When you look at the whole skill of tracking, we first see the art and science of reading and following tracks. With the use of Pressure Releases we can determine not just the animal, the direction it was heading and when it passed but the track becomes a window to the animal’s very soul. With the Pressure Releases we can read if the animal, or human, is hungry, thirsty, tired, alert, injured and so on and so forth but little attention is given to the other half of tracking, that of “Sign Tracking”. In a full survival situation, more attention is paid to the sign tracks than the tracks we find on the ground. Certainly, those tracks give us a wealth of information but let’s face it, it is the Sigh that is the most critical element in any Survival situation. Sign tracking teaches us where to hunt and when, where to place traps and what to bait them with in fact in Survival Sign Tracking is far more important than following tracks.
As I taught in the Standard Class, an animal and human for that matter takes the easiest route of travel unless chased. Let’s face it, one of the foremost rules of survival is conservation of energy. If an animal didn’t take the easiest route of travel, he would burn far too much energy and subject himself to injury as he pushed through the brush. Like Grandfather said, “an animal is an instrument played by the landscape”, and it is this symphony of movement and landscape that makes Sign Tracking so fascinating. To Rick and I Sign Tracking was the foundation of survival for it is the sign tracking that makes an otherwise beautiful survival situation into the Garden of Eden or a living hell that forces us to scrape by on a barely subsistence level.
This weekend online class will be taught part in the studio but the larger part in the field. I want to take the class far beyond what you’ve learned during your Standard and Advanced Tracking classes, adding so much more to your foundation of knowledge. Here in this class I will teach trap placement and baiting and show you first hand where and why the Sign Tracking directed me to place them. I’ll also show you how the Sign shows you how to hunt, where to hunt and what time of the day to hunt where through the Sign and time confirmation of the tracks you will not be wasting your time in unproductive areas. I promise you that you will be amazed at the scope and depth of the teachings and you will never see the overall landscapes the same way again.
