Tracking Question

[SoliDeoGloria]

When tracking, do you tend to crouch the whole time or do you walk upright until the dashed circle appears?

[DanthemanBoone]

If you have Heart/lung at the first blood track the animal will already be dead on the spot or very close, so no need to crouch. If you have a double lung shot it will die in a verry short time, but if you only got one lung (no way to tell) it may run some distance. Again no need to crouch. Any of these 3 thing can result when the blood says heart/lung but your animal will be dead.
If it says body, it may or may not die and will run a long way. No need to crouch untill the track no longer says fleeing and changes back to roaming. At this point it may change direction, be close by, still walking away or even be coming back towards you. Now you need to crouch and proceed carefully.
Once you fire a shot every animal within earshot will depart from the area so crouching is not required.

[HooCairs]

I track walking until I know I have close to the animal, say 100m. Depending on the animal, you need to crouch sooner (canines, felines, goats) or later (hogs, sheep, female deer).

The most important is to increase your tracking skill to at least level 6 where you get some first data on the track age (dropping, bedding and feeding tracks).

If a track is old, you can even run until the tracks' age comes down to 30 minutes.

Fleeing animals you want to track crouching, or even crawling (canines, felines) when close.

[Dr_ViEr]

I do the same, I would do in real life. In case of a not so well placed shot, I wait for a few minutes. Most often the animal will die or at least will not be able to run any further close to the first place it will stop fleeing.