B&C label cell cams unethical

[Antirain]

You've got to keep in mind that there is world of different hunters and abilities hunting whitetails. I have loved using trail cams for many years as much as an additional way of hunting as just enjoying seeing pics of the wildlife. I have never been able to hunt weeks at a time or even string together more than a day or 2. And now as Im getting older, even though I still do lots of on the ground scouting, my body doesnt tolerate even a couple miles of hiking without being lame the next day. So I need trail cams to keep me in the game or I have to give up and join the retired hunters club! I just got into a few cell cams last year to help with a few remote areas that i dont want to give up on. By no means would I be looking to be on a buck with fresh pic within minutes or even hours. But deer move and a pic more often than not is going to be of a deer that is 200 yards to half a mile away within 30 minutes of passing the camera, unless they are on a food plot... at least in my big woods hunting.

 

[raisins]

Re: Seek One. It’s not pest control. It’s exclusive access trophy hunting and commercial film making. Any and all other motivations are secondary to non-existent.

i thought it was shooting old bucks that have been living a peaceful life being half tame behind an elementary school. Some urban hunts seem like bringing a sledge hammer to a petting zoo.

 

[Jammintree]

Re: Seek One. It’s not pest control. It’s exclusive access trophy hunting and commercial film making. Any and all other motivations are secondary to non-existent.

You forgot two things: Product Placement and the glory of god. Lee always reminds us he does it for Jesus. I wish he gave all the homeless folks that he was displacing some venison from that deer.

You've got to keep in mind that there is world of different hunters and abilities hunting whitetails.

Friend - please know that I’m not against you or
Other people using cell cams per se. It’s about how and where they are used that I think is up for discussion. As time goes on many states will declare their legal positions on their use. In the meantime it’s good for us all to openly talk about this together. The reality is that our collective actions are likely to impact the trajectory of the public and eventually the legal perception of hunting technology. If we demonstrate responsible and respectful use of tech, it’s less likely to come under scrutiny.

 

[Plebe]

i thought it was shooting old bucks that have been living a peaceful life being half tame behind an elementary school. Some urban hunts seem like bringing a sledge hammer to a petting zoo.

I’m not against urban hunting. For some it may be their only opportunity and what not. And it can serve a purpose. But let’s just call it what it is…something very different, niche.

The commercialization of being rich and having access to and hunting rich neighborhoods as a result and the self promotion and aggrandizement is not of interest to me at all. Their hunting situation is basically mythical. Like you say, these deer are not like the others in many ways.

There’s also very little adventure or skill to learn from.

 

[Jammintree]

@Plebe have you seen this latest vid? It’s taking entitlement and privilege to a whole new level.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

I watched the Seek One video the other day and thought it was interesting. Certainly not my style of hunting. I noted that it was not just trail cameras, but social media and computer use that really was the game changer for Lee. First off, he finds out about the buck through social media and thinks it is a fake initially. Then he gets more credible intel and decides to take it seriously. Then he spends a whole day pouring over what I assume are Google streel views of this out of state city until he finds the graffitied building pictured behind the buck in the photo he has. Then he travels up to the area and starts trying to get permissions. Only then does he start putting out the cell cameras.

The buck is thoroughly habituated to people being around. In one part they get a picture of a homeless guy and not long after they get the buck on camera. So, human scent and intrusion into the area is a moot point. The real hurdle is dealing with the tiny pieces of land and hunting around all the homeless folks who are living on them. There was definitely a lot of drug use going on in that area and I would be way more nervous hunting that environment than being in Grizzly country.

One thing is for sure. 200 inch deer or not, Lee won't have to worry about me moving in on his spot, lol.

 

[DelaWhere_Arrow]

The argument that you can kill a deer off fresh cell cam Intel is borderline ridiculous to me.
I just got three notifications from Spypoint. There are a mess of does moving right between three of my prepped trees. I’m sitting a mere 200 yards from that camera, playing with my kids. If I wanted to, I could grab my bow and be at that camera in less than 5 minutes. You know where those does will be? 5 minutes ahead of my 5 minute delay. Not only do I have to walk to them, I have to do it sneakily, and the pics hit my phone about 3-5 minutes after they’re actually taken. Even if I do everything perfectly, and deer are still hanging out near the cam, I’ll have no chance of shooting one. If they haven’t already moved a hundred+ yards away, they’ll hear, smell, or see me before I can get within range. Gun? Maybe, if season was still open. Not a particularly good maybe either. Still gotta get there undetected and hope they don’t move like, you know, all wild animals do.
I have tidbits like this for days. I get pics while I’m actually hunting all the time, from areas I could feasibly get to within minutes. I have tried to capitalize on these instances, as recently as two weeks ago. Got a big buck on a cam as I was exiting a different area, and it was only 75 yards away. Pic was 3 minutes old, and I tried to creep that way. I was silent as a ninja with the wind coming from him to me. You know where that buck was when I got to his hoof tracks? Neither do I.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Around here guys have figured out how to capitalize on it pretty effectively by using timed bait (legal) and our obscenely long high-powered rifle season. See post #74 for details. They set the spots up intentionally to hunt with the camera. The guy I know rarely goes in the woods to actually hunt. He is pretty proud of that.

