Mature Bucks, Trail Cams and New Properties

DeerCamp · Jan 15, 2021

About 12 years ago I gained access to a property in Madison County via some family. Just 26 acres, mix of overgrown fields and woods, abandoned cars, and surrounded by other farm houses.

Needless to say I was not "impressed". Too many hunting shows and not enough real knowledge about deer habitat and behavior I guess.

The property itself hadn't been hunted in over 5 years - the family member that hunted had been in the Air Force. I wish I had the deer knowledge now that I did then.

That summer I put out 2 trail cams over corn and then left it alone for about a month.

When I checked the cameras, I was astounded. 5 fully mature bucks in total in one group. One 145" 10 point. A double main beam buck. One VERY old buck that probably wouldn't have scored 100" but had incredible mass. And two really nice mainframe 8 points with some extra junk.

I thought this was going to be the best fall in the history of deer hunting.

In reality, I never saw any of those bucks. The 10pt was killed about a mile away that fall.

After that summer and some fall hunting pressure, I never saw any of those bucks again. And to date, I've never seen anything even remotely close to that group of bucks on that property. Amazing how much a little bit of pressure affects mature bucks.

Now - I'm not complaining. Over the years I have consistently taken shooters off that property. But looking back on what a unique situation that was.

Somewhere I still have those pics. My computer was hit by a ransomware attack 2 years ago so I lost quick access to them, but I think I've got them on some USB drives somewhere, or possibly an external HD. If I can find them, I'll post them.

rem270 · Jan 15, 2021

Give me 26 acres of overgrown fields and woods over 200 acres of fence row and row crop any day!

3 years ago I gained access with a friend on 32 acres of old fish ponds. There were 3 big catfish ponds that they'd drain and sell the fish off ever so often. Anyways that shut down and they drained the ponds and just let them grow up. Super thick stuff and trails galore through there. Me living away from there me and my buddy made an agreement that we would keep it for ourselves instead of sublease it out like we were doing on several other farms. That didn't work out and he would let every Tom, Richard, and Harry go over there and there were 18 deer killed off of that little spot that year. I was getting pics of 2 130-140'' deer in there but obviously they left quick once all the pressure hit. If I had that place by myself I really believe I could have killed one of them.

BSK · Jan 15, 2021

Although it was all the rage to conduct late summer baited censuses in the past, I no longer do so on smaller properties (a couple hundred acres). The reason is seasonal range-shifting by bucks. It is VERY common for older bucks to spend their summers in a bachelor group far from where they will spend the fall season (hunting season). What happens is, landowners run a late summer (August) census, and then expect those bucks photographed to be there during the hunting season. Perhaps that occurs, but often it does not. Once the bachelor group breaks up right around velvet shedding, those bucks may travel several miles to a different fall-season range. And this pattern is usually traditional, in that these bucks use the same collective summer range and same distant fall ranges year after year.

The purpose of a camera census is to establish what the "manageable population" is. That would be the deer that use the property during the hunting season. Often, a late summer census doesn't measure that at all. It just measures the summer population, which can be VERY different than the fall population. I've seen smaller properties display a near 100% turnover in deer from summer to fall.

DeerCamp · Jan 15, 2021

BSK said:
Although it was all the rage to conduct late summer baited censuses in the past, I no longer do so on smaller properties (a couple hundred acres). The reason is seasonal range-shifting by bucks. It is VERY common for older bucks to spend their summers in a bachelor group far from where they will spend the fall season (hunting season). What happens is, landowners run a late summer (August) census, and then expect those bucks photographed to be there during the hunting season. Perhaps that occurs, but often it does not. Once the bachelor group breaks up right around velvet shedding, those bucks may travel several miles to a different fall-season range. And this pattern is usually traditional, in that these bucks use the same collective summer range and same distant fall ranges year after year.

The purpose of a camera census is to establish what the "manageable population" is. That would be the deer that use the property during the hunting season. Often, a late summer census doesn't measure that at all. It just measures the summer population, which can be VERY different than the fall population. I've seen smaller properties display a near 100% turnover in deer from summer to fall.

I do have a question. So glad you are back btw!

Last year I had 2 above average 3.5yo bucks on camera several times throughout the season. We never did connect with them

I had pictures of them up until the first of February so I know they survived the hunting season. And they also looked healthy.

We never saw either of the bucks this year, day or night.

What is your opinion on the most likely cause of that?

