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In the wild, every day is a learning experience
By ED ENGLE, Scripps Howard News Service
November 21, 2002
- The accepted wisdom is that if you follow a track in the snow far enough, eventually you'll see the animal that made it standing in the track. That's why we were ecstatic to see snow falling on opening morning of elk hunting season. In trackers' jargon, the countryside was a "clean slate."
I let myself believe that it would be as easy as going up the hillside, cutting a track that had to be fresh because it was snowing pretty hard, trailing it for a short way, and eventually finding an elk standing around awaiting my arrival.
Everything began to unfold exactly as I had envisioned it when I got to my favorite hunting spot at first light on opening morning. I immediately found a fresh set of tracks and happily followed them.
The tracks had all the earmarks of "fresh sign." The quickly accumulating powdery snow was delicately piled up around the edges of the actual tracks and the drag marks left by the elk's hoofs as they lifted them to take the next step. There was virtually no settling of these delicate little ridges of snow that would have indicated less-fresh tracks. I verified my observation by looking at my own boot prints in the snow. The condition of the snow around the track I left looked just the same as the elk's. That clinched it.
An hour later I was still confident that it was just a matter of time before I saw the elk. The tracks were casually meandering here and there along the hillside contours. I was still hot on the trail two hours later. The first doubt began to enter my mind after about three hours. I started wondering how it could be that I hadn't seen any elk if the tracks were as fresh as I thought. After another hour I broke it off and went back to the cabin for lunch. I was calling them phantom elk by then.
Later that day it snowed as hard as I have ever seen it snow. I couldn't see 20 yards ahead of me. Although I followed what looked like fresh tracks again, I never spotted an elk. I called it a day early, figuring that conditions were too difficult. Besides, I knew that with snow falling that heavy the next morning would once again be a clean slate.
There were 25 inches of fresh powder at dawn. I found tracks as soon as I got out of my truck, but within two hours I knew that the previous day's frustrations were replaying. That's when I decided I was going to bust a hump following the supposedly fresh tracks just to see if I could catch up with the elk. I didn't care about hunting anymore. Five hours later I had covered a huge chunk of country and still hadn't seen an elk!
That night we talked about the phantom tracks around the fireplace. The hunters in my group are all experienced outdoorsmen who are confident about their ability to read tracks and all of us thought we were following very fresh sign, but none of us were seeing any elk. After some lively discussion I came to the disturbing conclusion that I really couldn't tell how old the elk tracks were, especially in powder snow.
The next day didn't have anything to do with hunting for me. I took a "field day" to try to understand what the tracks were telling me. I couldn't believe it when I discovered that the tracks I'd seen the day before looked as fresh as new tracks made overnight. It turned out that I had been tracking elk that had a half-day jump on me. I never had a chance of catching up to them.
The new powder snow and very cold temperatures had fooled me. What was even harder to take was that I had believed I was too good a tracker to be fooled. I thought about all my winters tracking snowshoe hares, cottontails, coyotes, bobcats, and deer. I had learned a lot. The problem was not everything that a snowshoe hare track tells you applies to an elk track. In addition, an elk track in 25 inches of dry, powder snow tells you something different than an elk track in seven inches of wet snow.
Every day is a clean slate when you make your life out of doors. You better just keep learning. That's what keeps me going back.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Contact Ed Engle of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Co., at http://www.dailycamera.com.)
By ED ENGLE, Scripps Howard News Service
November 21, 2002
- The accepted wisdom is that if you follow a track in the snow far enough, eventually you'll see the animal that made it standing in the track. That's why we were ecstatic to see snow falling on opening morning of elk hunting season. In trackers' jargon, the countryside was a "clean slate."
I let myself believe that it would be as easy as going up the hillside, cutting a track that had to be fresh because it was snowing pretty hard, trailing it for a short way, and eventually finding an elk standing around awaiting my arrival.
Everything began to unfold exactly as I had envisioned it when I got to my favorite hunting spot at first light on opening morning. I immediately found a fresh set of tracks and happily followed them.
The tracks had all the earmarks of "fresh sign." The quickly accumulating powdery snow was delicately piled up around the edges of the actual tracks and the drag marks left by the elk's hoofs as they lifted them to take the next step. There was virtually no settling of these delicate little ridges of snow that would have indicated less-fresh tracks. I verified my observation by looking at my own boot prints in the snow. The condition of the snow around the track I left looked just the same as the elk's. That clinched it.
An hour later I was still confident that it was just a matter of time before I saw the elk. The tracks were casually meandering here and there along the hillside contours. I was still hot on the trail two hours later. The first doubt began to enter my mind after about three hours. I started wondering how it could be that I hadn't seen any elk if the tracks were as fresh as I thought. After another hour I broke it off and went back to the cabin for lunch. I was calling them phantom elk by then.
Later that day it snowed as hard as I have ever seen it snow. I couldn't see 20 yards ahead of me. Although I followed what looked like fresh tracks again, I never spotted an elk. I called it a day early, figuring that conditions were too difficult. Besides, I knew that with snow falling that heavy the next morning would once again be a clean slate.
There were 25 inches of fresh powder at dawn. I found tracks as soon as I got out of my truck, but within two hours I knew that the previous day's frustrations were replaying. That's when I decided I was going to bust a hump following the supposedly fresh tracks just to see if I could catch up with the elk. I didn't care about hunting anymore. Five hours later I had covered a huge chunk of country and still hadn't seen an elk!
That night we talked about the phantom tracks around the fireplace. The hunters in my group are all experienced outdoorsmen who are confident about their ability to read tracks and all of us thought we were following very fresh sign, but none of us were seeing any elk. After some lively discussion I came to the disturbing conclusion that I really couldn't tell how old the elk tracks were, especially in powder snow.
The next day didn't have anything to do with hunting for me. I took a "field day" to try to understand what the tracks were telling me. I couldn't believe it when I discovered that the tracks I'd seen the day before looked as fresh as new tracks made overnight. It turned out that I had been tracking elk that had a half-day jump on me. I never had a chance of catching up to them.
The new powder snow and very cold temperatures had fooled me. What was even harder to take was that I had believed I was too good a tracker to be fooled. I thought about all my winters tracking snowshoe hares, cottontails, coyotes, bobcats, and deer. I had learned a lot. The problem was not everything that a snowshoe hare track tells you applies to an elk track. In addition, an elk track in 25 inches of dry, powder snow tells you something different than an elk track in seven inches of wet snow.
Every day is a clean slate when you make your life out of doors. You better just keep learning. That's what keeps me going back.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Contact Ed Engle of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Co., at http://www.dailycamera.com.)
