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Trail cam strategy

mschultz373 said:
Goal is to be more productive on the parcels. I’ve hunted two of three and scouted - and intend to scout more - on all. But I’ve not been successful on them yet, last year being my first year on them. My goal would be to determine how and when deer are using a specific area and build confidence in my scouting.

one is a logging upland pine parcel with some hardwoods; another is a mostly flooded cypress tupelo swamp; and last is a marsh. I have the highest confidence on the swamp; the marsh is probably the hardest to reckon only because the deer densities appear so low and access is often so difficult.

I don’t know if that’s helpful or makes sense. Thanks for all the input though.
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I often employ trail cameras to answer specific questions. For example, my boots on the ground scouting has figured out an area where bucks are bedding during the prerut phase. Under what conditions are bucks using that area? Is there a pattern to how they use the trails that pass through that area?
 
Jammintree said:
I often employ trail cameras to answer specific questions. For example, my boots on the ground scouting has figured out an area where bucks are bedding during the prerut phase. Under what conditions are bucks using that area? Is there a pattern to how they use the trails that pass through that area?
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100% agree. This is a great strategy. I'll carry a camera with me scouting at times for this purpose.
 
mschultz373 said:
Goal is to be more productive on the parcels. I’ve hunted two of three and scouted - and intend to scout more - on all. But I’ve not been successful on them yet, last year being my first year on them. My goal would be to determine how and when deer are using a specific area and build confidence in my scouting.

one is a logging upland pine parcel with some hardwoods; another is a mostly flooded cypress tupelo swamp; and last is a marsh. I have the highest confidence on the swamp; the marsh is probably the hardest to reckon only because the deer densities appear so low and access is often so difficult.

I don’t know if that’s helpful or makes sense. Thanks for all the input though.
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From my perspective, good cam strategy is going to tie in with good map strategy and boots on the ground scouting. Remember a trail cam is like looking into the woods through a straw. So if your recon tool is looking through a straw, where you set and point that cam needs to be very specific. In your area, I would likely focus on the highest odds ditch or slough crossings and let them soak.
 
I try to get my cameras out in early June. I don't believe in scent control so my antecdote is to get em out early. I'd put them out earlier but I want full foliage so I can trim as needed to avoid 5,000 pics of a blowing leaf. I also like getting them out then so I can jump fawns. You can tell how fresh they are and backdate conception dates and know when lockdown was the year before, and when it will probably be this year. For me, that's always the third week of November, but fun to confirm.

I hang my cameras in pinch points adjacent to buck bedding areas, roughly 10-12' up the tree. I think keeping cameras out of.a deers direct field of vision has more of an impact on not spoiling the spot than scent.

Somehow I rarely get night time pics, probably cause I'm always so tight to bedding.

I hang cameras in pairs of 2 or 3 all covering different parts of the terrain feature I'm on. Its eye opening how weak trail cameras are as a scouting tool when you catch a deer move through a relatively small area but only show up on one or two cameras.

One of each of those groups of cameras is a cell cam. I use that to tell me if the area is worth monitoring. No cell cam pics for a month and I'm going in to check the other one or two near it. If they're getting pics, I leave everything alone. If they're not, I move the whole set somewhere else. Rarely happens as I've got my hunting spots dialed in over the years.

I run energizer max batteries. When I pull my cameras in late November/early December, they're rarely less than 50% (usually still above 90%) and it saves me money not buying lithium. Even in the cold of northern Michigan those batteries do just fine.

I don't hunt the spots I have trail cameras, at least not until late October. I don't check them with boots on the ground until I'm hunting in their vicinity. For me they're just an inventory tool, even though I have a seriously OCD spreadsheet for all mature buck pics that I will use to look for patterns. I don't use that spreadsheet for anything under 2.5. I also delete all 1.5 year old buck pics and all doe pics, not interested in them. That said, I start paying attention to what the does are doing the last week in October and I'll often find myself hunting the places does were during June when I'm out in November.
 
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Going to hang my first one this year, will try to get it out this weekend. Got it free but will have to pay the subscription for cell cam. Main thing holding me back is just that I hunt public and while I like to think we’re all honorable people round here some folks aren’t and it’ll probably be stolen. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong.
 
