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Trail cam strategy

Jammintree

Jammintree

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2021
Messages
2,168
I have various ways of employing trail cameras; and based on another current thread Im learning that other people may use them quite differently. What is your trail camera strategy? Do you put them in the places you hunt? Do you use them to get to know new areas? What height do you set them? Etc etc?
 
The handful of el cheapo ones I have I put out in remote primary scrape areas or isolated creek crossings and let them soak for months. They are cheap and in the unlikely event someone goes that far back and finds them and steals it then I'm not out too much. I have 2 out now and they have been out since early February. I will probably pull them when I go in and hunt those spots in late October or early November.
 
I have never really messed much with cams and never really had a strategy. Just hung them on a scrape or a feed tree mostly. This year I am going to jump into the cam game. I will have 13 cams out this year, plan to hang later this month or early July. Got a deal from a buddy who upgraded all of his cams to cells. These will all be on public in the mountains. Plan is to hang a mix of different type locations but all feature related, travel or scrape/licking branch spots and maybe one or two on oaks. All of these spots are from post season scouting this year and it is not likely I will hunt each spot, may not hunt half of them. Plan to leave them up until end of season. I am setting up a spreadsheet for information tracking. Only plan to check cams if I make a hunt near or at a particular cam, otherwise they will just hang though I do plan to make one full check just prior to season.
 
I've tried a lot of stuff with varied success. Definitely learned a ton from them and killed several bucks playing off of cam intel. I am trying to dial in elevated use now as the detection isnt as good but the view is superior in a few places I want to run them. There is a particular creek crossing area I want to monitor but they cross in a 20-30 yard wide stretch in the woods rather than one trial and I think getting a cam up will help me get the whole thing. I was missing a ton of crossing with a 3 foot of the ground set up there last year. But I have run them on minerals before, scrapes, inside corners, field edges, funnels etc. Definitely a huge learning curve on how you use them and varied results based on a number of variable which may or may not be in your control
 
Only been using them a couple of years now, but I generally only actively use them outside the season. I'll use them to get an idea of what size deer might be in an area I'm thinking of hunting. Sometimes that means I never hunt that area; other times I'm adding it to my list of places to hunt. During the season, I have one camera that I usually put in an area I don't plan to hunt and leave it there until the season ends.

But once the season starts, I don't have enough free time to waste any of it checking and moving cameras. What little time I have is spent hunting.
 
Just went to cell cams last year have had standard cams for several years but increased steadily over the last few years the number of cheap ones for public land use. My cells only go on a private tract I have exclusive bowhunting rights on. I am very blessed to be able to hunt this property and it is awesome but there is pressured public on the east edge and pressured private on the other three sides. My strategy for public land is scout until I find creek crossings, benches, scrapes in deep areas with terrain features that come together and usually there is a scrape with a licking branch. I’ll hang a cam on those locations around now through July and let them soak until just before season or wait until I go in to pull cards when I hunt it if I’ve had prior experience at that location.

On private I place my cell cams and others near feed or trail crossings and mock scrapes. My only reasoning is buck inventory for the coming season. As I get closer to season I move them to existing preset stand or saddle locations or to transitions of cover closer to bedding to key on any daylight movement bucks…… typically there are none on most of my properties. The property owner bought his land to enjoy it and he does but it does equate to increased pressure rendering this property much a rut only area. Therefore my focus during the early season is public land or other private hoping to catch an early season daylight mover. My suggestion is to don’t get obsessed with checking them, find good spots to place them early to inventory the bucks in each area and then focus on funnels or other secure travel areas to place them on and let the history of each area develop for you.
 
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I'm really surprised at the strategies that are coming out of this thread.

I hunted for around 10 years before I bought my first camera so My camera strategy has been added into my personal style of hunting after the fact.

I used to sit a lot of pinch points and creek crossing or travel routes and just don't have time for that style of hunting anymore and it didn't produce very many good encounters.
So for a while I've tried to hunt as close as possible to bedding on the entry or exit. This is usually a place where there is a scrape or where a mock scrape will take off.

