At NDA, we frequently share emerging science that sometimes shatters old beliefs about deer, so we’re accustomed to hearing from skeptical hunters who are reluctant to let go of time-honored ideas. Lots of hunters have wanted to fight us over cull bucks, deer movement patterns, doe harvest, and more. Just when I thought there was no new way to offend deer hunters, we went and said you can’t reliably tell a doe track from a buck track.
Last fall, Matt Ross wrote an article about deer tracks, and we posted a related video on TikTok featuring Kip Adams. Matt and Kip explained that there’s too much overlap in track characteristics to reliably sort bucks from does. About all you can say with any confidence is that the largest tracks you see are probably bucks. The video has earned a half million views and over 7,000 “likes.” However, it also received nearly 600 comments, and most of them are hunters insisting our information is flat wrong.
Skimming those comments will quickly reveal a few common themes about identifying buck tracks. Also, many of the commenters cite their grandfather as the source of their information. When it comes to deer tracks, a lot of grandfathers apparently did their grandchildren dirty, especially where “dewclaws” are concerned. Before I explain, let’s establish some facts.
Hoof Width and Length
When Matt and Kip said there’s a lot of overlap in track size between bucks and does, they were referring to good science, not their grandfathers. A lot of studies have collected data on deer hoof size, most of them decades ago in the early days of deer research. They all reached the same conclusion. Let’s look at one from this century.
In 2001, Ben Batchelor and Dr. Al Mead of Georgia College and State University collected data from 157 hunter-harvested deer at Georgia’s Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge. They gathered hoof length and width measurements from 55 does and 102 bucks using a standard technique.
They also collected weight and estimated jawbone age for each of those deer. They were looking for a way to “sex” a deer by its tracks. After analyzing the data, they admitted it wasn’t possible. There were too many adult bucks and does with the same size feet.
“Due to nearly complete range overlap, male white-tailed deer cannot be distinguished from females on the basis of hoof width or length,” they wrote in their report.
However, Ben and Al noted that a small portion of the largest tracks were bucks. “For both hoof width and hoof length, 7.8% of the male measurements exceed the maximum female value, suggesting a possible size at which males could be distinguished from females.”
In other words, if you study a lot of deer tracks, you can assume that the top 8% of them in width or length are likely bucks and not does. This is essentially what Matt and Kip said last year: the largest tracks in the woods are probably bucks. But this does not mean you separated out the bucks from the does. I reviewed the data in this GCSU study and noticed that even among all bucks 3½ and older, there were individual bucks with hoofs that were smaller than the hoofs of the biggest-hoofed does in every age class except fawns!
That’s what “overlap” refers to. In any deer population, there are a lot of adult bucks and does with the same size feet. There are even adult bucks with smaller feet than does their age and younger. So, the majority of deer tracks you see cannot be reliably sexed based on their width or length.
But width and length were not a common theme among the video comments from hunters who said they know how to sex a deer track. The most popular opinion, far and away, had to do with dewclaws.
Dewclaws Won’t Do
Bucks and does both have “dewclaws,” the vestigial digits on the back of the leg just up from the hooves. They are remnants of toes that deer ancestors found less and less need to use. Bucks and does of all ages and sizes are capable of walking without leaving dewclaw impressions in their tracks. In fact, most of the time the dewclaws do not touch the dirt. If you start paying attention to photos or videos of deer where the feet are visible, you’ll see even large bucks walking without their dewclaws coming anywhere near close enough to the ground to make an impression in the track. Consider the buck in this article’s lead photo, above.
It’s when a deer runs, jumps, springs or in any way adds additional force or weight to their step that their foot splays out enough to allow the dewclaws to get close enough to the dirt to make an impression. If the dirt is soft, as with mud, dew claw impressions are even more likely because the foot sinks deeper into the ground – or snow. This happens with both bucks and does. When bucks run in soft dirt, their tracks usually show the dewclaws. When does run in soft dirt, their tracks usually show the dewclaws, too.
By far, the most common false assertion among video commenters was that bucks make dewclaw impressions and does do not. Apparently, a lot of hunters believe this. As I’ve just explained, and as any photo or video of a buck walking will show you, this is false. I spent a lot of time looking through trail-camera photo files. Every single buck image I found in which the buck’s feet were visible and clear showed dewclaws well above ground level, not touching the ground. This included bucks in mid-stride with some feet in the first part of a step and others finishing a step. This includes heavy, mature bucks.
No doubt, if you go by the “dewclaw rule,” you’ve apparently been looking at the tracks of running deer and identifying all of them as bucks when odds are at least half of them are does – probably more than half since buck:doe ratios in most areas favor does. You may also have been looking at the tracks of mature bucks and calling them does because you don’t see the dewclaws.
The second most common assertion was that only buck hooves spread apart, so doe hoof tracks are close together. Again, false. Like the appearance of dewclaws in a track, the hoofs splay apart when a deer is running, jumping or sliding, especially in soft soil, forcing the hooves apart. This happens to both bucks and does.
Trackers We Are Not
I do not question the wisdom of every deer-hunting grandfather who ever passed along advice on deer hunting. Much of that advice is sound. But if your grandfather taught you that only bucks make dewclaw impressions, maybe you should fact-check the rest of his lessons.
I know indigenous hunters and some mountain men were so attuned to the woods they could tell a lot more than we can about animals from their tracks and sign. Those people lived every day in the woods and among wildlife. As much as I love to imagine myself as Jeremiah Johnson, I must admit: There’s no reliable method that a modern hunter like me can use to reliably sort all deer tracks into buck and doe.