I have 5 cameras out over 1200 acres of private farm land. Just does, fawns, does, fawns (must be close to 2 dozen different deer) and one baby basket 8 point. What the heck? Discouraging. Should I move the cameras? Or be patient? Or is this just bad herd management in the area?
5 cams on 1200 is not gonna cover much, also you can’t get discouraged on what cams capture or don’t. A lot depends on deers patterns, food sources etc. They constantly move for food/preferred food. All summer there on greens then move to oaks when they drop. I have places that have little bucks then come rut it’s loaded bc it holds the doe, just all depends. Almost all the times I kill a buck I don’t have history with them with the exception of my farm if I’m lucky enough to have a shooter on it. L
Thanks for the we encouragement! It’s tough when I see all these big beautiful bucks on social media pics and I’m hoping to see something when I check pics.
There’s your first mistake, don’t have expectations on your journey based off of what other people show. You have to be realistic with what is around in your area geographically. Good luck in your adventures
What SC said. Most often, bucks won't hang around does outside of breeding season. If there are does, the older bucks know it and will show up. Also, it's mostly does that use the heavy trails. (Where Most hang cams).
Sounds like your property is like mine. I get all kinds of doe and fawn pics through the summer, a few 1-1/2 year old bucks, but zero mature bucks. They don't bed or feed on my property, cruise through it, they simply don't "live" there. But the does do. When the rut hits, bucks are going to go where the does are. Every year my cams light up with cruising buck pics once the prerut gets going. Funnels, pinch points, browsing areas, and the downwind side of doe bedding are the areas I set my stands/blinds on.
As others have said - 5 cameras on 1,200 acres isn't even coming close to showing you what's out there. This time of year your best bet is to find active scrapes and set your cameras on them if you want to see bucks. I'm guessing your cameras are just in the wrong spots. Interestingly enough, I had this conversation with my 10-year-old son on Saturday evening. We had two small bucks chasing three does around in a clover food plot within 50 yards of our blind. They were in there for 10-15 minutes, and only one of those deer walked in front of our trail camera at that time. If all we had to go off was trail cam data, I would have told you we had one small doe in the plot that evening. The reality is, we had 5 of them. Trail cameras are cool, but don't fall into the trap of letting them discourage you based on what they aren't showing you.
