My family & I have killed (3) bucks in the last two years that we had on film. (1) was my biggest and another was my brothers. Cams are worth the time and money.
I would like to see a picture if you get time and I think it would be interesting to see the mount too, now that you mention it.
On family farms with multiple owners, some circumstances are not able to be controlled. Conversations have been had, they are usually pointless. Once my father is no longer able to hunt, I actually will probably revert back to going to public land and cams won't be an issue then anyways.
Here is a sampling. I ended up killing the last buck about 20 yards from where that pic was taken. I'll try and get a pic of the homemade mount setup tonight.
Partial ownership in "family farms" sucks. I was part of a good sized parcel in a family trust and being one of the furthest away owners, my influence amounted to exactly squat. I was pouring thousands per year into something I was never going to have a valid voice in. Best thing I ever did as a trustee was vote to liquidate that sob and disown the family that went with it. The family that lives near it is always the controlling factor. Sucks but that's life, some families are better than others and where values are more closely shared, it could work...unfortunately that's the exception and not the rule based on my experience.
I'm in agreement with the cameras. I say put them up. I don't check them regularly at all. The deer don't seem to mind me checking them either. It seems I get just as many pic's right after I check them as I do anytime.
Cams over bait and minerals are one thing but cams on trails can change deer patterns,way to much human scent to close to deer trails where you want to hunt them can get ya tag soup. I have a lot of videos of deer running from cams weather it is from scent or red flash the result was the same. black flash cams have helped and so does spraying my sets down with scent killer,gloves and rubber boots also help as you start to think like a trapper and what you touch you will get better at it. All my cams are on mineral and food plots anymore just planning on keeping my farm deer dumb
I'm also in agreement that cams cause little harm as I check mine every week with no change in my deer behavior. Of course during gun season the deer became scarce and when I used ever calm as a cover scent that seemed to scare the deer away but with scent killer and being mindful to spray yourself down has the deer right back like before. jmo
from my own personal observation the deer on our place our bothered by my ATV, I try not to use it to check cams. They will high tail it if they see me on it. Yet if i check from my mini van, I can drive right by them. Something about the ATV they don't like. thats what i have experienced!
If you are checking all cams in one day the only way to go would be to use the 4 wheeler. In the past when we arrived at the property we would immediately take a ride and swap out all the cards to see what's lurking on the property. Maybe it was just coincidence but it would always seem to curb deer movement for a couple of days. This year I decided to move cameras to where I could check them on the way back from hunting certain spots. I placed them in spots where I could easily swap out cards if and when I hunted a particular stand. Really seemed to work best because most of my sits were all day and they would be swapped out after dark. I think from here forward as deer season approaches that will be my game plan. Of course there were some cameras that sat for most of the week or didn't even get checked until the end of the week but that was OK. Most of the cameras were placed some distance from the stands too so it wasn't like I was hanging them right where we hunted. My theory behind that was you hear all the stories of deer avoiding cameras for whatever reason and if they are hanging right where I want to hunt all the extra trips to check it before I actually hunted could help burn out a stand.
