How to Track a Buck on Bare Ground

I was planning to give up on tracking that day and had been heading up the mountain to a deer stand on top of the ridge when I randomly stumbled across the giant tracks. They were deep and wide—undoubtedly the tracks of a big buck—and since the mud had only just arrived, I knew that they had to be fresh. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in tracking without snow, but figuring that I had as good a chance of running the buck down as I had of seeing a deer from a stand on such a warm, wet day, I decided to give bare ground tracking a try.

Tracking bucks in the big woods is almost always associated with snow. Most deer trackers won’t even head out into the woods until there’s at least a couple inches of powder on the ground. Yet, when the option is to go tracking or sit on the couch and watch the weather channel hoping for a snowstorm, most choose to go hunting. While it can be difficult, tracking without snow is entirely possible so long as you slow down and learn to work the trail.

“It’s always a bit of a challenge for me to slow down,” expert Maine and New Hampshire deer tracker Timmy Bolduc said. “In snow, I’m going to be chugging along as fast as I can to catch up with the buck, but when I don’t have snow, it’s time to put the brakes on and start working the sign. You’ll get a track in the mud or on soft ground that gives you a direction to go, but you’re going to lose the trail a lot, so you’ve got to pick your way along and find it where you can while always keeping your eyes on the woods around you.”

Bolduc emphasized that without being able to age the track, he’ll only start following trails in areas that he knows bucks have visited recently. He’ll choose spots with a lot of sign such as rubs and scrapes with fresh scat and tracks that indicate where bucks are moving between feeding and bedding areas, giving him a general idea of where the buck is heading and why.

“You’re not so much following directly behind the buck as much you’re following the path he most likely took that morning or evening,” Bolduc told MeatEater. “During the rut, he’s going to be looking for does, so look for his track in spots with a lot of does. In the late season, he’s going to be feeding and bedding his own self, so look for good spots for him to feed and bed.”

Staying alert and aware of your surroundings is key when tacking on bare ground.

“Find that pocket of deer activity where he’s been leaving good tracks here and there then start picking your way through, moving slow and doing your best to walk like a deer,” Bolduc said. “Take a few steps, then stop, take a few steps, then stop, and really give the woods a good once over every time you stop. On bare ground, you should be almost constantly in death creep mode like you’re still-hunting, which you essentially are, expecting to see the buck at any second, and you’ve got to hold in that mode the entire day.”

It’s vital when you’re tracking on bare ground not to get too focused on the tracks themselves. The lack of snow means that you’re going to be constantly losing the buck’s trail, and if you spend too much time trying to sort it out, you won’t spot the buck until it’s too late. Once you’ve got fresh sign and a general direction, head down what seems to be the most likely path and work the trail as slowly as possible, picking up sign here and there to let you know you’re still on him but mostly keeping your eyes up and on the woods ahead of you to spot the buck.

If you don’t have a buck in front of you, it won’t matter how slow you move. Accordingly, on bare ground without snow to show you that the buck is just ahead, you’ve got to rely on your own instincts to make an educated guess as to where the buck is likely going. This takes an understanding of a buck’s habits, knowing where he’s most likely to go during different points of the day throughout the year, and knowing how he’s going to get there. In bare ground tracking, tracks simply indicate a direction of travel, and once you’ve found them, you’ve got to be able to read the contours of the land to follow behind the buck, and often, you can even get ahead of him.

“One of the things that I like to look for are tracks heading uphill towards saddles between ridges where there’s a lot of short growth or overhanging trees,” Bolduc said. “This is especially true during the middle of the day when I know he’s looking to bed down. Then I’ll loop around above those spots and try to come down on top of him. It’s a great strategy because bucks heading into bedding areas are usually watching their back trails and expecting danger to come from below them. If you circle around and drop into those spots, you can often find that buck bedded down and shoot him before he even knows you’re there. If anything, coming from above will at least give you a few extra seconds to shoot because he won’t be expecting you to come from that direction and won’t be as apt to run.”

Once they’ve found a big track and know that a buck is heading into a certain area, many bare-ground trackers will leave the buck’s trail entirely and circle around an area in search of more sign, jumping from spot to spot and confirming a buck’s direction of travel with each track they find. This takes a lot of ingenuity and understanding of a buck’s preferences, which vary throughout the year.

