How to tell how old a track is

[Tanner Peyton]

Does anybody use trail cameras to age tracks. When I was a wee little lad (16 ish) I would use trail cameras to practice aging deer tracks. I would leave them out all year and check them once a day to every three days and guess about how old the tracks were. Then I would look at the pictures and time / date stamps to see how close I was. I got fairly good at. I suppose a guy could turn dogs out and see abou what kind of a nose they have as far as time it's self is consurned.

Just a thought, Tanner

[cfanno01]

David and others...name is Chad from northern lower Michigan. Started from scratch with hounds 4 yrs ago armed mostly with the information on this site and that's why I am trying to contribute when I can. This site helped me and I'm sure its helping others who have the desire to start with hounds but might not have a mentor to learn from. I run yote and bobcat. If I want to strictly hunt to bag something I go after the overpopulated yote not cat. I mostly agree with the "cant catch it if they cant smell it" mentality, but in my area you are only allowed to harvest 1 cat per year, leaving a lot of time to experiment and learn bout the dogs, cats, etc. In a strictly hunting situation i turn the dogs out and if they smell it then good if they don't move on. But some days I don't find day old tracks so instead of going home, I mess around with one that I've seen from a day or 2 before just to stretch the dogs legs and maybe gain a little knowledge for myself. Some people probably think this is a waste of time and if you are interested solely in catching critters every time you're out then it definitely is a waste. I guess it depends on why you are out with hounds in the first place when it comes to judging what is a waste of time and what is time well spent...and there is no wrong answer to this question, it just varies per individual. I chase a lot of the same cats throughout the season also, and I like to learn the specific tendencies of specific cats. I just find it interesting and believe it will prove helpful in catching them when I really want to (on the rare occasion I have a first time hunter or kid along) I ran a big big cat 3 times this past winter and he proved to like to swim a large river to escape. That's info I will remember when I have a day when I am SERIOUSLY trying to HUNT that cat. One of my personality "flaws" is that I don't usually believe what I'm told by others and have to go out and prove things truth or fiction for myself. Anyway thanks to all of the guys on this forum (many who have posted on this thread) in giving me a means to get started with hounds and I sincerely hope I can help others in similar situations.

[david]

Cfanno01
I think you are a rare breed. You have taught me something I didn't know and I been trying to learn about this almost ten times longer than you. Some people like you have four years experience. People like me have one year experience fourty times.

Thank you.

Does anybody use trail cameras to age tracks. When I was a wee little lad (16 ish) I would use trail cameras to practice aging deer tracks. I would leave them out all year and check them once a day to every three days and guess about how old the tracks were. Then I would look at the pictures and time / date stamps to see how close I was. I got fairly good at. I suppose a guy could turn dogs out and see abou what kind of a nose they have as far as time it's self is consurned.

Just a thought, Tanner

Wow. I found another one of "those guys".

When I read Baynes story below I was thinking that tiny bit of precise data would have had me analyzing the data for days, or probably years.

In some places where I have lived (and now live) I would be more likely to get a picture of Sasquatch than of a bobcat. But in other places I bet you could do it.

I think we should go together and buy Don (U.R.E.) a bunch of those cameras so he can satisfy his curiosity.
I hate to see him losing sleep over this.

This account will be very unimpressive to most of you. And it is about a coon track, not a cat but it is the only time there was no guess work about the time. I turned Brooks down a spring branch that supplies my house with water. He struck a track that wandered a generally circular route for about 2 miles. I noticed on the GPS that he went by a deer feeder station that I had a time stamp camera on. He treed about 300 yards beyond that point and had the coon laid up apparently asleep in a large oak tree. When I reviewed the picture card, there was a coon in the bait at 7:00 and Brooks showed up at 11:11. I don't know how far in time he was behind at the strike but it was 4 hours and 11 minuets by the time he got to the bait station.

[david]

... When I reviewed the picture card, there was a coon in the bait at 7:00 and Brooks showed up at 11:11. I don't know how far in time he was behind at the strike but it was 4 hours and 11 minuets by the time he got to the bait station.

If it was a dog I got Bayne, If he was 4 hours 11 minutes behind him at the bait station, I would have to guess he was approximately 1 hour behind him at the strike.

I love him. Kiss him and hug him.

I would be feeling blessed by God that the coon climbed that tree and fell asleep. ROFL

[Grzyadms4x4]

Here's something that just happened to me. So last week I was hunting lion in a wilderness area that had some fire about 4 years ago. Most of the trees are still there but there was a little moonscaping. Weather was good, sunny and cool, no moisture and very little if any wind. Found about a half dozen older tracks but Sunday I found two new sets of tracks converging on a closed off dirt road. Looked like two cats meeting each other. The tracks looked really fresh and crisp. Not a peep from the dogs, nada, nothing. We start going around trying to pick up the trail and we begin to go down a NE facing slope and the dogs go apeshit. Trail for a few hundred yards then quit. They circled but nothing and on that hillside there was a lot of leaf litter around. Crap, so I go down the road to the SW facing slope dogs open mildly, I see tracks and they are headed in the right direction. This time there is no leaf litter it's all dust but lots of ground vegetation still alive. Dogs trail a good ways then the track peters out. So how old were those original tracks? Was I trailing the original tracks from the road or were the conditions just right to be running old tracks. They looked about as fresh as they could be but the dogs didn't strike those tracks until we got to vegetation then once terrain changed scent was gone. I don't know what happened exactly, but I know where i'll be spending some time. That many tracks in such a small area, it was like the cats were having an orgy last week.

[dwalton]

You were there your guess is probably better than anyone else's. It sounds like a lot of changing in vegetation and slope all could be a factor. It was just one of those times you rely on your dogs sometimes you catch it sometimes you don't. I have seen a lot of tracks I thought the dogs should do well with but they could not. Until the dogs can talk or we can smell it, it is just a guess on age. I like the trail cam idea that could really give us a better idea for those conditions. One can sure pick up on ideas that might be useful on here. Dewey

[david]

Gzyadms4x4, in Florida they clear cut, then burn, then spray with herbicide. The Clays said dogs cannot smell anything in those cut overs for over a year after that. i don't know how much of that has to do with the burning and how much with the clearing and how much with the herbicide. But your piece reminded me of that. I don't know if it applies.

[Grzyadms4x4]

I figure it was a combination of a few things that kept those cat/s from getting caught. After free casting and staring at the ground looking for tracks for days then to come across those uncatachable tracks was frustrating. Burned out areas can be, for me at least, impossible to trail through. We'll see how it goes next time, i've got an idea of where those cats were headed, if I catch them, I'll make em pay!