HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - Need some advice, tracking in the rain?
View Single Post
Old 02-06-2015, 04:32 AM
  #12  
Valentine
Nontypical Buck
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 1,926
Default Four years ago; wonder if he's still hunting

Maybe we're too nice to fellow hunters. Maybe some go for years and just assume they're going to have to track a deer or have to track them far .
Maybe some really downgrade the necessity of practice, practice, practice.

My hunting career would have ended years ago, if I ever assumed I never needed practice. I learned in swamps and hardly had time to learn swamp hunting. Practice before the hunt was more important than the hunt. There was no time to assume I was a good enough hunter. I learned accurate shooting; where on the anatomy of a deer to get an instant kill shot. There are some shots approved by some, I still don't make.

My first tracking was on an archery shot deer. I knew I made a good shot. Knew the deer should have been 50 to 100 yards away. Not 300 yards.
When it was the place of last sighting, I took a compass reading. I didn't look for a blood trail in the thick brush; I looked for a whole deer. I stayed on the original compass reading and found the whole deer fifty yards away. At one point I couldn't see the stand or the location of the deer. I found the deer then some fifteen yards later. It was laying in some thick brush.

Practice, practice, practice had payed off. Never did need a trailing dog. My requirements were tougher. I never sought an easy way. Never hunted an easy way.

Last edited by Valentine; 02-06-2015 at 04:44 AM.
Valentine is offline