Game Cameras

[FishDFly]

How many folks use game cameras?

I have 5 of them placed around the ranch and find them very interesting. I find deer on them that I did not know that were there. I had one very a-typical deer that I was interested in but I could not pattern him. He would be on one camera and then disappear for a week.

I found a scrape a half mile from his location and put up a camera and he showed up on it, but again no pattern. Hogs moved into the location and as soon as we put in a hog trap, he moved back to his original location.

The deer is for the most part a nocturnal deer. I have seen him once in the daylight at about 600 yards. I spent hunting one deer over 30 days this year and would not know about him if not for the cameras.

I have learned a lot about our deer by watching the moon phase and the temps. and the number of pictures taken.

What I have learned from the cameras is that some deer are not killable.

 

[wattlebuster]

+1 :thumbsup:

 

[robert reed]

What is traditional about game cameras?
In 2010 I hunted some big buck sign that I had found every free day during the season. When he show up, following a doe, it was the first deer I had seen from that location. Two months of weekends and any days off. 131" 8 point at 10 yards.
This past season I hunted similar sign. Saw him one time during NDN season (bow and arrow). He made a rub at 120 yards from me. If I had a CF rifle he would have been mine. With a ML, probably not.
I have never used cameras and won't. The mystery of what made the sign is my favorite part. Reading sign and patience are hunting skills that my father taught me. I have gone buckless, but never meatless.

 

[Carl Fowler III]

Won't use em for killing game...the name of the game is hunting not spying! What's next...using drones to follow em around to find their bedding and feeding areas? I hunt for game by getting out in the woods and looking for sign, before, during, and after the seasons are over. Rarely will I even get into treestands as I like to remain mobile to shift with what the changing sign is currently telling me. Besides...having the unknown confront me is part of the charm of hunting. :v

 

[Robert Egler]

What's next...using drones to follow em around to find their bedding and feeding areas?

I have actually read a hunting article recently that was proposing doing just that! :shocked2: :shake:

I use a game camera to get some wildlife photos, but never to plan a hunt. Every summer I take 6 weeks off and go fishing/hiking. I noticed some fox tracks a few years ago near where I fish, so I started throwing one fish up on the bank each day I was fishing, which is always gone the next day. Last summer I decided to see what my fox friend looked like, so I used a game camera. Here she is. (She I think because sometimes there are little fox tracks accompanying her).

By the way, I fish with a home-made bamboo rod.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I use them to control poachers, not worry about the game...I've gotten some nice game photos too...but mostly it's to catch human encroachers.

LD

 

[Rat Trapper]

I like collecting pictures of critters on my farm. At the end of the season,my wife puts the pictures we save on a DVD so we can look at them again later as well as sharing with friends. this past year I got a nice picture of a bear. I feel trail cameras have value.

 

[smo]

I think ol' Dan'l would have used them if they would have been available :haha: After all he did shoot a rock lock instead of a match lock just to show he was a modern kind of guy. :grin:

 

[roundball]

:grin:
I'm always amazed at threads like these which make claims of something being non-traditional, when reality is I'm pretty sure modern vehicles are involved getting us to/from our hunting areas instead of mules/horses...modern hunting clothes/boots are involved...modern knives are involved...Gore-Tex raingear, etc...the list goes on and on.
I don't happen to use game cameras because I hunt the same places every year and just play the cards that the deer gods deal me...but take no issue with anyone elses way of hunting.
I do use photography equipment however and since that great shot of a Red Fox was shared with us, I'll share one of a hunter with his prey.

 

[Robert Egler]

That is a great picture! :hatsoff:

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have friends that use them, most admit they are somewhat addictive.

On the bow sites people get downright defensive if you say the cameras are doing their hunting for them, which in fact they are.

One guy stated emphatically that he only used his cameras to show him where not to hunt, pretty screwy logic in my opinion. That was until a 12 point showed up on one of his cameras every day at noon, at which point he set up an ambush and killed the deer.

I don't use them and never will. Strangely, I kill more deer than the guys I hunt with that spent their woods time monitoring their cameras.

