Best practices for camera/weather data analysis

[BTaylor]

Middle third. I can see why you asked though. At least I think I do. Late rut comment?

I looked at my data and I always like hunting around Thanksgiving, any time for that matter. It’s just a vibe, but not peak rut activity in my opinion. I would point to late October/early November. Maybe some doe fawns hit that sexual maturity weight in late November around Thanksgiving? What is it, 65 lbs for reproductive hormonal maturity to have a heat cycle?

Exactly what I was looking at. That rise in daytime pics corresponds with rut timing in SE AR pretty close. Peak breeding down there is Dec. 1st-10th. I agree it could certainly be second cycle influence in the central part of the state and even the northern part. Not sure about doe fawn breeding in the central part, havent hunted it enough to have a good feel for where the doe fawns would be body weight wise by the timing of your pics. Could be though.

 

[BTaylor]

Several years ago I went through all my trail camera photos of mature bucks and mapped the photos out with all the weather data I could find. I used weather underground’s historical weather feature. The photos were separated into groups based on location. I noted the apparent direction of travel, time of day, moon phase, current weather, immediate past and future weather, wind speed and direction and made note of any other details that seemed relevant. From all the data I compiled the most useful and Interesting intel i found was that there was a specific bedding area that mature bucks were very likely to go to around high speed wind events. Most of my other findings corroborated things I’d already been aware from field observations and scouting - such as the way conditions impact direction of travel in a particular area. Perhaps the most profound realization from my data mapping was that my system was inadequate. Using a single trail cam, or even a couple of trail cameras in one small area paints an incredibly limited picture. If I wanted to truly study the movement of mature bucks in a small area, I would need a fleet of trail cameras - and then compiling the data would become an increasingly daunting task.

As hunters I think anything we can do to expand our understanding of deer is valuable and potentially increases our odds for success. My own experience mapping deer behavior by comparing photographs with weather data proved to be very interesting and informative but also marked a shift in the amount of significance I placed on trail camera photos. Because I primarily hunt in places that are accessible to other hunters I’m not interested in using the amount of trail cameras that would be nessesary to conduct a more thorough study.

Kinda changed my post season scouting approach this year. Took the past 3 years of cam data and made note of the cams that had multiple bucks, esp. where I had multiple vids of the same buck as opposed to the cams where I only got one or two pics of one or two bucks. For the multiple buck cams, I re-map scouted those locations focusing on a roughly 600 acre area around the cam and scouted points of interest. That lead to finding multiple other likely locations where one or more of those bucks are travelling based on sign. For the other cams, I looked further out because my assumption was those cams were not within a core area and were either on the fringe of a core area or along the path of a long rut loop or core area change change path. I was much less successful in finding the sign I was looking for to zero in on those deer. I did find one funnel that looks like it could be promising but otherwise did a lot of hiking without much actionable intel to show for it.

 

[BeauWPS]

Several years ago I went through all my trail camera photos of mature bucks and mapped the photos out with all the weather data I could find. I used weather underground’s historical weather feature. The photos were separated into groups based on location. I noted the apparent direction of travel, time of day, moon phase, current weather, immediate past and future weather, wind speed and direction and made note of any other details that seemed relevant. From all the data I compiled the most useful and Interesting intel i found was that there was a specific bedding area that mature bucks were very likely to go to around high speed wind events. Most of my other findings corroborated things I’d already been aware from field observations and scouting - such as the way conditions impact direction of travel in a particular area. Perhaps the most profound realization from my data mapping was that my system was inadequate. Using a single trail cam, or even a couple of trail cameras in one small area paints an incredibly limited picture. If I wanted to truly study the movement of mature bucks in a small area, I would need a fleet of trail cameras - and then compiling the data would become an increasingly daunting task.

As hunters I think anything we can do to expand our understanding of deer is valuable and potentially increases our odds for success. My own experience mapping deer behavior by comparing photographs with weather data proved to be very interesting and informative but also marked a shift in the amount of significance I placed on trail camera photos. Because I primarily hunt in places that are accessible to other hunters I’m not interested in using the amount of trail cameras that would be nessesary to conduct a more thorough study.

How many cameras and how big of a parcel would be enough? For how long?

 

[BeauWPS]

Why are we running cameras? Do we want actionable intel or do we enjoy looking at pictures?

I enjoy viewing photos, but my objective is to gain some intel from that timestamp date. Otherwise the photo is just a history lesson. He was there. That’s all you know. (assuming you are not acting upon a cell cam photo immediately. I’m viewing photos that occurred months prior)

Hoping this group can pool our knowledge. There may be no explanation.

 

[Jammintree]

Kinda changed my post season scouting approach this year. Took the past 3 years of cam data and made note of the cams that had multiple bucks, esp. where I had multiple vids of the same buck as opposed to the cams where I only got one or two pics of one or two bucks. For the multiple buck cams, I re-map scouted those locations focusing on a roughly 600 acre area around the cam and scouted points of interest. That lead to finding multiple other likely locations where one or more of those bucks are travelling based on sign. For the other cams, I looked further out because my assumption was those cams were not within a core area and were either on the fringe of a core area or along the path of a long rut loop or core area change change path. I was much less successful in finding the sign I was looking for to zero in on those deer. I did find one funnel that looks like it could be promising but otherwise did a lot of hiking without much actionable intel to show for it.

