I find cams to be an incredible waste of time, and to boot a good chance to be stolen if your hunting public land. You need to set em up, check em every so often, go through pics, etc... My question to you is, why not hunt known trails and bedding areas? Deer are creatures of habit and reuse the same areas year after year after year... Be honest, how has a cam helped you?
I get what you are saying about bedding areas and trails, but cams might be a way to figure out the timing of when they come and go? I use my cams around my house for security more than anything. Its not necessary for hunting I think, just another tool for our hobby, or a hobby in its self.
You bring me to my next point... Why not just hunt at sunrise and sunset since that is when deer are most active? I think cams are a cool thing to use to see whats roaming around, but the amount of people that I see that live and die by the cam and I never see these guys shooting anything.. almost like they're pic hunters?
The cam is just a tool. You need to know what to do with the info you are gathering from the camera. I've also seen a bunch of guys get pics, and setup a stand right there hoping to kill a monster. Reality is that you need to know why the deer is there, what it's doing, where it came from, where it's going etc. Without that, the picture itself is worthless when it comes to actually killing the deer. I can say with 100% certainty that cameras have been a massively effective tool for me to put arrows in several mature bucks.
If you are such a master let's see some of the deer you have shot, since you haven't posted any pictures. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I agree with you, hunting sunrise and sunset makes the most sense in general. Though as with all things archery we like to get caught up in the details lol. Knowing when a deer is headed through an area with the wind a certain direction might help. Also, some enjoy hunting a particular deer. Though doing this(on public land) is exhausting to the point of being a waste of time, as you said in you first post. On private land however, I could see the fun of trying to complete such a task with the history of the deer in photos.
I agree, which is why I'm not sure I see the point of cams..Just hunt the trails feed areas/bedding areas, search out scrapes, etc etc.. Cams seem more time consuming than its worth.
Reality is there are very few deer I'm interested in hunting. And I also have very limited time to hunt these days. So I like to maximize my hunting time so that every single sit is focused on a specific deer that I'm interested in hunting rather than just hunting what looks good or has produced in the past. The worst hunting seasons I've had are almost always spent hunting areas that produced in past years vs. hunting current information. My most successful seasons have been based on hunting the most current and recent info I was able to obtain. I'd also say that if you have only 100 acres, a single camera isn't going to do much for you. Behind my house I've got about 12 acres I hunt and I've got 9 cameras in there. It's shocking how much info you don't get on one cam that's only 50 yards away but you can get loads of info from another one so close. Just my experience and your mileage may vary.
You didnt take that fron an iphone with a GPS turned on, your metadata has been stripped out N/A | N/Amm FN/A N/A ISON/A | N/A | N/A
I like cams... I like looking at pictures of the critters on my hunting grounds, which are by the way on public land. Yes it takes time, but it's fun time that I combine with prospecting the area, maintaining the trails etc. Looking at the pics is almost like opening presents at Xmas... Most of the time, the animals I end up shooting are not on any of the trail cams pictures. Big bulls stay away from salt licks, but they follow the females that do go... So if I know I've got cows in the area, there will be bulls... As far as only hunting sunrise and sunset, just because that's when the animals are active... it's just rooky BS. Most of my kills happen mid-day... when tourists like you are back at the cabin eating soup waiting for the ''good time'' to hunt. Starting to think you are a Cyber hunter... not a real one. As for the GPS tracking paranoia about your pictures, any ''Noob'' is able to easily remove that data from their highly secret pictures before posting them online... So, show us some of your trophy pictures Master... Don't be shy, I'll start first, here's a few... (of Real Game... not your rabbits with antlers so popular south of the border.)
I can pick up on very small changes in travel patterns. This year, I set up as usual, 25yds from a well used travel corridor. But every sit the deer were passing by me at 45yds. They were going in the same direction, heading to the same place, but now, for whatever reason, they were traveling on the other side of a huge fallen tree 90% of the time. Had I taken the time to set up a cam on each side of this fallen tree I would have picked up on that small shift, and not had to pass, twice, on a buck of a lifetime. I got lazy, and it cost me.
I run at least 1 camera year round, then again it is on my own property so I don't really have to worry about theft. I am no master hunter but if you watch enough you see more than at first glimpse. I usually have 2-3 resident does and a few yearling does as well as the fawns coming to eat on a regular basis. I can recognize every doe individually they all have subtle differences it is funny to watch them from the stand and see the personality that goes with the picture. There are mean does, timid does and does that fall in line. You see the hierarchy and the interaction.
We use them in Ohio on my friend's farm. I am not sure they have helped us kill deer, but it's a fun hobby. Many times you can scout and read deer sign but you really don't know what made the sign unless you lay eyes on the deer. Camera's allow for that with minimal intrusion. I won't use them in PA because I only hunt public land here and theft is too big of a risk.