 

[elk yinzer]

Guys don't care about records anymore. That was validation for a generstion of validation seekers before validation seekers could seek validation with a couple clicks. And validation seeking personalities often seek to cheat the system either way.

 

[bigmike23]

Interesting thread, I consider them absolutely essential to my success. You cannot go by sign to positively identify a big buck made it. Part of the reason I cannot watch any hunters like Infalt or Sturgis is because I quickly noticed none of the crap they were spewing is what I was seeing in the woods. I've seen big rubs waist-high on big trees get made by spikes with 3-inch tines. You need to see him or get a picture of one to know what's around. A few years back I scouted a remote swamp with a letter "I" shaped bit of dry land that jutted into it. There were rubs all over it. Heavy beat-down trails. Lots of security cover. Man, I got excited. I through a cell cam there for over 5 months. After 5 months the biggest bruiser I had on cam was maybe an 85in 8 pter, and that was during the rut.

These animals are also extremely nomadic and you need to stay on top of them as best you can with the cams. The huge 9 I chased all year bounced around like ping pong all over the place covering miles in just a couple of days. Even with the cams, I got my butt kicked all year.

A couple things make my hunting so much harder.
1, there is no good access in the mtns. None. It doesn't matter where or how you access. Something somewhere is getting spooked. Where I'm at, there's very little open timber to access through. It's all thick, they bed literally everywhere. There's mtn laurel everywhere. I've kicked up bedded deer in spots that make no logical sense for bedding. Combine that with every square inch of the woods is covered in waist-high sheep laurel. So quiet access is impossible. You can walk heel to toe as much as you'd like, you're still gunna sound like a buffalo coming through.

2, 6-7 outta 10 hunts are gunna be ruined by the wind. Doesn't matter where you go, what you do, what you try. There's a constant push-pull effect of the wind that makes the very best spots almost impossible to hunt. Steve Sherk is a MTN guide in NW PA, and he experiences the same thing I do. He almost doesn't bother looking up wind forecasts anymore because he knows it's not going to be doing that where he goes. His rule of thumb is as long as the wind is blowing in the correct direction 60% of the time he stays.

These cams also confirm I'm hunting the right locations. More than 5 times this season I hunted a spot to see a couple small bucks, some doe. Then the very next day when I wasn't there the big one walked through. So they boost my confidence, just didn't get lucky that day.

 

[DelaWhere_Arrow]

Around here guys have figured out how to capitalize on it pretty effectively by using bait (legal) and our obscenely long high-powered rifle season. See post #74 for details. They set the spots up intentionally to hunt with the camera. The guy I know rarely goes in the woods to actually hunt. He is pretty proud of that.

That’s all valid, my only devil’s advocation is that there is much more at play than just the cell cams. Even the bait is only minimally effective at getting “good” deer in front of your cam, let alone your bow. I know, I use corn once in a while. I’ve never shot a deer off it, and not for lack of trying. Now I realized I can’t be within shooting range of the bait because I will inevitably get pegged before I get a shot. Guns are a little different story, I agree. And a long season doesn’t help. but you have to set all kinds of factors up to make it so you can be a true armchair warrior like the guys you describe. That’s probably why he’s so proud tbh. He puts in all kinds of work, just not “hunting work” in the way you and I prefer to define it. But the cams on their own? Not much more useful than a cam you have to physically check IMO.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Interesting thread, I consider them absolutely essential to my success. You cannot go by sign to positively identify a big buck made it. Part of the reason I cannot watch any hunters like Infalt or Sturgis is because I quickly noticed none of the crap they were spewing is what I was seeing in the woods. I've seen big rubs waist-high on big trees get made by spikes with 3-inch tines. You need to see him or get a picture of one to know what's around. A few years back I scouted a remote swamp with a letter "I" shaped bit of dry land that jutted into it. There were rubs all over it. Heavy beat-down trails. Lots of security cover. Man, I got excited. I through a cell cam there for over 5 months. After 5 months the biggest bruiser I had on cam was maybe an 85in 8 pter, and that was during the rut.

These animals are also extremely nomadic and you need to stay on top of them as best you can with the cams. The huge 9 I chased all year bounced around like ping pong all over the place covering miles in just a couple of days. Even with the cams, I got my butt kicked all year.