“You’ve got to figure out his routine throughout the entire deer season and track the buck accordingly,” expert tracker John Wright of Concord, New Hampshire, said. “In the early season, I’ll spend a lot of time looking for tracks in different scrape lines until I find the big track I’m looking for and that gives me a home base. Then I’ll start to circle out from that scrape until I find tracks and other sign that let me know where that buck likes to bed and likes to feed, so if I don’t shoot him that day, I can come back and have a good idea of where to find his tracks tomorrow.”

Wright then changes things up as the season progresses, and the rut starts heating up.

“During the mid-season when bucks are on the move looking for does, I don’t bother with the scrapes. Instead, I start following deer trails looking for the same does that he’s looking for, and I’ll even go right into their bedding areas. Chances are I’ll cut his tracks in the dirt or mud going somewhere through there, and that’ll give me a direction,” Wright said. “You’ve got to be able to adapt with the times and draw from your own experience as a hunter if you want to be successful on bare ground.”

Having experience tracking bucks on snow can really help you be successful on bare ground because it helps you build your instincts. Following tracks in snow lets you know what sort of terrain a buck likes to travel in, what sort of feed he is looking for, and what sort of areas he likes to bed down in so that you can draw from those experiences when you don’t have the track in front you. Yet even if you don’t have any snow tracking experience, you can still follow a buck’s tracks or at least their trail on bare ground by understanding a buck’s habits.

“What’s made me more successful on bare ground is the amount of tracking I’ve done on snow because it’s taught me their routines,” Wright told MeatEater. “Bucks will all check certain spots before they bed down, and when you start to learn their habits and why they like one area over another, you can start to predict their movements on bare ground. Start looking for tracks around food sources and try to figure out what they’re eating.”

What exactly they’re eating will depend on when and where you’re hunting, but can also differ from year to year.

“In the Northeast, it’s different every year between acorns, beech nuts, and grasses in logging cuts. Yet they’ve all got to bed down somewhere, and they usually prefer to bed in softwoods like spruce trees. So, if you find some tracks around a food source that are heading towards softwoods, you’ve got a direction, and then all it takes is roving around and picking up sign here and there until you find the buck.”

Wet and rainy days are prime times for bare-ground tracking. These days, when most hunters would take the day off, are one of the only times a buck will leave behind consistent tracks without snow. Furthermore, in heavy rain, bucks don’t tend to move very far or very fast, meaning that you have a chance to catch up with them quickly so long as you can find their tracks.

“On rainy or wet days after the snow is melted, I’ll check the same spots I would if there was snow on the ground,” says Wright. “Big heavy bucks will leave big heavy tracks in mud just like they would in the snow, and if he’s a really good one, you’ll have no problem following him.”

On wet days, you can look for buck tracks along the edges of old logging roads or in clear cuts, but some of the best spots to find and trail a buck on bare ground are along open hardwood ridges. In these spots where the leaves have been knocked down by rain or have been laid out flat beneath melting snow, the ground will be carpeted with a thick layer of fallen leaves.

Big bucks moving through these spots will leave large tracks punched through the leaves and in especially thick spots, they’ll even turn leaves over as they drag their feet through, leaving a trail that even a blind, deaf French bulldog could follow. If you can’t quite make out the track, head in the direction that the leaves have been flipped towards, as debris will always fall in the direction a deer is moving.

Follow these trails for as long as they last, as often on rainy days, the buck that made them will have bedded down or will be hunting a doe in the nearest bedding area close by. Even if the buck isn’t close, you can use these leafy spots as jumping-off points, following them up or down the ridges to the next patch of sign and, hopefully, to the buck himself.

I had admittedly been pretty disheartened that day when I found those tracks in the mud. The snow had melted, and I had been considering just staying in camp and waiting for the cold weather that evening to turn the rain back into snow. However, if you’re constantly waiting for tracks and tracking conditions to be perfect, you’re never going to get your buck.

I begrudgingly followed the tracks in the mud until they petered out and then kept going in the direction I thought the buck must be going. I picked up a couple more tracks in the center of a muddy field and more where he crossed a small stream. I saw where he’d walked through a wet patch of tall grass on his way up a ridge and found where he’d turned off the trail into a thick stand of trees.

It was a frustrating and seemingly fruitless day of circling around and poking my way slowly through seemingly empty patches of woods and by sunset, I was about ready to give up—then I saw him. The wide-racked 8-pointer was bedded down with a doe about 400 yards above me. I snuck in and shot the buck just as he was getting up to feed, and as I walked up to him, I knew that bare-ground tracking was not only possible but that I would never have to stay in camp and wait for the snow to fall again.