 TRACKS
AND TRAILS – WHAT DO THEY TELL?
Escape Trails, Night Trails and Snow Trails
EDITOR’S NOTE: You’ve heard talk that a
big buck is feeding in a green field, but despite watching
from dawn to dusk, you haven’t seen hide or hair
of him, just some does and small bucks. What’s
wrong? As long-time deer hunter Larry Norton of Butler,
Alabama, explains, "Big bucks, especially in the
South, rarely come to green fields in daylight hours,
even during the rut. They don't have to come out in
the open and show themselves to find a hot doe but instead
can walk along a trail 30 to 40 yards off the downwind
side of the field and still smell the does. Generally
they'll wait until dark and then move out into the fields
to eat." So, you haven’t seen the big buck
because he’s not using the same trail as the does
and the smaller bucks. The lesson: deer use several
different kinds of paths or trails. If you know what
to look for and  where
to look, you can take a stand and drastically increase
your ability to find and bag deer. Let’s take
a look at some of those trails, and try a short quiz
that’ll help separate rumor from reality.
The whitetail realizes the presence of danger in his
environment, especially during hunting season, so the
buck has certain pre-determined paths he uses to escape
danger. Often these vague trails will show little wear.
But bucks utilize routes through the wilderness to dodge
hunters.
Night Trails:
Many of us waste thousands of hours hunting over trails
deer never use during daylight hours. To decide whether
or not deer use the trail you hunt as a night trail,
check to see if it has numbers of tracks on it that
go straight in one direction. Deer use these trails
to get from point A to point B. The animals don't meander
along these trails and feed, walk these trails in search
of does or take these paths to and from food sources
during daylight hours. Like us when we travel from one
point to another, deer will take a  woods
interstate—the most-direct route. You easily can
locate these night trails in open woodlots. To pinpoint
whether or not deer use these paths as nighttime trails,
use a trail timer or a motion-sensor camera with a time
and date stamp.
But as one hunter emphasizes, "I never hunt heavily-used
deer trails but instead get off those trails and locate
a secondary trail downwind of the major trail. Trails
in very-open areas will have the least-productive deer
hunting. When you easily can distinguish a trail going
through an open region, and you think, 'Boy, deer have
torn up this place,' that trail probably gets used during
the night because it offers less cover and safety for
the deer." To consistently take whitetails, you
must identify various types of trails and learn where
the deer go and why they travel to these regions as
well as when. After gathering that information, try
and put a tree stand where you can bag a buck.
Snow Trails:
"I have several thickets close to my home in Orchard
Park, New York, where bucks go to bed," says Chris
Kirby, the president of Quaker Boy Calls. "I can
go to the thickets after a snow and easily determine
if any bucks will be in the thickets. If a thicket has
no trails going into o r
out of it, then I know no deer are in there. If a thicket
has trails going into it but all the tracks on that
trail are small, then I know that the only deer going
into that thicket are does and small bucks. However,
if I see a single trail that has big tracks going into
the thicket, I'll hang a tree stand to wait on that
buck to clear out and give me an opportunity to take
him."
If all else fails, head for your tackle box. One way
to detect the movement of deer on various kinds of trails
is by stringing a 1- or 2-pound-monofilament fishing
line high enough across a trail that a raccoon or a
dog normally won't trip it, but a deer will. Always
take the line out of the woods when you leave.
TOMORROW: DEER TRACK QUIZ,
PART I
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