#328893 - 08/06/07 11:19 AM
Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
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TAKE A CHANCE
4 Point
Registered: 12/09/04
Posts: 190
Loc: Nashville, TN
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I love getting pics of my deer as much as anyone but I want to see how you guys use these camaras to kill a big buck. We s and BSK what are the best ways to use the cameras as tools to get on and kill big bucks. Please give some stratagies to use with these cameras to help getting a big buck. Last year I put them along a trail and gwas trying to get daytime pics I found a place I was getting good morning pics and plan on hunting their this year. Please help with any suggestions on the way you use your cameras to HUNT not Take Pics....
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I HAVE TO GO MY WIFE IS CALLING!!!!
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#328899 - 08/06/07 11:21 AM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: TAKE A CHANCE]
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Wes Parrish
16 Point
Registered: 06/12/02
Posts: 16993
Loc: Knoxville-Dover-Union City, TN
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Actually, IMO trail cams are very over-sold as a hunting aid.
On the other hand, trail cams have revolutionized deer management.
I'll tell you the main way I've seen the use of trail cams (by hunters) help them kill bigger bucks:
By using trail cams, hunters are seeing the proof that older and larger bucks do indeed exist where they're hunting. Without these pics as proof, many of these hunters would be shooting the first buck that came along; but because of these pics, the hunters are waiting for something bigger. That change in hunter behavior is then creating more older bucks for harvest, thus greatly increasing that hunter's chances for killing an older buck.
However, I'm also seeing trail cams hurting many hunters' chances of killing a particular buck, and it's happened to me personally. Many hunters, especially those placing their cams over salt licks and feeders, are assuming those bucks will come around when they hunt, and overhunt, those areas where they've gotten the most good pics. But that has seldom been my experience.
If you start relying on the trail cams instead of more traditional scouting techniques, you will likely see your odds of taking a particular buck decrease. Instead, I recommend using the trail cams mainly for documentation of existence of a good buck using a large general area (say of about 4 square miles).
Don't underestimate an older buck's ability to pattern your hunting patterns more quickly than you can pattern him. One thing I've found is if you hunt too close and too much to where you're getting the most pics, these older bucks will typically just move out as you move in, only to come back after you leave, "baiting" you with more pics.
So the best "hunting advantage" I'm getting from trail cams is greater motivation to pass up younger bucks. And the more younger bucks you're willing to pass, the more older bucks you'll have the opportunity to take.
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#328919 - 08/06/07 11:36 AM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: Wes Parrish]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59553
Loc: Nashville, TN
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Trail cams are worthless for hunting. I rarely kill a buck anywhere near where I get his pictures. I've never yet found any "pattern" to mature buck movements. In fact, that is one defining aspect of mature bucks in woodland habitat. They have no pattern. I'll get one, may be two pictures of a particular mature buck at any one camera location. They simply don't move along a particular trail very often.
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"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#328935 - 08/06/07 11:48 AM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: BSK]
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Wes Parrish
16 Point
Registered: 06/12/02
Posts: 16993
Loc: Knoxville-Dover-Union City, TN
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Trail cams are worthless for hunting. I rarely kill a buck anywhere near where I get his pictures. . . . . They simply don't move along a particular trail very often.
Rather than use a particular trail, it's more like they pass thru a particular area periodically, frequently 50 to 200 yards from the last time they passed thru.
But then they are most likely going to be wherever they are least disturbed. Just the mere presence of a trail cam taking thier pic one time can cause them to "go around" that spot then next time they "pass thru".
That said, I have gotten several pics of older bucks regularly using the same trail --- they just seem to know when I'm there and when I'm not.
Also some bucks seem to have very large ranges while others have very small ones. One of the older bucks I killed last year had a very small range, and I could see him just about any day I wanted. I had repeatedly passed him up, trip after trip, and he did follow the same trails frequently. Yet another took me several years to finally get a single shooting opportunity, and that came only after I had given up hunting him based on where the trail cams were getting the most pics (and these pics were during October & November).
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#328937 - 08/06/07 11:49 AM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: BSK]
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Winchester
Non-Typical
Registered: 12/05/03
Posts: 25247
Loc: TN
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The only thing remotely predictable about a mature buck is how they use the lay of the land.