How many cameras and how big of a parcel would be enough? For how long?

If we didn’t have snow I can imagine trail cameras would be more important to my process.

 

[BeauWPS]

If we didn’t have snow I can imagine trail cameras would be more important to my process.

I’ve always wanted to hunt snow. We don’t get much of it and when we get significant amounts there is no road preparation. Usually turns to ice overnight. I’ve never seen people buy so much milk, eggs and bread for a two-day weather event. It’s like they’re going to make french toast for a solid week.

 

[BeauWPS]

As far as my data goes I can say I didn’t find hardly any correlation to temperature, high low temp delta, barometric pressure, etc. Deer moved just as much when it was 80F as when it was 45F. Average humidity had no correlation to movement. It’s always humid in the South.

There is not much correlation between moon overhead vs moon underfoot. If there’s any correlation it was moonset or moonrise. I’d like to hang my 10 cameras this October and see how much data I can gather this fall.

The trend of more movement during the week days compared to weekends is expected and reflective of hunting pressure. I’ve always considered hunting midweek when most are working.

At this point the cameras have allowed me to take inventory of bucks while I plan for this fall.

 

[sureshotscott]

Related note I have tried fairly hard to get Claude to auto populate a spreadsheet based on a folder of trail cam pics with no success. Maybe one of these AIs can do that but I haven’t found it.

Where is the spreadsheet? Claude probably can't reach your data, because security.
You could ask Claude to write a script that does what you want. You would have to run the script to collect the data.

 

[BTaylor]

Why are we running cameras? Do we want actionable intel or do we enjoy looking at pictures?

I enjoy viewing photos, but my objective is to gain some intel from that timestamp date. Otherwise the photo is just a history lesson. He was there. That’s all you know. (assuming you are not acting upon a cell cam photo immediately. I’m viewing photos that occurred months prior)

Hoping this group can pool our knowledge. There may be no explanation.

I have been using 8-10 sd cams cause most of the places I have been putting them wont have cell service. I hang em and leave them for the season. I might check one or two at some point during the early season if I am close but just let them soak. I use video mode because it tells a little more of the story. For the past 3 seasons they have been spread out in an area of about 7500 acres. Drilling down though after last season narrowed my focus to about 1500 acres that's in a narrow but decently long rectangle'ish area. I scouted that area pretty significantly and located a decent handful of potential spots to hang cams this year and to hunt some.

 

[neonomad]

Where is the spreadsheet? Claude probably can't reach your data, because security.
You could ask Claude to write a script that does what you want. You would have to run the script to collect the data.

Multiple times it’s built a script to analyze the images in a folder, chugged on en for awhile, and the excel output was trash. Not saying it’s can’t but I haven’t got it to work. I’m not sure what you mean by it can’t reach the data…. folder or excel access hasn’t been the problem for me.

 

[BeauWPS]

I have been using 8-10 sd cams cause most of the places I have been putting them wont have cell service. I hang em and leave them for the season. I might check one or two at some point during the early season if I am close but just let them soak. I use video mode because it tells a little more of the story. For the past 3 seasons they have been spread out in an area of about 7500 acres. Drilling down though after last season narrowed my focus to about 1500 acres that's in a narrow but decently long rectangle'ish area. I scouted that area pretty significantly and located a decent handful of potential spots to hang cams this year and to hunt some.

This is the first year I’ll be running all video mode. Some of my cameras are older or cheaper so no audio. Some are newer and cellular. All should pull video in AVI format and tested that. I already built a spreadsheet for 2026 with solar and lunar times. Would just need to enter the info on the date the video was taken.

 

[sureshotscott]

Multiple times it’s built a script to analyze the images in a folder, chugged on en for awhile, and the excel output was trash. Not saying it’s can’t but I haven’t got it to work. I’m not sure what you mean by it can’t reach the data…. folder or excel access hasn’t been the problem for me.

OK, you solved for access. I believe Excel should be able to read a CSV file. Try asking Claude to generate CSV data from your images, then see if Excel can consume that.

 

[BTaylor]

This is the first year I’ll be running all video mode. Some of my cameras are older or cheaper so no audio. Some are newer and cellular. All should pull video in AVI format and tested that. I already built a spreadsheet for 2026 with solar and lunar times. Would just need to enter the info on the date the video was taken.

Most of my cams are 10+ year old moultries. I dont really care about audio but that might be interesting at times.

 

[neonomad]

OK, you solved for access. I believe Excel should be able to read a CSV file. Try asking Claude to generate CSV data from your images, then see if Excel can consume that.

It’s writing to Excel, the underlying issue is it’s highly time consuming and at the end of it the translation of the images to anything useful has been non existent.

 

[sureshotscott]

It’s writing to Excel, the underlying issue is it’s highly time consuming and at the end of it the translation of the images to anything useful has been non existent.

OK then, good luck.