So long story short went scouting on 3/14 found what I thought to be a good trail in some real nasty thick stuff. So I set a camera on it about 10 feet up. Went to check it yesterday and I got one picture... the day after I set it, then noting for a month and a half. Now I am at square one again after I got excited. I am not looking for a monster deer just a doe so I can finally get something. Any advice for where I should start? There is a creek going through the property and I just need some general scouting advice. Any help is appreciated.
Mid March deer sign stands out and stays around for a while. The ground is thawing out and typically soft and muddy. A few deer passing down the same trail once or twice a day for 4 or 5 days is going to look like a highway. You more than likely did quite a bit of walking through the area before you set that camera correct? Your scent was in there pretty good and a month is a relatively short time.
Deer are curious. My guess would be, the deer were probably using the area around the week you were in there, possibly even were jumped up and kicked out of that area when you came through scouting. After you set your camera they came back through smelled where you’d been and starting avoiding that spot. If there was a bunch of scent where you hung the camera, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still hanging in the general vicinity and just looping around your camera.
Also I’m guessing green up starting happening within a couple weeks of your camera being set. Which, like others already posted, would have effected their routine.
Cameras are your best friend 10 percent of the time and your worst enemy the other 90 percent. My advice for any new or relatively new deer hunter would be to use cameras sparingly if at all. Especially if you are targeting a doe or any legal deer rather then, say like a specific buck. The cameras are going to hurt more than help and you aren’t giving yourself enough credit if you don’t think you can figure out deer without cameras.
I don’t remember whether you said it was public or private land but if it’s public you have to remember that you have no idea who has been where. Any number of other people could have passed through the general area and further harassed those deer between when you set your camera and when you came back to check it. Maybe they just weren’t on camera. Something else to consider... I know I’ve had cameras set incorrectly where the deer were getting passed the camera. Like they were coming close enough to trigger but not getting their picture taken. Time and experience with your cameras is another factor.
Keep this in mind...
The best deer attractant in the world is human absence. Public or private land doesn’t matter when it comes to this. You might be on a 1000 acre property but if 950 acres of it is getting hunted regularly, the 50 acres that’s kind of off to the side where nobody ever thinks to go because it doesn’t make sense from a human perspective, is where the deer will most likely be. Just because you see sign and get nighttime pictures someplace doesn’t mean you will ever kill a deer there. I hunt one public land ag/farm area property where anybody walking through those fields and looking at the sign around the perimeter of it would be tempted to setup on the field edge and hunt it. It’s littered with sign. In 10+ years of hunting there I can count on one hand how many deer I’ve seen in those fields in daylight, in hunting season. Now, June, July, August when it’s a bean field, different story.
Keep after it. Listen to advice from other hunters but take the advice WITH A GRAIN OF SALT! I’ve never meant a hunter who told me he’s a bad a hunter and doesn’t know what he’s doing. Especially on the internet. On the internet everyone is an expert. The best hunters are usually self taught because they never learned bad habits from their Dad or Uncles and we’re told “this is how it’s done”.
Sorry if this is too long winded. Haha
