Dr. Ken Nordberg hunts Railroad Tracks
Hunts Railroad Tracks. Well, I appreciate that. Let's start the show right up and oh folks, by the way, this is gonna be a two-part show, the first part we're gonna talk about whitetail tracks, and begin talking about blinds for whitetails. And then we're gonna end Part 2 we're gonna have finishing up on blinds for whitetail and then hunting mature whitetails. So that's what you're in store for, for the next couple of episodes.
So Dr. Ken let's jump right into why you wrote Whitetail Tracks and if somebody reads it, how it's gonna help 'em?
hunts Railroad Tracks
Dr. Nordberg: Okay, well I've been at this for 40 some years, 45 years, almost 46 years, when I first started introducing the idea that you can identify various classes of whitetails by the lengths of their tracks, and the longer I do it, the more I realize that this is probably the only thing in whitetail hunting that can actually make hunting easy. Think of all the things we do, all the preparation we go, all the things we buy, to try to improve our luck. hunts Railroad Tracks
But nothing can do it better than whitetail deer signs, especially tracks. And for one simple reason. Let's say you and I are walking in the woods right now and we've come to this deer trail, here's a deer trail, and we look at it and holy cow, there's a lot of really fresh tracks here. They're sharply defined, just nice clean fresh tracks in the trail. Well, what does that tell you? This is a trail whitetails are using right now, they've used it today, probably this morning, maybe just a few hours ago. hunts Railroad Tracks
And chances are as long as they don't become alarmed by a hunter or something else in the meanwhile, they're gonna use it again this evening, later today. And tomorrow morning probably, until they suddenly realize that hey, there's a hunter hanging around here. But if you hunt anywhere else, you're using luck. And luck is poor, it doesn't add much success as a whitetail hunter. When you get one you say you're lucky but how often does that happen for the average hunter to take a really nice buck, one for the wall? It takes about 30 years or more before you get one or even two. hunts Railroad Tracks
By using fresh tracks you can get that down to one every year or maybe two years
By using fresh tracks you can get that down to one every year or maybe two years, maybe 8 out of 10 years something like that which is pretty fantastic buck hunting. And tracking can do it. hunts Railroad Tracks
Bruce: Okay, okay, hold on, hold on. Now how do I know we're on a deer trail? We see a track but talk to me specifically about the large buck, the mature buck, the buck we're all looking for over four and a half years old. Differentiate that from the does and the fawns and the yearling bucks and the smaller guys. How do we do that?
Dr. Nordberg: Well, first of all, I wanna mention that the farther north you go, in the United States, continental United States, the bigger the deer are. That's where I hunt, up close to the Canadian border. Our average dominant breeding buck will weigh about 305 pounds and down in Texas I've spent 18 years hunting whitetails down in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, down there a big buck is maybe 125 pounds and a deer that size is not gonna have as large a track as one in northern Minnesota. hunts Railroad Tracks
But I tell ya, the way I've done a lot of research with that too, I have some simple formulas that I use that I've put in my book, that tells you how to figure out what the sizes of tracks should be where you hunt. Now like Texas bucks those thick ones may only weigh 125 pounds but a lot of the Texas bucks grow antlers that'll rival the largest found anywhere in the United States. But anyway, track size, here in Minnesota, just for an example.
