So, you can't really say if this looks like (or actually is) a field casting, or if there is a backstory scam going on?
Here is a very typical fresh grizzly track, in somewhat sandier stuff on the top with a clay-like glacial silt underneath. I was tracking this guy and his buddy for a couple of miles, and found him on a hillside. They don't get much fresher than this.
One trick to know how fresh they are is to get down on your hands and knees and blow on the little bits of sand you see the claws have dislodged.
If the tracks have just been made, those little sandy thingies will blow away with your breath. After some hours, they will adhere more to the ground. Same with snow. Flick the bigger pieces with your finger. See if they are attached or completely loose.
Another thing to look for is if there has been a light rain since the tracks have been made, then those littel crater-like features from the rain drops hitting the ground are going to be both in the tracks themselves in addition to being on the ground around them. Fresh tracks will have pressed the ground smoothe.
See how the claw tips are the only evidence of the claws? That's how I most often find them.
In tracks that are older or made in a little harder ground they are going to look more like this:
Those are the front and back tracks, the front ones being the smaller one.
See how you can't even detect the claws? These would be the usual examples. I can say that I remember more of the claws being visible in really mucky stuff like this:
That's a wolf print, and like I was saying when the water drops in a glacial stream the edge of the stream is going to be really mucky and a bear print will sink down more, so the claws are going to show more.
But the thing that I also usually see with that is the prints are kind of slipping a little, like the claws are not making perfectly straight imprints. Sorry I don't have a picture of it, as it isn't something I was ever interested in taking pictures of.
But it's like they are leaving a squiggle-type effect as they sink in, and sometimes the pad will slip a little.
I can see conditions on a long set of tracks in the right ground conditions leaving some remarkable prints.
I have not seen them as clear as the ones shown in those casts to my recollection, but I'm not claiming to be an expert. Just your garden-variety mountain man.
I'm not the legendary tracker like old Bob Gimlin, the indian tracker eh?
