The first thing an experienced investigator does at a trackway isn't take a photo — it's stop and breathe. Excitement is the enemy of good documentation. Before a single measurement, we note the substrate, the weather over the last 48 hours, and the light. Mud tells a different story at dawn than it does at noon.
Measure stride, straddle, and step length before you cast anything. A tape measure and a scale card in every photo are non-negotiable. If you can't reproduce the measurement later, it didn't happen.
Casting is a discipline, not a souvenir hunt. Mix thin, pour from a low height, and never rush the set. A contaminated cast is worse than no cast — it invites a story the evidence can't support.
Finally: write down what you don't know. 'Unknown' is a valid, honest finding. The goal isn't to prove Sasquatch — it's to document a trackway so well that someone who wasn't there can evaluate it fairly.