For example, I was planning a hunt one evening, which was to take place the next day, when it began to snow. Going out about midnight, I drove over the roads that surrounded my hunting territory. I knew that there would be few, if any, fresh tracks in the morning, and that it was important that I have some idea of the movements of the deer during the night.

I found a large buck's track where he had crossed a road and I chose him as the object of the next day's hunt. In the morning, I went into the woods where I was sure the buck would be bedded down, found him and jumped him out. Previously, I had sent my companion to a crossing which I suspected the deer would use. That buck fooled me and picked another crossing. Then the fun began. I followed that buck and tried to get my companion on the proper crossing.

That old buck wouldn't cooperate. He kept on picking the wrong crossing all day long. We never did get him, although I might have been able to bag him on some occasions when I caught a glimpse of him. I didn't want him; he was my companion's deer. He didn't want to bag a deer by having the guide do the shooting. He was a sportsman and a deer hunter.

Another time when hunting alone, I found a track quite late in the afternoon. There was every indication of a snowstorm in the offing, so I decided this deer had left his bed earlier than usual to fill his paunch before the storm. I followed his track until I found out he was heading for a feeding area. Then I planned the hunt. Should I go into that feeding area so late in the day with the chance I could stalk him in the fast diminishing interval before dark, or should I leave him alone until morning and stalk his bed? I decided to wait because the approaching darkness might result in poor shooting that could lead to a wounded deer that I would not be able to locate in the morning.

Next day I kicked him out of bed without getting a shot. I followed him for a time and wounded him, breaking his leg in the process. My own fault. I tried a shot that was way out. I tried to estimate the distance and raised my rear sight for the distance, but undershot.

After I broke that buck's leg, I followed him for a time until he went into an area where the woods had been cut off some years back and had grown up to clumps of small firs. I rounded one of these clumps and there stood the deer with his tail to me, his head turned around as he tried to clean the wound in his leg. He was not over twenty-five feet from me. At that distance, in that position, he was a dead deer. I drew a bead on him right between his eyes and tried to end his suffering. He went down, but before I could jack another cartridge into my gun, he bounced up and was gone, leaving an antler on the ground. I had forgotten to lower my sight to its normal position after the last shot. I got that buck, but only after a chase that lasted four hours. He never gave me another opportunity to get close and I was lucky to bag him at all, even handicapped as he was by a broken leg.

When a hunter shot the deer and wounded him but didn't kill the deer because of undershot, the hunter can chase the deer by following the trail.