Most Impressive Tracking Job?

[James Vee]

Africa is well known for the phenomenol job that the African Trackers do. Share a story or two of your best African tracking experience.

[apmaurosr]

James

I had a young ph (about 23 at the time) who spent a few years in Botswana when he was 7 - 9 years old. He spent time with bushman during this period and was became a great tracker.

I shot a blue wildebeest in the brisket, about four inches from the vitals, and in the process broke its leg. The blood was evident for about 50 yards then slowly dwindled as the wound began to clot. The wildebeest is a hearty animal as you know (also called the poor mans buffalo by some) and a broken leg is not something that slows it down much. We spent a good four hours tracking this animal. My ph was abe to discern this animal's track even when it joined up with other herds of wildebeests just by the impression from the "load bearing" front leg. There were times when the blood became the size of a pinhead and wasn't visible for fifty yards from the previous sighting in the thick bushveld. How he stayed with this animal is beyond me.

We were forced to call it quits due to sunset, but we picked up where we left off the following day. Faced with the same miniscule traces of spoor we tracked this animal until noon - in hot, dusty conditions. He could tell how old its track was by examining the crispness of the print (over time wind will soften the edges of a print, and certain insects will begin to fill the print after a certain amount of time elapses). Of course he would test the droppings for warmth too to see how long ago it was where we were at the time.

Well we eventually caught up to the wildebeest and the animal was eventually harvested but not before giving us a good chase.

Ant