Outfoxed! (or how an animal made a fool of me)

During the mid 90's I spent most of my time in the woods learning primitive skills, tracking, and about nature in general. It was on one winter night that I had a particularly amusing event involving a fox.

I had gone to Hanging Rock State Park in January and setup camp in the public campground. On that evening I had the entire campground to myself, well mostly...

You see, it was a cold clear night with a 3/4 moon shining brightly and since the trees had no leaves it was fairly easy to see the ground, but not easy enough. As I was making my dinner, I noticed the shadowy figure of a fox making the rounds from one campsite to the next looking for scraps.

Eventually he made it to the edge of my campsite sniffing the air as he passed through the outskirts to see what kind of food I had. Keeping just out of the light of the fire he quickly moved along.

Since I had an interest in tracking, I immediately went to check to see if I could make out his tracks and mark the trail so that I could follow them in the morning. Well as I said the moon wasn't enough. The area I saw him pass through was hard packed dirt and rock that didn't lend to an easy track sighting. So I went back to cooking my dinner kind of dissappointed. Maybe I'd find his trail in the daylight but even then I knew finding the first print was going to be difficult.

My dinner was done (nothing fancy, I just heated up a can of beenie weenies I think) so I ate my dinner and continued to enjoy the beautiful night sky.

But as I was eating I noticed the shadowy outline of the fox again. Apparently, he had made a complete circle because he was going along the same path that I saw him earlier. Maybe he was coming to see if I had finished and had any scraps yet.

I thought to myself, "I can place the empty can for him to lick right in the middle of some soft soil so that I can get a good first track to follow". But I realized that the sharp edges of the can left by the can opener could cut his mouth or tongue so I just watched him as closely as I could to try and mark with my eyes at least one place where he stepped. Again, he came to the same outer edge of my fire cautiously glancing towards me as he quickly passed through my campsite.

Once more, I went over to try and see if I could find a track. Sadly, I'm nowhere near as good as my teacher and found myself at a loss again.

I figured there was good chance he would come back again since he had already repeated his path once. I was going to be ready for him the next time. I finished eating my dinner out of the metal cook pot I had and placed in a patch of soft soil that would be close to the path he had used knowing that his keen fox smell wouldn't let him pass it unnoticed. There he would lick my bowl clean and surely leave a formidable first track for me to start my trail in the morning.

So I waited there under the clear moonlit sky. What a wonderful evening.

About 10 minutes went by as I looked in the direction he had come from before. Sure enough, I saw the moonlight catch his fur as he darted this way and that making his way back to my campsite. This time when he reached the edge of my site he stopped. Though it was probably only a split second it seemed as time came to a stop.

I could see in that split second his eyes get a full survey of the scene. First the yummy food coated pot, then the human 10 feet away watching his every move. I was so excited and knew I was about to get my track.

Little did I know or could have predicted what his next move was going to be. In one blazingly swift move he leapt into the air to pounce my pot and in one continuous movement pick the pot up in his mouth and run off into the woods.

Clang kiClang Clang Clangity Clang my pot went off into the night as I hit my palm to my forehead with a good "Doh!"

How silly of me to think he would just casually lick my pot in front of me and leave. I had asked for a tracking lesson and I got more than I bargained for. Now I was going to have to track down my pot in the morning and who knows how far he ran with it.

Up until that point in my life I had hardly followed a trail of a fox more than 15 feet because it was so tedious because of their soft stepping. I usually had to take about 20 minutes a track before I could distiguish the subtle outline on most surfaces except for mud which is easiet for least common.

The next morning I got up and began the task of tracking down my pot. My wish had been granted and I was easily able to make out his first 3 tracks. But then...his tracks lead to a flat rock surface. Now my teacher, Tom Brown, Jr. had taught me the necessary skills to follow tracks across rocks and pavement by looking for flattened pieces of dust that would reflect light differently but I had only tracked about 10 steps under this tedious difficulty in the past. But this time I couldn't quit because I needed my pot.

Over the next three hours I made my way off the mountain top down into the valley following his trail. It was neat to see places where the pot had hit the ground and even chip a small rock leaving a whitish scuff mark. Finally, I looked up from a track in the direction he was headed and saw my pot on the other side of a mountain laurel bush. In the end, he had probably carried it about 100 yards across a mostly rock landscape.

I just wanted a track for a short trail to follow, maybe ten steps or so, because I was a lazy tracker when it comes to rocky terrain. But there was no room for a slacker on this day as the joke was on me. I had been outfoxed!