THE SAGA OF MY QUEST TO TRACK AND SHOOT A TROPHY NORTHERN WHITETAIL BUCK
My 30-06 barked twice in the blink of an eye. Before the report of the second round silenced a mature buck crumbled to the mossy cedar forest floor.
I have hunted the remote north woods of Wisconsin for 10 years and northern Minnesota for 3 years. I hunted mostly from tree stands and mixed in a little still hunting. During the rut I had fairly good results from aggressive calling. My dream was always to track down a mature buck and harvest it. Several attempts were made with no success. Tracking down a buck seemed to be an impossible task, still the idea haunted me.
Renewed hope came in the form of a book called How to shoot the biggest buck of your life by Larry Benoit. Mr. Benoit claimed to have tracked and killed many large bucks. The Benoit family, I discovered, had several books and dvd’s on the subject. Further research turned up a book by Hal Blood titled Hunting big-woods bucks.
After thoroughly absorbing all of my new found info I started my preparation for the upcoming deer season. I broke down my preparation into 3 categories: Physical conditioning, equipment, and skills.
Physical conditioning, aka torture:
The books explained to me that I must be able to run, walk, and sneak up to 20 miles a day. My best day ever was approximately 8 miles in high elevation in the Rockies. That was years ago by a younger version of me. I looked at pictures of the people who were successful trackers. Most of them were older than me and none of them looked like pro athletes. Since I’m not much into punishing myself I decided to do some jogging and hoped I could walk myself into fighting condition during bow season.
Equipment:
A new style of hunting requires different equipment. Since tracking requires tons of walking proper footwear is imperative. Knee high rubber boots that fit perfectly were recommended. The only decision was insulated or uninsulated. Since I would be on the move most of the time I opted for uninsulated. 4 major sporting goods chain stores and several local stores later I was the proud owner of 2 new pairs of boots and a pair of insulated socks. I walked around the house wearing each pair for several days before deciding on the LaCrosse boots. Tracking requires stealth so quiet clothing is essential. Most trackers agree that wool is the only way to go so that’s what I will wear. I decided to also waterproof my outer layer of clothing. I used a product called Nicwax. When tracking in the snow the proper hat is extremely important. In my opinion the perfect hat is a baseball style cap with a flap added to the back to deflect snow away from the back of your neck.
Skills:
Tracking requires it’s own unique set of skills.
Eyes:
We train our eyes to detect movement. Much like still hunting we have to learn to dissect the woods and pick out the deer before he moves. If you don’t, the movement you will detect will be the south end of a northbound whitetail. My past still hunting has developed this skill to a high level. I once still hunted to within 15 yards of a bedded spike buck. I located him by spotting one of his spikes sticking up over the swamp vegetation.
Tracking speed:
My tracking info made this part sound easy. Move like the deer. If he is running, run. If he is walking, walk. If he starts to meander, slow to a crawl. I found out that it is much more complicated than that.
Shooting:
If you are going to be a tracker you had better be good at shooting very quickly at moving targets. I practiced all summer and fall unslinging my rifle and pointing it at a target. I did this around the house to increase my speed without having to fire my rifle. I made several trips to the range and practiced speed shooting. I got some strange looks from other people at the range! I would like to add that shooting iron sights allows you to shoot quicker. My 30-06 pump is set up with see thru mounts so I can use iron sites or the scope.
Tracking:
I studied tracks along the sand roads by my home all summer long. I wasn’t going to get any practical experience until the snow arrived. I knew tracking would be a huge challenge and I would have to learn on the fly.
THE HUNT
My hunt in Minnesota started on Saturday Nov. 3rd. No snow yet so I hunted from a stand. Sunday comes and still no snow. Monday and the snow arrives!! I’m as excited as a teenage boy in the girls’ locker room! I search for a large track and start my adventure. My first track ends in failure when I discover that the snow is too thin and I loose the track. Later I see a big buck cross the road ahead of me so I attempt to follow him. This track ends the same as the first.
More snow arrives Monday night so my hopes are up for Tuesday. I tracked two different deer Tuesday and learned how tough tracking can be. Some of the problems I encountered were deer mixing with other deer, trying to separate which track was my deer in high swamp grass, and patchy snow in areas. The day ended much the same as Monday.
Tuesday night was a time for regrouping. The hunt wasn’t going the way I had hoped. I reevaluated the past few days and vowed to keep learning and never give up on tracking. I reviewed the last two days failures and thought about ways to handle these situations in the future.
With renewed hope I headed out Wednesday morning. I searched for a large set of tracks to follow. I found three sets of tracks that were good possibilities. I chose the one that looked the freshest and set out on another attempt. Traveling lightly and quickly I attempted to close the gap. He headed downhill through some thick brush at a steady pace. Once in the lowlands he crossed a stream and ran into a doe and two fawns.
Things got a little messy at this point. Four sets of tracks and they were wandering around, feeding. Things got so messed up that I decided to circle the area and attempt to pick them up on their way out of the area. Circling around I came to realize that he was chasing the doe around. I decided to find an area where I had better visibility and wait it out for a while. As soon as I settled in the doe and fawns came running by full speed with my buck in tow. Two quick shots later and my hunt was over.
The buck was not my biggest. He was a three year old 8 pointer and He weighted 175 pounds. I was disappointed with the ground shrinkage but proud of the fact that I got him by tracking.
I made several attempts at tracking while hunting in Wisconsin and came close to scoring on one occasion. I learned a lot in one season and am looking forward to next season to get some more practice. Big bucks beware!