BSK · Jan 15, 2021

Individual buck behaviors are as varied as individual people. That's why many researchers don't like giving a figure for "average annual home-range size" for bucks. Yes, they can numerically calculate that number. The problem is, no bucks actually have a home-range that size! Some bucks have tiny ranges. Some have massive ranges. And many, many bucks have seasonal ranges within their annual range. For some bucks, these seasonal ranges are traditional. For others, they are not. A buck may choose a different fall-season range every year of his life.

What this means for the small-land manager is some bucks will use your property year round, but it will probably be the minority of bucks that use the property at some point over an entire year. Some bucks will only use your property during one or two seasons of the year. And some bucks may only use your property during one or two season just once or twice in their entire lifetimes. All this begs the question of how small-land management can work. But surprisingly, it does. Just a few bucks "saved" here and there makes a difference.

DeerCamp, to answer your question specifically, when running cameras for a number of years, be prepared to see some "resident" bucks, some "traditional" range-shifters (bucks that suddenly appear on the property on about the same date each year), and some drifters. The drifters may stay for an entire fall season, or maybe just for the rut, but then they're never seen again. The point being, don't assume that a good buck is dead just because he doesn't appear the next year. Maybe he never shows up again. Maybe he shows up two years from now. I ABSOLUTELY see weird patterns like this when photo-monitoring the same property for many years in a row.

DeerCamp · Jan 15, 2021

BSK said:
Individual buck behaviors are as varied as individual people. That's why many researchers don't like giving a figure for "average annual home-range size" for bucks. Yes, they can numerically calculate that number. The problem is, no bucks actually have a home-range that size! Some bucks have tiny ranges. Some have massive ranges. And many, many bucks have seasonal ranges within their annual range. For some bucks, these seasonal ranges are traditional. For others, they are not. A buck may choose a different fall-season range every year of his life.

What this means for the small-land manager is some bucks will use your property year round, but it will probably be the minority of bucks that use the property at some point over an entire year. Some bucks will only use your property during one or two seasons of the year. And some bucks may only use your property during one or two season just once or twice in their entire lifetimes. All this begs the question of how small-land management can work. But surprisingly, it does. Just a few bucks "saved" here and there makes a difference.

DeerCamp, to answer your question specifically, when running cameras for a number of years, be prepared to see some "resident" bucks, some "traditional" range-shifters (bucks that suddenly appear on the property on about the same date each year), and some drifters. The drifters may stay for an entire fall season, or maybe just for the rut, but then they're never seen again. The point being, don't assume that a good buck is dead just because he doesn't appear the next year. Maybe he never shows up again. Maybe he shows up two years from now. I ASOLUTELY see weird patterns like this when photo-monitoring the same property for many years in a row.

Thanks!

Snake · Jan 15, 2021

The property in Giles Co. we leased for around twenty years was actually an eyesore from the barn and it was rundown . The owner had said there had three different individuals that had looked at the property and didn't show any interest at all . We scouted the property after deer season while sign was still somewhat fresh. During our scout trip most of the other guys was already wanting to go look at some other property we where going to look at also. I along with one of my best friends really liked it although we didn't see many mast producing trees and there was only one field right as you came into the property as far as food for deer . But the deer sign I seen was enough for me , not much buck sign but the trails were pretty worn down. The thick areas is what I really liked and there was ways to set up on them in my mind so we leased it . Best property I ever leased along with a really reasonable price ,after five years at the same price we actually gave the owner a raise without him asking, it was that good . When looking at deer hunting land done judge a book by its cover .

BSK · Jan 15, 2021

I do believe that seasonal range-shifting is somewhat genetically built into whitetail behavior for some biological reason. However I also see the most extreme cases of seasonal range-shifting where there is more diversity of habitat in big chunks. For example, a landowner owns a couple hundred acres of timber. However, 1/2 a mile away is pastureland and agriculture. Most of the deer are near those open-sunlight food sources in summer, leaving the couple hundred acres of timber nearly devoid of deer. Yet once acorns begin to fall and summer crops are harvested the timber property can become flooded with deer as they seasonally shift in. This can cause dramatic differences in deer density from one season to the next within the same calendar year.

peytoncreekhunter · Jan 15, 2021

Concerning trail cameras......I wonder how many bucks/mature bucks are never photographed. Not necessarily because they "avoid" the cameras for some reason but because they never walk in front of one.

rem270 · Jan 15, 2021

peytoncreekhunter said:
Concerning trail cameras......I wonder how many bucks/mature bucks are never photographed. Not necessarily because they "avoid" the cameras for some reason but because they never walk in front of one.

