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My first target buck, and how do I use trail cams??

Hunter260

Hunter260

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2019
Messages
1,585
Location
Ash Flat, AR
I’ve never really used cameras, but have put a couple out on the farm I’m hunting. My question for you all is how best do I use the info I gain from them? I know I shouldn’t check them everyday no matter how bad I want to, and I don’t think I’ll be checking them again until I hunt there. This cam is right under my stand.
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I used to hunt a private 40 acres. I would use them to see what was on the property, what came around and when. I learned 2 of the stands I had set up, one was fantastic in the AM, but nothing showed up in the evening until dark, where the other stand was terrible in the am, but from noon on, it was fire.

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You’ve got a good start. That pic is august, I’d check the cam one more time before season, mid September. Then go home and start data collection. Compare the dates and times you saw yer buck to weather patterns. Look at the prevailing wind patterns on the days you have him on cam and also the days you don’t. Observe the weather, especially pressure changes and drops. Look at the direction he’s coming from and the direction he’s going. Put yourself in his place and think like he thinks. Resist the urge to drop corn or some flavored powders, bucks aren’t dumb and they’ll be cautious of sudden changes. Once you’ve got a good picture of his pattern, hunt the wind. If the wind isn’t favorable, don’t hunt him. If you do and he winds you all you’ll do is educate him. It’s a game of chess. Be the chess master
 
To be honest, the only thing you can do is compile data from one cam (if that is all you have) and give it your best shot. Right wind, weather, pressure, phase, whole 9. Look into every single detail and watch his body language/movements.

No one person can actually give you a tactical game plan based on a couple pictures and no property intel. Remember to never let your cameras fool you, they miss stuff too, and don't hunt cold sign just because you got a couple pictures in one spot of a buck. Ask me how I know?!

Figure out why he is there and when using every angle you can. Good luck and I hope you connect.

Good trail cam tip: If you don't connect and he makes it to next season, hunt around the times you had him on camera from the previous year. A few days before and a few days after. Big bucks usually hold true to their patterns year to year!
 
To me, all that a camera tells you this time of year is whats around for bucks. That buck probably is not going to be in that immediate area come October 1 if that is when your opening day is. Where I hunt our early archery opens on September 12th this year and I have a bigger buck than this one on camera. I might sit where he is coming out now but I also have a stand a couple hundred yards away where there is a certain white oak that is loaded this year, The acorns will be dropping hard by the opener and I think that will be the best place to kill him. I missed a nice 8 pointer from that stand several years ago when that tree was producing lots of acorns.
 
@DroptineKrazy makes a good point. That dude might be gone come season. But you might also have another come cruising through! I also have a farm I hunt, I get one pic of a buck on camera and have done so for 5 years. Just one, and he’s gone. Don’t see him again till season
 
You know he's on the property so try to now determine where he is bedding most of the time. Identify the thickest cover or the most overlooked cover or areas and begin to identify those AREAS as his primary bedding location(s) if you identify more than one. From that point, try to find travel areas or corridors he may use based on sign (old and new) and tracks. Typically his most used bedding area will be based on the predominate winds in your area. If you have some terrain where you hunt ie hills, ridges, swales, deep creek cuts, these effect thermal flow and also are helpful in predicting bedding areas. They like to bed facing an area they can see well with the wind at their backs but also thermals. Thermals rise in the morning as temperatures increase and reverse or settle down the hill as the sun settles and the earth begins to cool. Typically on an early season hunt where they are still on somewhat of a predictable pattern, you can slip in to an area within 75 to 100 yards of the general bedding area you think he is at and set up to intercept him coming to the feed fields or area. You have to get to that area very stealthily and try to find a ditch or small creek to travel in or low area with cover downwind. The trick is working with the wind and thermals. Sometimes you can side hill them knowing he is bedding in a certain area, if the general wind direction is from the SW and you are approaching a hillside bedding area from the north, depending on the sign and trails, the thermals may be going up the hill and the wind is still right but the thermals are technically wrong but say there is a field edge or other terrian feature that pushes this buck to bed further east, so to speak. When you enter for the evening to set up on him, approach from the west side hill or side terrain even though your thermals are rising toward the bedding area, you can figure maybe 50 yards from a field edge or so you know you can still move in as thermals will hopefully miss his bedding area but allow you to still slip in and set up. As the evening progresses, the thermals will shift to going downhill and because the general wind is right, you should be in ok shape to see some deer movement. Hopefully you will be set up on a crossing or a cover transition that he likes to use to move toward feeding that puts him within range. This is how I try to approach my early and prerut settups but its easier to sit here and type this out like some kind of keyboard master but so many variables come into play as well. I like Exhumis's advice on noting and trying to identify when he is traveling based on temperature, wind direction etc. This requires some digging but gives you data that helps predict to some degree this bucks future movement patterns. I hope this helps.
 
