Forgot to say that a hand-bearing compass is a really good thing for re-establishing that you are walking the right track. I've walked half a mile out from the racetrack along a bearing and was within 20' of the rocket. On a student's L2 project, the chute came out at apogee. He and I saw the rocket at the same time on the ground. I tracked visually and got bearings from the water tower, he tracked with GPS.
The compass is a cheaper guide but if one has a handheld mapping GPS with a "Sight n' Go" feature, they can use that. That is a mapping GPS where one can sight a landmark (descending rocket) and lock a bearing to the target.
I've used it a half a dozen times with 100% success as long as one has a visual as the rocket gets lower and just about to touchdown. It might have a little advantage with a compass as it will keep the bearing lock if one has to
go around several obstacles before proceeding to the rocket. The compass might be a littler trickier to use if not walking a straight line to the target.
As far as Murphy's law with tracking, " Use a tracker and it will land close by every time." is concerned, if one does MD rockets with large motors, the per cent time that the flight will be completely sight unseen is very high from liftoff to landing.
Don't count on a visual recovery unless the upper air winds are randomly screwy enough to have the rocket land close to you. I don't know about you but I can only get the rail approximate to where I want to get the rocket to go.
I like to do a slightly downwind launch so any cocking will hopefully curve up into a low energy main or drogue apogee deployment. Of course one needs the right site for this but I sometimes don't get it to go where I want.
I STRONGLY recommend to "new" timers who are GPS tracking to get some experience with flights where you're not punching the rocket up to "outta sight land" for long periods of time. You can count on being able to get a visual if you have trouble for
one reason or another to get a track. Once you get confidence in your skills (and particular installation) you'll be able to do routine sight unseen for the entire flight and be comfortable in getting the rocket back expediently for the next rocket you
want to get off that day.
Of course you can motor up so you can have a nearly completely visual flight and if in a venue with a lot of structures, standing vegetation and depressions be assured you'll be able to get to the rocket that's in standing corn and get it back.
That's where a loud beeper can help. Tracker to get you close and ears to do the final pickup. One cannot beat that combination. Kurt