The longer I hunt the more I realize that during each faze of the season bucks are doing different things and tend to transition into and out of bedding areas. Meaning data and info or sightings aren't necessarily good data for long. This lead to the realization that i have to be one step ahead instead of behind. And somehow be collecting and using info wisely. Before I had cameras that meant sitting back and using sightings to dictate future hunts or I was back to just burning time in the stand.

So adding cameras around 8 years ago and the obvious place in my mind is put them where i hunt (close to bedding or a scrape or trail exciting or entering a bedding areas) because that's the info you need the most but that's also my hunting spot so without cell cameras I was really only getting old info or info for next year. So say I go hunt a spot that had a camera on it for a while and check the card get all pumped because the buck was consistently on it last week. That's info but also old info with bucks tendencies to move around with crop rotation, hormones changes, and other hunting pressure. At that point cameras are great but also just another tool.

Now come cell cameras.... As you can imagine everything just gets easier. Not only can you get info for next year but you can use current info combined with last year's pics to predict and expect what a buck will do. Say I get pics of a buck I know showed up last year the second week of November and was around for a week. I don't have to wonder if it's a random buck and I get in on the start of him showing up instead of pulling a card a week later and he's on to somewhere else already. Of course every place has a few home boys that hang around most of the year and that's a different scenario.

Obviously I don't only hunt where I have a camera but a camera goes to most spots that I see great sign and am considering setting sometime. Also sightings when hunting often blow any strategies up and I'm moving to a new tree or area to get onto a buck.

I guess in short I'm using cameras to make a lot of decisions and I'm okay with that. I don't have a ton of time to burn sitting in a tree with my family at home so any time I'm out there I want to have good odds of killing a good animal.

My style of hunting is drastically affected by cell cameras and I see the fair chase argument. I guess for me with where I'm hunting and built up knowledge of the areas I hunt, I could still kill good deer without them so they still feel like a tool.
 
Food source has a big impact on deer movement. I mainly hunt hilly forest land that is full of oak trees. During fall when the acorns start falling, the deer activity in the woods picks up and cams can be useful. But during the spring and summer, the deer activity is more around pastures and fields. So having cams out during the spring and summer doesn't help much because the deer will start moving back towards the woods in early fall. Very early in the season, while the deer are still in the pastures and fields, one can have some success with cams located active entrance trails. But once those acorns start falling, the deer abandon the pastures and fields to eat acorns. Early season here can have temps in the 90's so early into the season can be a no-go unless the temps drop to a reasonable hunting temp.

My favorite time to hunt is when the acorns start dropping and the deer are active in the woods. That's when I put out a few cams in some of my better spots to see what is coming thru the area. I put the cam very close to where I hunt so I can pull the card and view it when I get up into the tree. Then I put a new card into the cam and repeat the process. It's nice to know the time of day the deer are mostly moving and how much deer activity.

I don't cam hunt, I deer hunt. So, I mainly use the cams in areas I already hunt and just view the cams when I hunt there.
 
I have been running cell cams for a couple of years now and I mostly set them in spots where I am currently hunting. This lets me know when the area is getting used and activity picks up during daylight. Essentially they let me know when that stand is getting "hot". I also have a bunch of regular cams that I put out in areas that I think have potential and let them soak until the following spring. I do this just before the season starts in early September. This lets me know what is in that spot when it matters...during the season when I can kill. I don't care whats there in May or June.
For instance, last year I got to thinking about a small patch of woods near where I grew up. This spot is right in the downtown area behind what used to be an old orchard. I used to shoot partridge in the gully behind that orchard every season and catch brookies out of the stream every spring. It is all surrounded by development now and may only be a few 5 to 10 acres pieces there. I threw a cam at it just out of curiosity because my wife used to see deer there all the time when she worked at the ritzy retirement community that borders this spot. When I checked my camera this spring I had a ton of pics of does and fawns going in and out of the old orchard at all times of the day and night but I also had one set of pics of a perfect little 3 & 1/2 year old eight point.He had a great set of antlers for a 3.5 year old. He may become a target this year as I know this spot hasn't been hunted in about 20 years by anyone and I would definitely have it to myself.
 
