buckeye

Mobow waswas never goingto kill a buck with his bow!

SwampCollie

There are always exceptions so I don't ever think anything I see or hear or even learn is 100% all the time.There are doe tracks that will fall noticably offset from front to back, but still nowhere near as extreme as that of a buck.

Geography has a lot to do with it too ... where I live in SE VA, the size of a mature doe is about the size of an average fawn in the upper midwest. The differences are no doubt exaggerated as the deer get larger. Considering I've likely never looked upon a track made by a doe that was larger than 140#s (and even that is a stretch), the differences are probably not as extreme in the cases I have to go by. I'd suspect that the time of the year has a lot to do with it as well. If I had 80# worth of youngin's inside me I'd probably walk bowlegged myself.

Another thing I've found that can get your crossed up is understanding exactly how a deer was moving when it left the track. Deer don't casually walk very often... they wander like kids with ADD... sniff this... browse on this... pick my head up and look, turn around , walk over this way a bit, go around this, over that.... as they walk faster, their tracks spread out more and more. When they hit dirt, vs, sand, vs, snow, vs mud.... all lots and lots of variables that can have you look at a track and scratch your head.

wvubowhunter

Thanks guys, I learned something today.

Rory/MO

thanks guys i learned something new on here again

but swamp, i was always told that when you saw the dew claws behind a track, that the deer was running, is there any truth to this?

SwampCollie

The problem with that statement Rory is the word "always".

If you see tracks in very deep mud... like in a field after a rainstorm, then you will see the dew claws even on a doe who was just walking.... and it'll look at least twice size because of the way mud acts when you step in it.

Running deer (espeically if they are flat out gettin' it) will land on their feet and leave dew claw marks (usually, and that does apply to both genders).... however, a running track has other tell tale signs about it that identifies it as such. It is never as crisp and sharp, there is usually some indication of sliding, in loose soil there will be evidence of that loose soil kicked up behind running feet (espcially if the track is fresh). Also, the distance and pattern of the tracks will be much different from that of a walking/meandering deer. A big buck's feetin full stride might not hit the ground but every8-10 feet (thats feet as in 12" not deer feet by the way... I've been amazed at how far they go with just one stride).

When deer run, their two front feet and their two hind feet work together as pairs... you can really see the dew claw marks from the hind feet, as a deer digs in to launch itself forward. If you look closely in good soil at fresh running tracks, you'll see the two front feet are infact INSIDE the two hind feet (its a good point I didn't address in my two other posts on tracks... but this is true for both does AND bucks!). The back legs are where the power comes from, and the front two are for balance and steering (just like on a top fuel drag racing car... wide in the back, narrow in the front). You'll also see that the hind feet are pushing, and leave a track as such, while the front two feet are going in usually toe first, so you'll notice less of adew claw impression left from the front. The hind feet will also land IN FRONT OF the front two... so you'll have two tracks out wide and slightly forward of two closer together tracks. If you think about it when you watch a deer run, or look at a picture of one, you'll see exactly what I mean.

So while there often are dew claw impressions left by both sexes while running, you have to look at the big picture and try and figure out what was going on. A running track all by itself is relatively tough to judge. But the good thing about that is running tracks are often found crossing large open areas (like fields) where there is often decent soil to collect tracks.

Rory/MO

thanks for clearing this up for me swamp, i appreciate it

silentassassin

I have personally always believed there is in fact a void. I have a buddy, that skinned deer at a processor for several years, that says he has seen deer come in on several occaisions with scars from a passthrough in the "void". Also, a couple of years back I had a buddy that went down to Texas and shot a buck with his bow. They called in a tracker with a dog but still lost the deer. They let him continue his hunt with his rifle with the stipulation that he could only shoot the deer that he had wounded. He told the guides that it was a waist of time and that he would just head back home, but the guide bet him $100 that the deer would be back to the peanut field at some point in the next few days. So Bill stayed and hunted. The next afternoon, the buck he shot the day before came back into the same peanut field and he killed it with a rifle. He had shot the deer a couple of inches behind the shoulder and high (right under the spine). The deer was walking around fine the following day when he shot it a second time and you can clearly see where he hit him the previous day in the photos.

dukemichaels

I know its a gland.. but its a sweat gland and it only permits scent at certain times of year... It is often just stated by writers as a gland that in there heads.

I know I'm a bit technical... but it bothers me[8D]