Can you get a vantage point far enough away to try and glass him in the evening with out spooking him? Maybe
 
A summer time pic of a buck does very little to help know anything about what he is or will be doing in the fall. Just nice to know that he's in the general area.
 
If I had killed all the tanks I had August pictures of... A lot of people would know who I was lol. Some bucks are homebodies and some aren't. It's hard to age them from summer pics, but that deer is obviously mature. I have seen quite a few of them shrink their ranges as they get older, just like people. Personally, I'd dive in and try to find his bed. Be that in season or now. While I don't think you can spook them a bunch, that's the only way to figure him out. I'd also recommend not getting married to a set. Being mobile will increase your odds anywhere, not just public. As mentioned earlier, if you walk in and see a tree dropping acorns and the sign is hot. Then hunt it. If you have history on the farm hunt him wherever you've seen mature deer in the past, big bucks like what they like. But there's not really any absolutes.
 
will4554 said:
As mentioned earlier, if you walk in and see a tree dropping acorns and the sign is hot. Then hunt it.
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Excellent advise! I have one place I hunt that this is the only way I know where I'm going to sit. Sometimes it's 50 yards in the woods, others its way in the back. Just walk in listening for falling acorns, check out the sign under that tree and sit or more on.
 
DroptineKrazy said:
To me, all that a camera tells you this time of year is whats around for bucks. That buck probably is not going to be in that immediate area come October 1 if that is when your opening day is. Where I hunt our early archery opens on September 12th this year and I have a bigger buck than this one on camera. I might sit where he is coming out now but I also have a stand a couple hundred yards away where there is a certain white oak that is loaded this year, The acorns will be dropping hard by the opener and I think that will be the best place to kill him. I missed a nice 8 pointer from that stand several years ago when that tree was producing lots of acorns.
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Holdin' out on me?! Hahaha
 
I had a deer living out back of my old place before I moved that I got pics of 4 years in a row. He was a giant. Started as a big eight and the last pic I got of him he was a 13 point monster. Definitely 160 class or more. 4 Years in a row I got pics but he would disappear just before the season and I wouldn't see him again until the following summer. I thought I saw him once during the season about a mile from the house but it was just at dark so I wasn't sure it was him.
 
Go listen to Working Class Bowhunters podcast with Mark Drury. Episode 380. Mark gives great information on scouting and using trail cameras.
 
DroptineKrazy said:
I had a deer living out back of my old place before I moved that I got pics of 4 years in a row. He was a giant. Started as a big eight and the last pic I got of him he was a 13 point monster. Definitely 160 class or more. 4 Years in a row I got pics but he would disappear just before the season and I wouldn't see him again until the following summer. I thought I saw him once during the season about a mile from the house but it was just at dark so I wasn't sure it was him.
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This is typically the story of my hunting life!!!
 
HuntNorthEast said:
I think it's everyone's story at one point or another!
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i have one spot that sees a lot of summer time bucks, but my favorite spot has no good bucks on cam in the summer. Then at the beginning of the pre-rut phase, all the bucks start showing up

my spot with summer bucks, it all comes down to the bedding area, year over year mature bucks claim the same bedding area, as the seasons change and the greenery dries up, food sources are all in one place which usually attracts th does, which in turn attracts the bucks. I set up between bedding and food and usually catch mature bucks on the cruise. @Hunter260 take the advice above from @woodsdog2 and @will4554 regarding bedding. The bedding area is usually small and it’s either an overgrown thicket, pine grove, swamp island, somewhere they have multiple exits, feel safe from minimal traffic can see and most importantly smell things coming, I’ve found bedding areas are often at a transition in the woods field to woods, small woods to big timber, thicket to big woods, etc. and the mature bucks set Up facing the prevailing wind.

once you’ve nailed his bed. Think about the does, where are the does eating during the rut? Bucks get stupid, if you can put yourself between him and the does your probability goes way up. If there is an ag field nearby or a food plot, set up between a&b.
 
I’d limit intrusion at all costs. So that means field edge and ridge top camera sets away from bedding.
Putting a camera by your stand is risky in my opinion because some deer seem to avoid them, but some seem to not care
 
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