The buck I killed this year I had pics of in velvet in late August. I never got another pic of him all season. I seen him on Sept 26th on the neighbors property. Moved my cams over scrapes mid October and just knew I'd have a pic of him. NOPE. Seen him mid November, actually missed him with a rifle. Still no pics on cam of him. Killed him Dec 13th 40 yards from a cam I had hung over a scrape. Pulled all my cams the next day and still never had a pic of him after August and out of velvet. This year really made me realize that I put too much faith in cameras.

BSK · Jan 15, 2021

peytoncreekhunter said:
Concerning trail cameras......I wonder how many bucks/mature bucks are never photographed. Not necessarily because they "avoid" the cameras for some reason but because they never walk in front of one.

Honestly, depends on who is placing the cameras. Not to toot my own horn too much, but on properties where I set the cameras, our success rate on catching bucks is 96%, in that 96% of all bucks killed were previously photographed. But around the rut, you never know. You wouldn't believe how often a buck is shot that is not on camera, yet when picking up cards the following week, there the buck is for the first time, just 24-48 hours before he was shot.

BSK · Jan 15, 2021

rem270 said:
The buck I killed this year I had pics of in velvet in late August. I never got another pic of him all season. I seen him on Sept 26th on the neighbors property. Moved my cams over scrapes mid October and just knew I'd have a pic of him. NOPE.

I firmly believe, and have evidence to back up the idea, that some individual bucks never visit scrapes. I'll get specific bucks in food plots over and over, yet during the entire duration of the rut, not once at a scrape. That's why I make sure to keep cameras on as many deer movement concentration points as possible, even during the rut. I definitely have more on scrapes during the rut, but I never go "full scrape" with the cams.

rem270 · Jan 15, 2021

BSK said:
I firmly believe, and have evidence to back up the idea, that some individual bucks never visit scrapes. I'll get specific bucks in food plots over and over, yet during the entire duration of the rut, not once at a scrape. That's why I make sure to keep cameras on as many deer movement concentration points as possible, even during the rut. I definitely have more on scrapes during the rut, but I never go "full scrape" with the cams.

Usually mid Oct I'll run 3-4 on scrapes and one on a food source. I didn't this year just because it was raining like crazy the last day I was in town and got lazy and put 3 up over "community" scrapes that I could drive to and left it at that. Had I put it over the food source like usual I would have gotten a pic of that buck right before I shot because he walked out of the trail just 10 yards where I usually have the camera looking over the food plot. I agree on some of the bucks not visiting scrapes because I have on a few occasions shot a deer that came from the general area of a scrape that I knew I would have a pic and not. One particular time I had one on a tree overlooking a scrape and a trail/tractor path that they used. The buck come up the hill from there and I shot him. Just knew I was going to have a pic but sure enough he somehow skirted it when usually the deer come right up that path.

peytoncreekhunter · Jan 15, 2021

This buck for instance.....these are the only 2 pictures I got of him. Never saw him in person or on the hoof. The 2 cameras are on opposite ends of the farm I hunt. The head on picture is on a trail where does travel a lot. It also has a lot of acorns. The walking away picture is on a faint trail I found going into a very thick area with very rugged ground. All that to say this buck wasn't on any of my other cameras and didn't ever show up on these cameras again. So could he have been a range shifter that just never came back to my farm?

CrossVolle · Jan 15, 2021

BSK said:
Although it was all the rage to conduct late summer baited censuses in the past, I no longer do so on smaller properties (a couple hundred acres). The reason is seasonal range-shifting by bucks. It is VERY common for older bucks to spend their summers in a bachelor group far from where they will spend the fall season (hunting season). What happens is, landowners run a late summer (August) census, and then expect those bucks photographed to be there during the hunting season. Perhaps that occurs, but often it does not. Once the bachelor group breaks up right around velvet shedding, those bucks may travel several miles to a different fall-season range. And this pattern is usually traditional, in that these bucks use the same collective summer range and same distant fall ranges year after year.

The purpose of a camera census is to establish what the "manageable population" is. That would be the deer that use the property during the hunting season. Often, a late summer census doesn't measure that at all. It just measures the summer population, which can be VERY different than the fall population. I've seen smaller properties display a near 100% turnover in deer from summer to fall.

Do/did you ever see any sort of variance based on terrain types?