Rich Faler has a book called Trail Cameras for Fur bearers. Most of what he talks about can be adapted for deer or other game.

One thing I like to do is instead of setting at 90* to the trail, I like to go 45*. This puts animals in view of the camera longer and still gives a good angle for ID of smaller critters that are often confused with others.

Another thing , I like the camera's that have the time lapse modes that take pictures every minute or so so that can catch animals coming outside the trigger range of the camera during daylight hours.
 
Arrowsquirrel said:
I guess in short I'm using cameras to make a lot of decisions
Click to expand...
You may be using cams to make some decisions but it sounds like you are also using them to confirm decisions too. That is the approach I am taking. In the mountain area where I will be using cams this year, it is a new area to me other than the hiking I did earlier this year and it is a new type of terrain. I am focused on 3 areas. Each area has a number of features or points I have identified as spots I would think a buck would walk. The areas are are fairly good sized too. I dont remember the exact number from when I measured it but 7500ish acres. By scattering cams within each broader area on different types of features and at different elevations, I am hoping to gain a better understanding of pattern shifts and travel through the fall as well as learn the quality of deer in the region. Boots on the ground scouting told me deer use each of the spots, the question is at what periods during the season. That info will somewhat indicate if the spot is food to bed, pre-breeding cruising or breeding phase focused. It should help me be much more efficient in coming seasons. This season will be largely hunted on instinct while using the cams to confirm decisions about why and when deer are in spots at different times and too confirm each area holds the type of deer I am looking to hunt. Ideally, I would like to be able to to move most if not all the cams to new areas next year and continue to identify more options.
 
SNIPERBBB said:
Rich Faler has a book called Trail Cameras for Fur bearers. Most of what he talks about can be adapted for deer or other game.

One thing I like to do is instead of setting at 90* to the trail, I like to go 45*. This puts animals in view of the camera longer and still gives a good angle for ID of smaller critters that are often confused with others.

Another thing , I like the camera's that have the time lapse modes that take pictures every minute or so so that can catch animals coming outside the trigger range of the camera during daylight hours.
Click to expand...
His Fox Hunting Book back in the 1980’s got me fired up for that rabbit hole.
 
I have had trail cameras both cellular and non for a couple years now. In the past I only had one cell camera and would set that up on hunting land that was far away from me so I would have some insight to the area when I wasn’t there. It was a hilly/steep area and I would use it mostly on small drainages, creek crossings, old timber roads etc. because I just wanted to confirm that there were good deer using the different terrain features. Then I started to narrow in on some of the travel routes more along with feed trees. I had a lot of good pictures of bucks and does at a couple spots and I spent the year before last hunting one spot almost exclusively in attempt to catch the rut and the bucks traveling through there. This particular area was a drainage of three hills where there was a feed tree and also a major crossing. I saw hundreds of deer that year small bucks and does, but I chose not to shoot anything in attempt to wait for a mature deer. Stuff starting firing up around the rut and I got a shot at very nice 8pt chasing a hot doe. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to recover that deer and it really took the wind out of my sales. I wanted to changed things up so I changed to the trad bow and focused on scouting a lot more. My goal for last season was just to find feed trees and kill a deer with my trad bow.

I was always behind the curve on finding where deer were feeding and since we have a long fall and acorns can drop in places all the way up to late November I wanted to hone in on freed trees. There was a great sale on bushnell cameras so i picked up three cell cams and 3 non cell cams. I would put the non cell cameras on unsuspecting parcels that were thick with undergrowth, or swampy, or by a feed tree and I would let them soak. I thought they were good travel route and I wanted to use them there to confirm that. The cell cameras I would also use on new spots that I already scouted and saw deer or feed tree, or travel route where I wanted to narrow down the most traveled path. Pinch points in areas where I already knew where deer were not only gave me a good inventory of the bucks in the area but it also helped me try and understand when they were moving through.