A couple things make my hunting so much harder.
1, there is no good access in the mtns. None. It doesn't matter where or how you access. Something somewhere is getting spooked. Where I'm at, there's very little open timber to access through. It's all thick, there bedding literally everywhere. There's mtn laurel everywhere. I've kicked up bedded deer in spots that make no logical sense for bedding. Combine that with every square inch of the woods is covered in waist-high sheep laurel. So quiet access is impossible. You can walk heel to toe as much as you'd like, you're still gunna sound like a buffalo coming through.

2, 6-7 outta 10 hunts are gunna be ruined by the wind. Doesn't matter where you go, what you do, what you try. There's a constant push-pull effect of the wind that makes the very best spots almost impossible to hunt. Steve Sherk is a MTN guide in NW PA, and he experiences the same thing I do. He almost doesn't bother looking up wind forecasts anymore because he knows it's not going to be doing that where he goes. His rule of thumb is as long as the wind is blowing in the correct direction 60% of the time he stays.

These cams also confirm I'm hunting the right locations. More than 5 times this season I hunted a spot to see a couple small bucks, some doe. Then the very next day when I wasn't there the big one walked through. So they boost my confidence, just didn't get lucky that day.

Mountain and hill country hunting is very tough. The only thing I like about that sort of terrain is there are places where if a deer or anything else for that matter that doesn't have wings wants to go through, it will have to go through that one spot. Otherwise, it is a wind crapshoot.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

That’s all valid, my only devil’s advocation is that there is much more at play than just the cell cams. Even the bait is only minimally effective at getting “good” deer in front of your cam, let alone your bow. I know, I use corn once in a while. I’ve never shot a deer off it, and not for lack of trying. Now I realized I can’t be within shooting range of the bait because I will inevitably get pegged before I get a shot. Guns are a little different story, I agree. And a long season doesn’t help. but you have to set all kinds of factors up to make it so you can be a true armchair warrior like the guy you describe. That’s probably why he’s so proud tbh. He puts in all kinds of work, just not “hunting work” in the way you and I prefer to define it. But the cams on their own? Not much more useful than a cam you have to physically check IMO.

Yeah agreed. The cell camera was the final piece of the puzzle for this guy since he was already using timed bait and sniping the deer from afar. Also, you are trying to hunt the right way and not look for the easy button like this guy is so a lot of this stuff just doesn't occur to you or me until we hear about it from others. It's like these scams you hear about. An honest person is probably not going to think about a gift card at Walmart the same way a crook will.

 

[bigmike23]

Mountain and hill country hunting is very tough. The only thing I like about that sort of terrain is there are places where if a deer or anything else for that matter that doesn't have wings wants to go through, it will have to go through that one spot. Otherwise, it is a wind crapshoot.

In college, I had to write a nearly 30 page paper where I had to interview 25 criminal Justice students, 25 non criminal justice students, and 5 police officers. Sum up all the data, and report on how people feel about police interacting with the community and what could be improved upon.
That 30 page essay would pale in comparison to the essay I could write on how much mountain hunting blows and my seething hatred for it. Yet, no matter how much I complain(and most assuredly id win the biggest complainer award on saddlehunter) there's something inexplicably that draws me to it. When you finally lay eyes on the giant, even if you don't get em, is insanely rewarding.

 

[DelaWhere_Arrow]

Yeah agreed. The cell camera was the final piece of the puzzle for this guy since he was already using timed bait and sniping the deer from afar. Also, you are trying to hunt the right way and not look for the easy button like this guy is so a lot of this stuff just doesn't occur to you or me until we hear about it from others. It's like these scams you hear about. An honest person is probably not going to think about a gift card at Walmart the same way a crook will.

Mmmm, well said.
Don’t get me wrong, the easy button is tempting with a few kids and jobs, and all you really want is a full freezer and hopefully 8+ points of bone by January 31.
But every time I’ve killed a deer it was due to factors such as stand placement, cam placement (not whether they were cell or standard), practicing my damn archery, knowing my gear, and above all being in the right place at the right time. That makes the temptation much easier to resist. I like the Earned It button better than the Easy button, though I won’t turn my nose up at a little assistance from a little tech.
Bait has helped funnel deer into (and out of, if I’m being real) our small property but I have to know the travel routes and times anyway if I want a kernel of corn to make a kernel of difference. I’ve kinda resigned my bait usage to existing small food plots where my daughter can maybe have a better chance of seeing deer, and sometimes near a camera that’s already rolling hot. But I don’t like to disturb those areas and mostly the coons get the corn when I get the pics.

 

[raisins]

I’m not against urban hunting. For some it may be their only opportunity and what not. And it can serve a purpose. But let’s just call it what it is…something very different, niche.

The commercialization of being rich and having access to and hunting rich neighborhoods as a result and the self promotion and aggrandizement is not of interest to me at all. Their hunting situation is basically mythical. Like you say, these deer are not like the others in many ways.

