Trail cams spooking deer

[Mschmeiske]

So I wanted to talk to about cams Scaring deer. Over the years I’ve noticed some don’t seem as bothered, but others get real frantic and high tail it! I pretty much know what I’ve got around now, so I was wondering if I’m better off pulling cams to be safe. My only concern is missing a possible pattern or new faces, but maybe I should just let that be a surprise. What’s a photo anyway? I’d rather be holding some antlers. Although, I must admit, they do give me some confidence at times. Anyway, just curious about others experiences and opinions. Thanks!

 

[Topdog]

This will be a good thread.... Lots of opinions on this, I feel the same as you, so much so I won’t put a camera anywheres in my core area where I plan to hunt, rather I survey the outside edge with cameras away from my stand spots, and I always pull them a week before north rifle NY season opens, usually on my way in to hunt the first time with a muzzleloader, I was using trail cameras when they were film and not digital.

 

[Jtaylor]

I'm with ya, I didn't put any out this year. I'm sure with cell cams and longer battery life it's less of an issue but I don't have that type of money to spend. I used to hang em pretty high up in the tree and angle them down and didn't have an issue with spooking deer but then again you're putting your scent in there, possibly bumping deer, etc. I'll just go back to the areas I see deer often from years past, look for good sign and see what I see.

 

[heretic]

I've found that when I hang my cameras high, I typically get more pictures and less pictures of deer looking straight into the camera. I've also heard stories of mature deer skirting just behind cameras. I don't find cameras very useful in the short term, but invaluable for establishing long term trends.

 

[ericabbott]

In my experience with trail cams, deer and especially black bear seem to know the camera is there, even long after I have set the camera (e.g., more than an month). Not sure if it’s making some noise they hear, or they notice the camera light. For that reason I don’t put the camera near my tree stand locations, but on the edge and preferably on a route to my stand location so I can swap cards in season without tramping all over the place.

 

[Topdog]

In my experience with trail cams, deer and especially black bear seem to know the camera is there, even long after I have set the camera (e.g., more than an month). Not sure if it’s making some noise they hear, or they notice the camera light. For that reason I don’t put the camera near my tree stand locations, but on the edge and preferably on a route to my stand location so I can swap cards in season without tramping all over the place.

I put a camera on a scrape next to a loud river bank to test this, whether it was noise or they see it, this water is so loud you wouldn’t hear a phone ring, the camera wasn’t high about 2 or 3 feet, it still spooked the hell out of them, in this scenario they definitely were seeing it, browning sub micro.

 

[EricS]

As cameras advance they seem less bothered by the flash. I have been trying to set my cams about 12’ high and it seems to help them not be noticed by deer. I’ll leave mine out this fall and winter. I make it a point to only pull cards when walking by the camera to get to my hunting spot. I don’t hang around and scan through the pictures.

 

[Exhumis]

I've found that when I hang my cameras high, I typically get more pictures and less pictures of deer looking straight into the camera. I've also heard stories of mature deer skirting just behind cameras. I don't find cameras very useful in the short term, but invaluable for establishing long term trends.

Same. I'll run a camera until I've got them patterned and then I'll pull my cameras. I also hang them pretty high, 10 ft so I don't get deer spooking much

 

[Mschmeiske]

I just checked them the other day, but ya got me wondering if I should just pull them this weekend and let it all cool for a month before the October opener here. Unless I can put them away from where I plan to hunt...some spots are very small areas tho.

 

[Apex7]

I killed my biggest buck within 20 yards of my camera. I had a picture of that buck with his nose 4 inches away from the camera. He was a 4 1/2 year old P&Y buck . So no problem with leaving them out.

 

[Dewey]

I hang my cams 8-10 feet high and they never seem to bother deer. When I put them at eye level that’s asking for trouble and deer get spooked by them all the time.

 

[woodsdog2]

So I wanted to talk to about cams Scaring deer. Over the years I’ve noticed some don’t seem as bothered, but others get real frantic and high tail it! I pretty much know what I’ve got around now, so I was wondering if I’m better off pulling cams to be safe. My only concern is missing a possible pattern or new faces, but maybe I should just let that be a surprise. What’s a photo anyway? I’d rather be holding some antlers. Although, I must admit, they do give me some confidence at times. Anyway, just curious about others experiences and opinions. Thanks!