I can only hunt weekends and not even Sunday so some of the areas would be hit or miss, and often I couldn’t hunt them when I really needed to. I killed two bucks off camera intel, and I killed two purely on scouting intel this past season. Cameras are great but when areas dry up and the deer move sometimes you don’t have time to let cameras soak, so it’s boots on the ground and then immediately hunt. Being aggressive has done me more good than harm. Checking areas that were void of sign earlier has yielded areas covered in sign. Cameras that were stale turn out to have deer moving nearby by them out of camera field of view. Scouting and hunting around your cameras can help you paint the rest of the picture. Cameras have helped put in me in the right spot for 2 mature bucks, both of those I didn’t recover but the scouting and cameras got me in the right spots.

Lastly, I have non cellular a soaking over the off-season just for fun. A couple of the spots I have had them in for a long time and know were/are using the areas but I wasn’t able to make it to those area for hunts during the season for one reason or another. My plan will be to pull those cameras and compile that data/info to better paint the picture of hunting that area when the time comes this season. I imagine I will be switching up my cell cameras a fair bit this year as I attempt to find hot oak trees. Cameras are a lot of fun and I enjoy getting pictures of deer even if I’m not hunting a particular area hard.
 
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Great thread topic

Last year, I ran cell cams continuously from January to December. I learned a lot about scouting because I used them to confirm what I found when I put boots on the ground. Now I know what "good" sign is and, more importantly, what good sign isn't. I don't want to continue to use as many or in the same way because I'm trying to hone my scouting skills even more (and cut some costs). Not knocking anyone for using them, I'm just worried that if I continue to use them like I did last year, I'll end up always buying more cameras and eventually using them as a crutch. This year, I think I'm only going to run one camera and that is simply to get inventory on a small urban property a couple hours away that I may or may not get to even hunt this year. Either way, getting the notification that there is a new photo is just another poke in the side that hunting season is coming and to prepare accordingly!
 
I will add that there is one thing I want a cellular camera for someday. Eventually I want to purchase a small property that I can set up for duck hunting. When I finally realize that dream, I'm hanging a cell cam overlooking the pond to send me a picture every hour or so. That way I can monitor when and what parts of the pond they're using most, and ideally make better habitat management decisions.
 
Let them soak.for most of year.
collect the pics snd compare weather and wind conditions. Find out what food was around at that time of year then try to matchup hunts with known same Food availability and weather conditions the next year.
it works pretty well. Wont kill the deer for ya but usually will get you close. Me and a buddy have countless hours logged in referencing pics to conditions and making plans.
if you look historically it will almost repeat itself every year.
this will or should continue if there is no change in food, habitat or some sort of mass deer die off
Ehd, cwd, etc.
 
About the only time I run cams is on a new to me parcel, say one I just gained access to, to confirm what I’m thinking after looking at weather history and topo maps; after that I’ll pull them. Another situation would be if there’s construction adjacent to a parcel and I want to see if travel corridors have been effected. Also would be if there has been activity on a parcel I hunt to see if patterns and travel have been altered such as the farmer moving fencing around on the farm I hunt or moving his feeders around which he did last season and I wasn’t aware. Other than that I don’t usually run cams.
*Edit: I do run cams year round but thats on a farm for predator control, and that’s more for population surveying and so the rancher can pull the cards to monitor travel and stuff so I can adjust strategies accordingly.
 
Robert loper said:
Let them soak.for most of year.
collect the pics snd compare weather and wind conditions. Find out what food was around at that time of year then try to matchup hunts with known same Food availability and weather conditions the next year.
it works pretty well. Wont kill the deer for ya but usually will get you close. Me and a buddy have countless hours logged in referencing pics to conditions and making plans.
if you look historically it will almost repeat itself every year.
this will or should continue if there is no change in food, habitat or some sort of mass deer die off
Ehd, cwd, etc.
Click to expand...
Great concept. Where do you get your wind and weather history data from? What’s your process for lining it up with the imagers your camera captured?
 
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