and experience.

benhuntin

If the ground is clear enough to distinguish between the back and front feet then that is a pretty accurate indicator. A bucks back track tends to run inside the front due to its shoulders being wider than its rear. The opposite is true for does. I used this technique when I did alot of tracking up in North Dakota and it turned out to be very accurate. Bucks do tend to drag their feet more while does pick theirs up. As far as going by size,,, Ive seen does with huge feet and bucks with little feet so I wouldnt necessarily just go by that.