BSK · Jan 18, 2021

CrossVolle said:
Do/did you ever see any sort of variance based on terrain types?

Not necessarily terrain type but habitat type. When any area has very homogenous habitat as far as a deer can walk, why range-shift? I think much of range-shifting (with the exception of bucks shifting in summer to join a bachelor group) is about moving around within an annual range to access seasonal food sources. In essence, summer foods are better in one part of a deer's range, but fall foods are better in another part of their range.

BSK · Jan 18, 2021

peytoncreekhunter,

One of the interesting tidbits those researchers using GPS collars to track individual deer have found, and nearly every study finds this, is that almost all bucks 2 1/2 or older at some point "go walkabout" during the rut. And what I mean by that is the buck will suddenly leave his normal rut range and travel a couple of miles to a new location. Usually the buck stays at that new location for 24-48 hours, and then returns back to his normal rut range. Why bucks do this is unknown, but again, almost all bucks do it at least once during the rut and sometimes more than once. And interestingly, most reseachers comment on how directly and quickly bucks make these travels. Not that they are running, but they make a steady pace straight shot on the move to wherever they are going. They are not "meandering" around. Kind of like a ship at sea; they set a course and go.

Bucks that get killed while "on walkabout" will almost certainly not have been captured on camera previously, as they may never have crossed that ground before.

Dbllunger · Jan 18, 2021

BSK said:
peytoncreekhunter,

One of the interesting tidbits those researchers using GPS collars to track individual deer have found, and nearly every study finds this, is that almost all bucks 2 1/2 or older at some point "go walkabout" during the rut. And what I mean by that is the buck will suddenly leave his normal rut range and travel a couple of miles to a new location. Usually the buck stays at that new location for 24-48 hours, and then returns back to his normal rut range. Why bucks do this is unknown, but again, almost all bucks do it at least once during the rut and sometimes more than once. And interestingly, most reseachers comment on how directly and quickly bucks make these travels. Not that they are running, but they make a steady pace straight shot on the move to wherever they are going. They are not "meandering" around. Kind of like a ship at sea; they set a course and go.

Bucks that get killed while "on walkabout" will almost certainly not have been captured on camera previously, as they may never have crossed that ground before.

The deer in my avatar here is one of those "walkabout" bucks. Few years ago I got a picture of him on a cellular trail cam and had never seen him before in my life. Next day I went and hunted him and killed him. It was the day after Thanksgiving and the action is usually hot and heavy on our lease about that time. Turns out another member on my lease had close to 50 pics of the deer from summer into fall and had been hunting the deer pretty hard. Our lease is 1300 acres and if that deer walked a dead straight line from his camera to my camera it would have been 1.4 miles according to Google Earth.

peytoncreekhunter · Jan 18, 2021

BSK said:
peytoncreekhunter,

One of the interesting tidbits those researchers using GPS collars to track individual deer have found, and nearly every study finds this, is that almost all bucks 2 1/2 or older at some point "go walkabout" during the rut. And what I mean by that is the buck will suddenly leave his normal rut range and travel a couple of miles to a new location. Usually the buck stays at that new location for 24-48 hours, and then returns back to his normal rut range. Why bucks do this is unknown, but again, almost all bucks do it at least once during the rut and sometimes more than once. And interestingly, most reseachers comment on how directly and quickly bucks make these travels. Not that they are running, but they make a steady pace straight shot on the move to wherever they are going. They are not "meandering" around. Kind of like a ship at sea; they set a course and go.

Bucks that get killed while "on walkabout" will almost certainly not have been captured on camera previously, as they may never have crossed that ground before.

So to put it in human terms..... its like a guy that has a regular stomping ground (wherever that may be) to pick up girls. Maybe that area runs dry for whatever reason, and the guy trys out a new area where he might find a girl.... LOL

Just a theory.......

JCDEERMAN · Jan 18, 2021

In 2017 and 2019 for a 2 week period (last week of October - first week of November), we had a 3 beam deer show up out of nowhere. I passed him up in 2017. Didn't see him in 2018. In 2019, he showed up and is probably the biggest deer we have ever had on camera. He still had the 3rd beam and he grew a 7-8" drop tine on that same side. You can bet I was all over the place this year looking for him during that timeframe. He didn't show up. He either got shot or died from our bad EHD outbreak.....or he didn't want to take his journey and die on his vacation trip

. He would have been a 6.5 this year.

Mature Bucks, Trail Cams and New Properties

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