Counter-tracking Techniques?

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Alaskajohn

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My most recent book, "A Handful of Hard Men" is a great read about the SAS and the battle for Rhodesia. The book has lots of great discussion about tracking and counter-tracking used with great success during this war. I know a lot of us track game, and some of us may be trained to track humans, how many of us have been trained and practice counter-tracking techniques. Since a big part of my plans include slipping over the mountain into wilderness if the world gets too crazy, counter-tracking is very important. One thing the book points out is that counter-tracking at best buys you some time if you are being followed by an experienced tracker.

My military training and experience in tracking and counter-tracking is decades old and my experience was all in a different environment. The northern boreal forests and the "tundra" that I live in is completely different. In this environment, if you make a track, someone could follow it a few years later. I am familiar with common counter-tracking tactics such as not silhouetting yourself, camouflage, backtracking, using game trails, not making noise or creating odors, etc. But these techniques might not be adequate in my environment that is so difficult not to leave your mark. Bear and moose trails abound, and these trails are often the best way to get around. But they don't always go where you want to go, go through areas trackers call "honey buckets" or over terrain where you are silhouetted. Going off these trails mean you are easily leaving traces that my last for years in the tundra.

What are your counter-tracking techniques? How do you counter-track in the snow? How do you train? How do you know you are effective in your techniques?
 
Crossing the tundra, in winter, the best way to hide your tracks is to travel when it is windy and/or snowing. Good luck staying off the skyline. If you travel in the stream beds or low places then the snow is really deep.

If you favour the regular hunter's trails you can confuse your tracks with everyone else's. This is easier around the villages or in favourite hunting areas.

Choosing a favourite brand of boots could make it harder for someone to distinguish your tracks. Bunny boots might be a good choice for you.
 
I've given this topic a lot of thought and practice. I take my techniques from nature. When I grew up we hunted with dogs. Everyone I knew had coon hounds, rabbit hounds or deer hounds. Both the dogs and the critters have a lot to tell us if we listen.

I live in eastern woodland. My landscape... Thousands of acres covered thick stands of pine or hardwood broken up by fields and pastures. The forest floor is covered with dead leaves or pine needles. Tracks vanish in this soft carpet even for skilled trackers. Depending on the age of the timber the underbrush can be quite thick.

Cattle, lots of cattle where I live, small to medium size herds. My great nephew now runs the cattle operation. He keeps about 50 head here on the home farm. A herd of cattle can obliterate tracks or easily confuse scent for the average hunting dog.

Water, lots of water where I live, streams and creeks in almost every hollow. A few miles away there is a very large swamp, over 50 miles long.

What I learned from wild critters in my youth… Rabbits have a peculiar habit that confuses even the best hounds. They run in circles, around and around and around. About 1/2 mile in diameter. Even great rabbit hounds will eventually get confused and give up. Unless they cross a soft gravel/sand road you'll never see tracks.

Deer… Deer will sometimes run in circles, especially young does, does with fawns and young bucks. The circles are usually 1 to 2 miles in diameter. But the really smart ones will head for water, the swamp. Deer simply vanish in the swamp and dogs too. I can’t count the number of times I’ve searched or helped neighbors search for lost dogs there. If not found withing 24-hrs the best hope is they show up a week or so later.

I spent most of my youth hunting and fishing in that swamp. No one knows it well, even those who hunt there. It changes all the time. The swamp is a great place if you wish to vanish. Caution... year before last a lady killed a 10ft alligator less than 50 miles from where I live. The swamp is full of cottonmouths also (Agkistrodon piscivorus). There are lots of reasons not to hunt someone there.

Here are 3 great tracking books I put in the library. Tracking

SurvivalBlog I don't know if you are familiar with John Wesley Rawles and his site - The Survival Blog? The website is packed with useful information. Occasionally someone writes about tracking which I always read. They also have a writing contest. Here is the link for a writing contest... SurvivalBlog Nonfiction Writing Contest Rules - Bi-monthly

As it happens, I won the survival blog writing contest one quarter... here... Make Your Own Retort Style Charcoal, by Dan in Alabama - SurvivalBlog.com

Grey Man Skills - One of my prizes from the survival blog was a 3-day class by OnPoint Tactical – Scout, tracker and wilderness survival skills, Urban Escape and Evasion, basically SERE for civilians. The last day of class was being hunted all day in downtown Atlanta by professionals, the field test.

These "hunters" had real world experience as private contractors in Iraq where, at the time, kidnap for profit was a booming business. I highly recommend this class!!! I wrote about it briefly here...

https://www.homesteadingforum.org/t...is-important-survival-skill.8113/#post-217582
Every prepper should experience being hunted in a suburban or urban environment. As it happens, I was badly injured working cattle a week before the class. I had the option to pass on the field test. There were 2 days of class room instruction where I learned a great deal. I decided to give the field test a try anyway figuring I’d be one of the first people caught. I wasn’t caught and now I know what it’s like to be hunted for miles while injured!
 
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