Another useful book - The Complete Guide to Tracking

[bungee]

This is by Bob Carss who learned his craft primarily through SAS training and became an instructor in Jungle warfare and also in combat survival courses. Its safe to say he has a good pedigree in this area and knows what he is talking about. I am a complete beginner at all aspects of this and so wanted something which would be simple enough that I wasn't overwhelmed by technicalities and jargon detailed enough for me to know I was getting a good grounding in theory. This fits the bill. While there is some jargon you will need to be familiar with its kept to a minimum and covered in a concise yet thorough way. Descriptions of techniques are well thought out, described well and where appropriate are well illustrated.

The contents of the book is broken down to chapters, starting as you would hope with the basics and moving on to the more technical concepts. As an example you will learn about sign (the clues you are following), how to determine their age, the factors that will affect them, principals and techniques of stalking and how to use deception to put others of your trail.

The only downside to this book I can see is there is so much information here its almost impossible to even attempt to put it into practice. The only way you are truly going to become even vaguely proficient in this is to get out there and put it into practice. I try and use the few bits I have learned when I'm out walking the lanes and fields to see if I can make sense of who / what has been passing by but its safe to say I'm a long way from getting my head round it all.

Overall definitely worth the read if you want to try your hand at tracking, but its gonna take a long time to learn! Probably one of the many books I should purchase as a physical copy rather than a kindle book.