There’s also very little adventure or skill to learn from.

When much younger, I hunted a 40 acre wood lot just out of city limits. I could hear kids getting on the bus and families saying good bye as a parent left for work. I could also smell laundry in the dryer and barbecue grills and such.

The deer did know roughly where people should and shouldn't be. However, they were so used to smelling humans that they reacted much less to human scent, even in the woods. If a deer that lives in the suburbs ran every time they smelled human, then they would run out of that neighborhood and not return. A deer with much less of a nose-reaction is very different.

To act like a deer instantly switches to "I'm like a deer that lives in the mountains" once it leaves a yard and goes into the adjoining woods is giving them way too much credit.

There's a few local urban hunts, but you have to get on a schedule and go at certain times to certain pre-built stands that you are assigned to. Sounds super boring.

 

[raisins]

I watched the Seek One video the other day and thought it was interesting. Certainly not my style of hunting. I noted that it was not just trail cameras, but social media and computer use that really was the game changer for Lee. First off, he finds out about the buck through social media and thinks it is a fake initially. Then he gets more credible intel and decides to take it seriously. Then he spends a whole day pouring over what I assume are Google streel views of this out of state city until he finds the graffitied building pictured behind the buck in the photo he has. Then he travels up to the area and starts trying to get permissions. Only then does he start putting out the cell cameras.

The buck is thoroughly habituated to people being around. In one part they get a picture of a homeless guy and not long after they get the buck on camera. So, human scent and intrusion into the area is a moot point. The real hurdle is dealing with the tiny pieces of land and hunting around all the homeless folks who are living on them. There was definitely a lot of drug use going on in that area and I would be way more nervous hunting that environment than being in Grizzly country.

One thing is for sure. 200 inch deer or not, Lee won't have to worry about me moving in on his spot, lol.

Deer get habituated pretty quickly.

My uncle has an 80 acre farm abutting woods near a very small, rural town in WV.

I don't agree with it, but he easily, half tamed a 1.5 year old spike buck just by feeding it corn and talking to it. He has video of the spike buck in velvet reaching over him for corn and him petting the buck. I think this only took a month or less.

He's basically signing the buck's death warrant, but it is what it is and I don't say anything.

 

[raisins]

That’s all valid, my only devil’s advocation is that there is much more at play than just the cell cams. Even the bait is only minimally effective at getting “good” deer in front of your cam, let alone your bow. I know, I use corn once in a while. I’ve never shot a deer off it, and not for lack of trying. Now I realized I can’t be within shooting range of the bait because I will inevitably get pegged before I get a shot. Guns are a little different story, I agree. And a long season doesn’t help. but you have to set all kinds of factors up to make it so you can be a true armchair warrior like the guys you describe. That’s probably why he’s so proud tbh. He puts in all kinds of work, just not “hunting work” in the way you and I prefer to define it. But the cams on their own? Not much more useful than a cam you have to physically check IMO.

Living in a state where there are no restrictions on baiting deer on private land, I will say that the vast majority of mature bucks taken here with archery equipment are taken on private land at a bait site. It can be insanely effective. I don't do it though.

Folks have timed corn feeders, mineral licks, sweet treats like kool aid (they argue over which flavor is best), and even peanut butter.....all in a small area. It's a smorgasbord. The folks that have done this for a while try to limit scent and setup permanent blinds and stands near the bait and let the deer get used to it.

 

[Jammintree]

I can’t know all the reasons for BandC’s rules, but I can surmise that one of the reasons behind cell cam prohibition, and many others is:

B and C is trying to keep a consistent metric over the accomplishment of successfully hunting a giant mature buck. They do so by applying a collection of parameters into the process. It’s kind of like athletics not giving records to athletes who achieved new record statistics while using performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps B and C means less to hunters now than it once did. But will these likes and reposts and views on social media and YouTube mean anything, be remembered or even be searchable content in 10 years?

 

[woodsdog2]

Legal and ethical are two very different constructs. I use cell cams and they haven’t helped me a bit this season. Last year was the first year I ever used them and the only thing I can honestly say they did to help me was keeping
Me out there when I was ready to cave. The two giants that walked past the cams within an hour of each other (only 85 yards upwind of me) I never saw once. The buck I shot was totally different and although I did have him on both my standard and cell cams last year, he wasn’t on any of my cell cams the day In arrowed him.

Which leads me to my next ancillary question. There are some guys around here where I hunt who seem to get hammers every year. I don’t understand how they do it or what they’re doing but I think that really cracking that code involves some level of ethical and legal malaise. It’s always on private and I just can’t think these people are hat much better hunters than me and my buddy are. We’ve gotten our fair share of nice bucks over the years but I just don’t get it sometimes. I’m done whining now LOL!