Tracks and Tracking. Josef Brunner

      HIND FOOT OF VIRGINIA DEER. (SLIGHTLY REDUCED)

      (A) Dew claws. (B) Heels. (C) Soles. (D) Toes.

      About the first of September bucks begin to cleanse their horns of the velvet and small trees and bushes exhibit the signs of having been used for that purpose. Where such signs are found in roomy forests near dense thickets, the sportsman can, with moderate certainty, count on getting a trophy by stalking quietly or waiting from sunrise to about 8 o'clock A.M., or from an hour or so before sundown until dark. Of course it is easier to get meat for the pot near streams and feeding places, where there are plenty of tracks, but as doe and fawn shooting aims at the base of life, and as old bucks usually do not make their appearance there as long as it is light enough for a rifle shot, I would not advise one to stalk or wait there at all. Stalking during rainy days in open forests where bucks have left evidences, such as blazed trees, will, as a rule, be rewarded. At that time, game being comparatively undisturbed, most deer are shot at while standing, and even a poor shot can hardly miss. However, as tracking is more difficult than when snow covers the ground, it is advisable to watch the deer closely for the signs at the moment of firing.

      The most important sign to observe is the action of the game when it receives the missile, since it is an evidence of where it was hit. If struck somewhere in the front half, it usually jumps into the air—that is, if it does not drop instantly, which incident we have no need to consider in this connection—and if struck in the hind half, it will kick out with the hind legs. A deer shot through the heart seldom drops immediately. After the first jump, which is often hardly perceptible and no doubt overlooked by the average hunter, it generally makes off at top speed, running close down to the ground. It may run only fifty yards, and it may run five hundred, but one thing is certain—the hunter can follow at once, and the animal will be dead by the time he reaches it.

      The most striking exception to the rule of heart shots the writer saw in the Snowy Mountains, Montana, during 1904. A buck was galloping, broadside exposed, at a distance of about one hundred and twenty yards, and was fired at. Four or five jumps after the shot was fired he stopped behind some trees, which prevented another shot. He remained hidden a few seconds, then trotted about thirty yards and stopped again; finally he trotted off, directly away from me, and if ever I would have sworn that a deer was missed, I would have done so then.

      However, force of habit compelled me to follow the trail, and about two hundred yards from where he stopped last, the buck lay stone dead. The bullet, a steel-jacketed .30 U. S., had penetrated the heart squarely, and made a hole the size of a quarter. There was not a drop of blood along the trail. Moral: Follow the deer, even if you think you have missed.

      A deer shot through the lungs usually goes off, after the first jump, as if nothing had happened to it. There is no variance in its trail from that of an uninjured deer, but alongside the trail there is in every case the story of where the bullet hit, in the shape of foamy, light-colored blood. This trail, too, may be followed immediately.