Success Stories: Jake's First Tracking Buck

"Hi Hal. My name is Jake. I wanted to let you know that I shot my first buck tracking this past Sunday. I also wanted to say thank you to you and the guys for passing along this tradition. After finding your book late last season I spent most of the offseason studying and getting in the woods to learn more about tracks and tracking. 

This all came in handy this past Sunday when I got on this beautiful 8pt first thing in the morning. I saw him first thing in the morning minutes before legal shooting light with 2 does. They eventually worked off down hill and I got on the track at legal light. The tricky thing with this buck was that I was hunting on a 126 acre parcel of land that we lease, with private to the north, east, and south; and public land to the west. So I had to move quickly on these deer if I had any hope of catching them before being on land I couldn’t hunt. I tracked these deer a total of 6/10th of mile. Down into a steep creek bottom where they joined up with 4 other deer. I took me a bit to sort out which way the buck went but eventually figured it out. He was moving in a fairly straight line and I knew I had to move fast to catch up. At this point he was walking down an old logging road with a doe. I came to a bend in the road and I got tight to the inside corner and peaked around to see the butt of deer. I checked to see if it was a buck or doe with my binoculars as I was about 65yds away. I saw antlers and saw that he was legal buck so I drew up on with my (new to me) 7600 in 30-06 and fired. I hit him in the neck and he dropped. Excitement ensued and I couldn’t believe I got it done tracking. 

All thanks to you and your book and the podcast. This information is priceless and I can’t thank you enough!"