HuskerInIowa said:
Going to hang my first one this year, will try to get it out this weekend. Got it free but will have to pay the subscription for cell cam. Main thing holding me back is just that I hunt public and while I like to think we’re all honorable people round here some folks aren’t and it’ll probably be stolen. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong.
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Hang it up in a tree. I use Spy High camera mounts. Pick a big tree that someone can't climb and put it there.
 
mschultz373 said:
How long will you guys leave a cell cam that is not getting anything until you move it?
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Not long at all. Of course that depends on your circumstances but at the very most a day or three. If you’re talking mature bucks only and you feel you are in a decent spot maybe give it a week but typically I’m looking and adjusting as much as possible trying to find near the core areas as much as is reasonable.
 
woodsdog2 said:
Not long at all. Of course that depends on your circumstances but at the very most a day or three. If you’re talking mature bucks only and you feel you are in a decent spot maybe give it a week but typically I’m looking and adjusting as much as possible trying to find near the core areas as much as is reasonable.
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I’m talking deer at all, frankly. Guess I’m showing my n00b status but. Went out Saturday and I put one on a mock scrape and got a deer that day, another on a creek crossing that had big tracks and nothing.


But I am using used Spypoint Cell Links with old Moultrie cams. They picked me up walking by em but I wonder…
 
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mschultz373 said:
I’m talking deer at all, frankly. Guess I’m showing my n00b status but. Went out Saturday and I put one on a mock scrape and got a deer that day, another on a creek crossing that had big tracks and nothing.
That’s activity level you’re getting seems “about right” for those locations. I start on food or crossings or terrain features, ideally all within close proximity give you the highest probability of success.

But I am using used Spypoint Cell Links with old Moultrie cams. They picked me up walking by em but I wonder…
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I think you’re getting reasonable activity for the locations you chose. Mock scrapes can be hit or miss as can creek crossings. If you’re trying to inventory and you know the major feed areas most of the deer are heading to than I would target those areas but deep in on public with a lot of food all over I think yours is probably average. I originally thought you weren’t getting any pics at all.
 
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I got pics today at the creek crossing, a doe with her spotted fawn. No bucks on any cams I deployed yet. I think I've been struggling on the food aspect since there's food everywhere here in the south and I haven't found any hot feed trees yet. it's been encouraging, though, to be getting deer daily at one of the four spots I set up.
 
mschultz373 said:
I got pics today at the creek crossing, a doe with her spotted fawn. No bucks on any cams I deployed yet. I think I've been struggling on the food aspect since there's food everywhere here in the south and I haven't found any hot feed trees yet. it's been encouraging, though, to be getting deer daily at one of the four spots I set up.
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In my opinion… you don’t really WANT to be getting buck pics on your cams just yet unless your season is already open or you are taking inventory. They are undergoing a huge life, social, and food change right now. Much better to be capturing them in late September I think if you are thinking hunting. Even better is to take your time and just let your cams soak all season and then analyze in post season and spend the time now hunting fresh sign. But that takes some will power especially when you are first getting into it
 
I have 9 cams up now on a big chunk of public I have never hunted. They are all hung in rut travel or transition spots. I checked 4 Sunday and didnt have a single deer pic. I am not concerned about it because I wont be hunting there until probably the first of Nov any way. I do not plan to move any cams because the plan all along has been to let them soak for the season and then look at any patterns that develop at each location to build knowledge for next season.
 
I have a cell cam on this remote ridge in a marsh that hasn’t gotten anything all summer. We kayaked in, and this ridge is like 5-8’ higher than the marsh and has water and live oaks on it. I bet my buddy $100 I take a deer on it this season. I hope that ends up happening.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
mschultz373 said:
How long will you guys leave a cell cam that is not getting anything until you move it?
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Just a different perspective for you to think about. I often don’t go more than 2 weeks without a buck pic before moving. However, when I hang them on a mock scrape in early August, it’s often 3 weeks before I get a pic. Last year on day 23 I got the first buck pic. Within 2-3 more weeks he was in a bachelor group. Soon thereafter was a second bachelor group using it. I highly recommend using pic + video mode. Sometimes 1 buck would work the licking branch and that’s it. Then when I get the video, I’ll see 2-3 more in the distance heading to the real destination point. Which wasn’t even the direction of the trail I thought they were using. Another camera took a pic of a squirrel. When going through the videos I saw that there were 2 buck’s sparring in the far background that were never in a picture.
 
mschultz373 said:
How long will you guys leave a cell cam that is not getting anything until you move it?
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I’m no expert and I don’t have any cell cams so take this with a grain of salt. But for my strategy, it would depend on the reason that I hung a camera in that spot. So for example I hung a cam a month ago to verify my hunch that the scrape I set the camera on was at the entrance / exit to a specific buck’s common bedding area. After a month I slipped back in during a torrential rain to A: verify the cam was functioning the way I intended and B: to see if my suspicion was verified. In fact the buck I wondered about was frequenting this location. So now I’ll leave that camera there for the rest of the year for pattern recognition and long term intel. If that cam had no pics of the target buck I would have either pulled that cam and moved it to another location or left it on the scrape to see at what point the use of the area changed.
 
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