If your camera allows it put it on "plot watcher mode" to cover the suspected feeding areas and then you can set up farther away and see what's hitting the fields or feed areas and when, without being right on top of a trail. You'll still get useful data but not be flashing their eyes each time or having the camera make a slight noise as it goes off. This is heavily dependent on the model. I don't have many cameras but one really makes a sound when it goes off. This one I like to use for plot watcher.

 

[DroptineKrazy]

My season starts Sept. 12th and I pulled most of my cameras 2 weeks ago. I have a couple still out around the house but I pulled the ones near my best set ups. I already had a pretty good idea what's around for bucks but I do like to see what survived the winter and see how much they have grown. I have a couple of very nice bucks in my area and knowing whats out there makes me leave a nice warm bed when it's 15 degrees out and some days sit from daylight till dark. I admit I can't handle that like I used to though

 

[Tr33_n1nj@]

I ain’t saying it was the camera, but I ain’t not saying it was the camera. I pulled that one and will be hanging them higher when possible from now on. You know, just in case.

 

[DroptineKrazy]

Huh. Never had one do that but I have pics of a brute sniffing my camera and walking off. Some big old mature does too.

 

[GCTerpfan]

In my opinion the thing most likely to spook deer is a camera that makes an audible "click" when it takes a picture, followed by a camera that has a visible flash, even IR flashes.

I had one camera that clicked every it took a picture. I have several daylight pictures like @Tr33_n1nj@ above where a three shot burst gives me one pic of the deer, a second pick of the deer looking at the camera, and a third pic of a tail.

I also used to get several pics and video of deer looking at IR flash camera and then leaving, although not quite as quickly as when they hear a camera click. Since I have been using only black flash cameras and hanging them 8' plus high, I haven't had any pictures of deer being spooked by a camera.

 

[woodsdog2]

The other thing with cameras spooking deer is residual scent left behind by checking them too frequently for walk in checks. I try to spray down with scent elimination spray (I carry a small bottle in my pack which also has extra batteries, extra SD Cards, a poncho, my handgun etc. extra straps or I've been using 16 gauge black annealed trappers tie wire for some of my cameras for years. I carry a coil of that in the pack too. A Leatherman on the waist belt cuts this smaller diameter wire. Of course my stick and aider to get them up high. I haven't locked any cameras yet but I try to find secluded spots to put them up high for my public land locations. I limit checking them to one day every two weeks and try to go in around mid day. You can buy the scent elimination wipes but I just use non scented baby wipes to wipe down the actual camera after I've touched it or set it up. You can get by not having to wipe it down when you check it by wearing a pair of thin gloves but I still spray the area after. I'm not looney about this but I do try to keep my scent footprint to a minimum so the deer think it is a harmless passerby. I haven't watched the wind when checking because I'm not hunting then would rather them understand something is coming in and they can just casually leave instead of spooking them out. Of course cellular trail cams would eliminate a lot of this monkeying around but I haven't invested in any of those yet. I was strongly considering it this year but I haven't yet. On my private land spots I try to set them up and check them by staying right on my four wheeler.

 

[John Eberhart]

Excellent discussion (for the most part) and it makes a huge difference on the type of property you hunt and area you're in. I have always exclusively hunted heavily pressured public and free knock on doors for permission which is also heavily pressured because they typically let anyone hunt. Also hunt in Michigan which is the most heavily bowhunted state in the country and it's extremely rare that I use camera's in Michigan. Obviously no matter what state you hunt in, if your hunting a descent sized piece of managed property where there are antler size or age kill criteria's before a buck can be engaged to kill, by the time they reach the kill criteria status they have passed by hunters while growing up with zero consequences and obviously have a higher tolerance of human odor, intrusions and camera's hanging on trees.

At home I let the destination location I hunt work on the merits I chose it for in the first place as I choose locations with adequate perimeter and transition security cover and most are at hubs of doe activity such as mast and fruit trees, pinch points within transition corridors, terrain feature dumps, etc.. As long as you're hunting where the does pass through or feed, you're going to attract the best bucks on the property if there are any good ones. Cameras used at home DEFINITELY spook mature bucks that have been targeted since their first set of antlers by the vast majority of hunters in the area. If camera's as properly put up and used in a transition zone where deer are moving past with a pace, and the camera's are satellite camera's that do not require visits to check, then you can use them from before to after season without physical human intrusions which also spook deer because most hunter leave a human scent ribbon behind. In 2014 I did use a camera to locate a 10 point buck that I took on opening morning, but most frequently when I did use them for a couple years at home I would get one pic of a 2 1/2 year or older buck on camera, and never see them on camera again as they pic'd the camera just as they look for and pic bow hunters in tree's.

