An example of practical tracking

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Joey_Numbers

Member
Aug 25, 2010
13
0
California
Good evening!

I was walking the dog today and I stopped by an old church surrounded by field and let him off his leash to run around and frolic as he is want to do. We ran around, playing, rolling, and wrestling for a bit. I walked to the other side of the field, him following me, to investigate some Opuntia cactus I saw growing over a fence. I grabbed a large fruit off the cactus and walked through the field cutting the spines off. I found a small spot to enjoy my cactus fruit and throw the tennis ball to the dog. I suddenly realized I dropped my sunglasses…......in this.
PlayingField.jpg


The sunglasses weren’t expensive, but I liked them so I started looking. Turning it into an exercise, I walked back to the opuntia cactus, faced the sun and began to look for my own tracks. I believe this is an example of “shine” as they call it in tracking. See how the tracks and pattern become clearer as they get further away?
Mytracks.jpg


A negative effect on the above picture, I’m told it adds clarity when tracking.
Mytracksneg.jpg


I didn’t just walk in grass; I ran through some mud and was able to find my tread pattern. For the sake of practice, notice the maple seed in the track is crushed down and the grasses inside the track are flattened. Telling me this was recently made by me…….oh and because it looks like my shoe, haha.
Treadpattern.jpg


While engaged in a search and rescue for my beloved sunglasses I saw some more shine, I think this was two cats running through the field. Kinda hard to make out but its there. The cats ran to the fence line and climbed over, I would have followed but I didn't want to get shot :D
Cat.jpg


After following my own sign and tracks for about 200 feet (not just in a straight line) and restarting a few times I achieved success!
Success.jpg


And of course, this ham head was no help at all. Look at him…..he knows what he did!
Ham.jpg


So I learned tracking isn’t just for hunting or finding people. It’s also to help idiots regain a small amount of honor by finding lost things, haha. Thank you for reading.

- Joey
 
Last edited:

JonathanD

Ophiological Genius
Sep 3, 2004
12,809
1,480
Stourton,UK
Great stuff, tracking is a brilliant art and not hard or mysterious once you've got your head into the mind of the creature you are tracking. You were well ahead in the latter respect.
 

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