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#329062 - 08/06/07 01:29 PM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: Winchester]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59553
Loc: Nashville, TN
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I agree Wes, every deer is an individual. I've seen one mature buck that was very predictable--he always worked the same mile-long ridgeline--and we saw him several times on that ridge while driving across the property in our trucks. I video-taped him in a food plot on that ridge during bow season, and he was eventually killed on that ridge opening morning of gun season.
Yet then there are bucks that can be seen or photographed virtually anywhere in a several square mile area.
And deer definitely learn to avoid the cameras. But even then, with only daylight pictures taken with no flash, I rarely get more than one picture of a mature buck in any given location.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#329093 - 08/06/07 01:53 PM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: BSK]
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outdoorbob
10 Point
Registered: 09/09/06
Posts: 3011
Loc: Grundy County
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Do you think they are useful very early in archery season when bucks are still in bachelor groups and prior to acorns beginning to drop??? In areas where deer travel to the same food plot every evening at the same time, I've seen them use the same trail often, but just as soon as the bachelor groups break up the scenarios you describe above becomes representative. What do you think???
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Use a trailcam and make it deer season year around.
GO VOLS!!!!!!!
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#329141 - 08/06/07 02:35 PM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: outdoorbob]
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Wes Parrish
16 Point
Registered: 06/12/02
Posts: 16993
Loc: Knoxville-Dover-Union City, TN
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Bob,
I think your early-season scenario "could" provide a greater opportunity for gaining actual hunting advantage by using trail cams. But it just hasn't worked much for me.
The big and most overlooked part of this is how the deer you're getting those pics from will respond the first day you go hunt near where you got the pics. Typically, you go in and they go out.
It just also happens that about the time bow season opens, those bachelor groups are breaking up and food sources are changing.
Should also point out that it matters a lot whether we're talking older deer or younger deer. Older deer (both bucks and does) can be extremely sensitive to human intrusion. I may be able to go check a cam periodically during mid-day, but those older deer may actually be watching me come, and then go. If I come in and don't shortly leave, they do. So there can be a big differnce in just checking cams vs actually hunting.
And with or without camera monitoring, can't tell you how many times I've seen a particular deer (or group of deer) come out late every afternoon near the same spot to feed during the 2 weeks prior to bow season opening, yet I slip over to that spot to hunt (thinking I'm doing everything right), and see nothing.
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#329549 - 08/06/07 07:37 PM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: Wes Parrish]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59553
Loc: Nashville, TN
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IF cams are a help hunting it would definitely be the first week of bow season, as that is about the only time during hunting season when older bucks are somewhat predictable, often feeding in the same field or food plot each evening.
But as Wes pointed out, you may only get one chance. Mature bucks are amazingly adept at picking up on human scent and then avoiding that area in the future (at least during daylight). And they don't have to smell you while your actually hunting. Once you've sat in a stand, human scent will have saturated the entire area, so even if they come by that stand days later they can still smell that you've been there and avoid the area.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#329682 - 08/06/07 08:55 PM
Re: Best way to hunt with Trail Cam.
[Re: BSK]
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156p&y
10 Point
Registered: 10/23/01
Posts: 4097
Loc: Franklin Tn
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The only way I've been even remotely able to use a camera to scout, or pattern a mature deer was by placing it where I thought they where bedding. Extremely risky, yes but sometimes on a naturally nocturnal deer it's about the only way to kill him. I never have harvested a mature deer this way but I have been extremely close and what I've learned has been well worth it. If you bump this animal from his bed fooling with your camera you can forget it. I would let mine sit for several weeks and daily take notes on wind direction and weather. One thing I found out from one particular deer was he would only bed in the location I monitored with a South wind, and any North wind or West wind he wouldn't show. He did this b/c of the way the land laid. It was a good way to learn but not exactly a good way to harvest the animal for one main reason I had to put up and retrieve the camera which was often placed in thick cover, and I'm sure I spread a good amount of scent doing that. Plus I wouldn't know that kind of information until after I pulled the camera so I never knew if the deer was present until after I invaded his sanctuary twice. Like Wes and BSK pointed out cameras allow hunters to know what they have in the area. About the only thing I use cameras for anymore is to show me what is still alive in the area. Traditional scouting is far more effective for me. I actually pull most of cameras for the season b/c they distract me from doing what I know is the right thing to do. Plus I get to anxious and want to pull them more than I should and spread more scent than if I went without them. About the only place I put them during the season will be over a community scrape or a food plot.
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