On the other hand when I've went to Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Illinois, I used camera's and physically checked them every day without consequence because there was far less pressure and in those states most of the hunters are still targeting big bucks only so it is somewhat like managed areas. I will also admit that in Kansas, we've taken a few great bucks that had obviously been scent checking the primary scrape areas from downwind (we could tell by the way they came in that it wasn't their first time), but were not on the camera's and attached is a pic of one of them.

I just got a couple cell Exodus camera's to try here in Michigan and am looking forward to hanging them high and with a Cranford 2nd Ops camera mount which doesn't have an obvious strap around the tree to garner attention as well. There is a definite advantage of knowing when and in what location a mature buck may be frequenting.

 

[GCTerpfan]

Also, to add to my comment above. I typically put cameras out in late June and leave them until two weeks before season, which in MD is usually the last week of August. I then go in and on my private property will swap the cards but on public I completely remove the camera. I only go back to that spot to hunt after that, assuming the camera showed me something worth hunting. On my private property, I will swap the card again only if I am passing by hunting and usually only once or twice more all year.

I will also put out cameras in early October in funnels/pinch points and will leave those until the end of the year. I use that info the following year. I do believe cameras can be a hunters worst enemy if checked frequently.

 

[IkemanTX]

DONT GIVE UP ON THEM!!!!!

I’m sure I’m behind on this thread as I didn’t read all the way through,but I have worked REALLY hard over the last several years finding the least conspicuous trail cam setups for both deer and humans.

1. I only run Black flash cameras. White and red flash cameras are visible to both humans and deer, and I have seen even low glow red spook deer.

2. Set cameras high... I mean like stand on the top of a stick kind of high. I started doing this because I hunt a lot of floodplain, and I needed 10-12 feet minimum to stay above water during flood events. It just so happened to pull the camera up and out of view of people and deer alike.

3. No strap around the tree!!!!! I find dozens and dozens of other hunter’s cameras every year. Almost without fail, the first thing that catches my attention is the strap around the tree trunk. I use a DIY screw in mount made from a lag eye screw and eye bolt that threads into the 1/4-20 mount on the bottom of the cam. The plans for it can be found all over the internet.

4. Whenever possible, I point the camera north. From a photography perspective, this puts the sun (which leans south) behind the camera, reduces shadows, and helps simplify the camera’s exposure guesswork.

5. Don’t point towards a “hot spot”: Modern cameras typically have a thermal/motion sensor as opposed to a purely motion only sensor. It requires both movement AND a thermal detection to trigger. If most of your picture frame is dark shades, but one area is solidly direct sunlight... all you need is a grass or leaf to move to complete the picture trigger. Either mostly direct sunlight in frame, or almost entirely shaded. I forgot this rule and just wasted 1,800 pictures of a sunlit spot on a ridge line with only 20-30 deer pics.

6. Lithium batteries: I pony up the extra coin for Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries for a few reasons. First, their total MaH is unrivaled... they will last longer that any alkaline or nickle metal hydride. Second, the outperform all other chemistries in cold weather, no questions asked. Third, the voltages stay at “full” all the way until they are almost dead. This means the camera’s electronics are performing at their absolute peak the entire time, not just the first 10% of battery life. (This can cause a crazy sensitive/fast triggers in some cameras, so I run video mode instead of picture mode)

7. Fast memory cards: I don’t use anything slower than 100mbs write speed cards. This makes your recovery times between pictures/videos much faster, and reduces corrupted files. Also, any time you put a memory card into a camera, perform a “delete all” function on the camera. This automatically formats the card and further reduces corrupt file problems.

8. Video mode: I have ABSOLUTELY fallen in love with video mode. You get SO much more info out of your trail cameras that way. I can’t tell you how many times it has been make or break to know if a deer meets antler restrictions here or not (13” inside spread). It also can let you see hard to discern features that can make identifying bucks easier.

9. And finally, off season care: I pull all cameras after antler drop. They all get cobwebs and dust brushed off with a clean painters brush, batteries and battery trays removed (trays taped to the back so I don’t lose them). They all get put into an airtight container with moisture absorbers (desiccant packets) from random items we buy that include them in the box.

Bonus.... I always coat my trail cameras in permethrin when first putting them out in the summer. It keeps spiders and ants from taking up residence in/on them. I am considering also spraying them yearly with a matte clear UV protection paint to prolong the color on the case.

I end up with some pretty awesome quality videos/pictures for $120 cameras

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