That depends on 1) whether the camera census was only a late-summer baited census or a full season census; 2) the size of the property; 3) the primary food sources that year and the habitat of surrounding properties; 4) the experience/skill of the person placing the cameras; and 5) the density of cameras.
1) If only a late-summer census was run, many bucks that will be using the property during the hunting season will be missed, especially if the property is 1,000 acres or less. With square-mile-sized areas, a late summer census--even if the vast majority of the bucks using the area at the time are captured on camera--may only account for 25-50% of the bucks that will use the property during the hunting season. Both fall season range-shifting and rut range-expansion will bring new bucks onto the property during the hunting season.
2) The smaller the property the greater the variability in bucks that will be using the property at different times. For example only slight shifts in bucks' movement patterns would drastically alter who is using a 25-acre property at any given time, but even rut range-expansion and seasonal range-shifts would have little effect on a 3,000 acre property.
3) On smaller properties--depending on the habitat of surrounding properties--differences in the primary fall-season food sources can drastically alter how much seasonal range-shifting occurs. If the monitored property is hardwoods, but surrounding properties contain agriculture, the monitored property will see a huge jump in bucks using the property in a good acorn year. The acorns produced by the hardwoods would draw many of the bucks that had been living in the agiculture during the summer. However, in a poor acorn year, bucks would have no reason to leave the agriculture and go into the hardwoods, producing minimal seasonal range-shifting into the hardwood property. I see that on my place. My place is primarily hardwoods but I have some very large and productive agriculture bottomlands within a mile both east and west of my upland hardwoods. In a good acorn year, bucks shifting up out of the bottomlands can account for as much as 75% of all the bucks I'm going to get on film that year. In a poor acorn year, fall range-shifters will be less than 30% of the full inventory. In a poor acorn year, bucks stay in the bottomlands and don't shift into the upland hardwoods.
4) Without question, the experience-level of the person placing the cameras is a huge part of how many of the bucks are captured on film. The vast majority of hunters running cameras report seeing or killing bucks they haven't gotten pictures of, even if they are running cameras all season. Even though we have been very successful at getting harvested bucks previously on film, I'm sure I have bucks that only drift through a time or two during the season and I never get them on film.
5) Of course, the density of cameras makes a huge difference. I wouldn't feel comfortable with a non-baited census unless I had at least 1 camera per 80 acres, and 1 per 50 acres would be even better. Moving the cameras frequently is also a HUGE part of non-baited census success. I generally move my cameras weekly, or at longest every two weeks.
The only known way of tracking what percent of bucks you are capturing on film is to track the percent of the harvested bucks that were not camera-captured prior to harvest.
