I know of many, many people, who do not go into the woods, fields, etc. to try to kill a deer unless they have a camera(s) out and pictures of deer using the area. Many will not go unless they have pictures of a particular buck or class of bucks they are hunting. Since remote cameras came out (by that I mean cameras that send pictures to you, there is a reason why they are not allowed for bucks killed using remote cameras to be put into P and Y or B and C) have came out, I have been told by people they waited til a buck showed a pattern from the pics sent to their phone and they got in the stand in just enough time before the deer shows up and they kill it. That is not hunting, that is shooting what the camera showed you, when and where. No different than the guys that pay big money to kill a buck that someone else has patterned, and then tell them to get in the stand a few minutes before they kill it. Not hunting, just shooting.
Cameras are not the same as hunting to me, If you do not use cameras, all you have is your knowledge of what you observe to know what a deer is or is not doing.
Cameras not only show you where a deer is using, but when, likely what direction they are coming from, etc. Yes some people are good with cameras, take them away and see what deer they kill or how strong their drive is to hunt. To some extent, they are hunting with cameras, not their own god given abilities to physically see and listen to what is going on.
Even though there is an advantage of knowing what deer are using the area you hunt, that also takes away from the hunting aspect. With cameras, you have a good chance at knowing if there is a bigger deer there, so you pass a smaller buck up. To me, to some extent, that turns hunting into shooting. Without cameras, you go on what you have seen, sign and actual deer. With cameras, the cameras are doing the hunting, so many people base all they do on what they do or do not see on camera. They spend way less time in the woods, cameras take away a huge part of just finding deer and especially a mature deer, where they live, bed, eat, and travel. I love to HUNT, the unknown part of what deer are or are not there is a huge part of hunting to me.
When needed, I believe cameras can help with knowing if an area has deer herd issues as far as population, health, etc.
You will never see me use cameras to create a hit list, name deer, locate deer, pattern deer, or hunt deer, etc. For me it takes most, if not all the hunting experience away.
I love to be out, observing, deer, sign, weather, food, water supply, etc and trying to figure out where I need to be in order to kill the deer I want to kill. Not put cameras out, go look at pics and base my time around that, I know many that do.
And I DO NOT believe I am a better hunter or whatever because of that, bur I do believe using cameras to hunt deer takes away the HUNTING experience. I value every single minute of my hunting time and make the most of it.
