THE OUTDOORSMAN
Learning to ‘read sign’ in the wild By Chuck Carpenter
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rowing up with a dad that had mark, and then blood, hair, and what was left hunted and trapped all of his life, I of the rabbit. understand why he wanted my two Another incident took place in Alaska, younger brothers and me to learn where a very large grizzly had made a stalk how to read sign – how to follow an animal, that would have made any bow hunter proud. learn areas they liked to travel, hide out, feed, He was traveling along and had either smelled and sleep. or seen a cow moose bedded down. Using the I don’t remember how many times he would wind and cover perfectly, the grizzly slipped actually take us back to a place where he had in within a few feet of the moose. After a very found that a predator had made a kill, and he short charge, he killed the moose and dragged let us boys follow the tracks and try to figure it a short distance and fed on the carcass. The out what had taken place. tracks in the snow told the whole story. I remember going to a place where an owl There was the time in Montana when Chuck Carpenter had killed a snowshoe rabbit and checking a rancher called my dad and said that out how the ole rabbit was hopping along and began to run, something had killed five antelope not far from his house. I and after a short distance noticing marks on both sides of the was able to go along with my dad when he checked it out. tracks. Dad asked us what we thought? Then as we walked It was late winter and quite a bit of snow was on the along, tracks explained how the rabbit was just traveling ground. Some of the ridges were blown off, with most of the along, and the marks on each side of the tracks were marks snow stacked up in the draws. The snow had a crust and the left from an owl’s wings. There was a struggle, a short drag antelope were breaking through it. The tracks in the snow
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12 MAR/APR 2021 | Idaho Family Magazine
www.idahofamilymagazine.com