I spend my woods time covering every nook and cranny of the land I hunt as well as building natural material ground blinds in the places I discover on my scouting trips.

 

[Patocazador]

I don't have access to private land so I've never used them. I don't relish losing a $100 camera every month. I admit I would probably use one if I had private land so it's just as well that I don't.
They just don't seem fair.

Montana and Alaska have outlawed drones for use as hunting aids and rightfully so.

 

[Spikebuck]

Since the topic is game cameras, this post will be pic-heavy! :grin:

Game cameras, to me, are about a LOT more than hunting. Having "eyes" in the woods 24 x 7 helps you learn a lot about wildlife and in general just provides many, many hours of fun viewing what comes off those cameras.

I have been using them for many years...I have not killed an animal yet simply because of their use and frankly, I've never patterned anything that came in at a certain time every day. And even if it did...did I not have to scout and "hunt" to know where to best position that camera to verify what is there? You just don't walk into the woods and put a camera just anywhere hoping something happens by! :shake:

Anyway...on to some pics:

Last year I had a camera on a huge scrape that is very active each year. Most all of the activity is nocturnal, some during daylight. Many of you who study deer may remember that not too many years ago the "ex-spurts" would proclaim that a scrape is A buck's territorial marker and woe be to any other deer around there. Of course this thinking was all wrong. I had about 3000 pictures in a little over a week that showed over a dozen different bucks working the scrape and overhead licking branches. And yes...there were also fights right there. I always knew that does would urinate in the scrape, but what surprised me is how many doe pictures I had of them also working the overhead branches! Something learned. Doesn't do "thing one" to help me hunt...but it's something I can now show happens without a doubt.


West 1 101014 1 by fillmorelease


West 1 100414 5 by fillmorelease

And of course the bucks on it too:

West 1 100514 9 by fillmorelease

Imagine my surprise when I had pictures of a young bull moose hundreds of miles outside of it's range. I had seen some tracks, but dismissed them as someone's cow gone astray. I sent the pics into Minnesota Outdoor News and they published an article on it since it is so rare for a moose to be this far south and east in Minnesota.

:hmm: That had nothing to do with hunting....

Tipper T Plot 101214 BULL MOOSE by fillmorelease

One of my cameras was in front of an old stump that a local owl frequently seemed to like as a perch. I was thrilled to see this picture show up of its successful hunt! Pretty darned cool, IMO. Didn't help me hunt better myself though.

071314 911 Owl with Mouse by fillmorelease

Being a "student of the whitetail" I learn a lot from all the interaction between deer. Mommy deer kicking their little bambi's violently should all be sent to the PETA types to show how their "Hollywood" attitudes are so wrong. But I also find aggressive buck posturing interesting...especially WAY before rut:

051414 Hourglass Mineral Lick Posturing Already by fillmorelease

I like to hunt for sheds...though in all honesty I'm really bad at it. Last weekend, however, I found a very large three-point right side. Going back through my trailcams I could see what buck they belonged to and now I know he made it through the hunting seasons. Won't help me kill him, but cool to know he may still be around next year....OR NOT. Many never show up again.

Middle Plot 101214 by fillmorelease

I also found it interesting that that "G2" was broken off part way up very early...not a "rut-fight" but something else.

013115 Antler Find by the Creek by fillmorelease

While I have had a few pictures of Bobcats, which are fairly rare in my area, I learned I have a breeding population as evidenced by this mother and kitten.

Tipper T Plot 102614 2 Two Bobcats by fillmorelease

And yes, I have shot bucks that were on camera. I had pictures of this guy in his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year. NONE in his 5th year when I shot him and not where any previous pictures had been taken. I also think that he was a 5x6 the year before as the bends and configurations are so identical...and as a 5x5 when I shot him he has a slight "protrusion" of sorts like that last point on the left wanted to grow again, but didn't. Either that, or it's Daddy or a brother.





And then there are bucks I killed with no pictures at all...oh yes... I can hunt and kill without cameras....but they are so much fun!!!

Here's a late muzzleloader buck never seen with 30,000 - 40,000 pics on the property during the year.

911 Buck by fillmorelease

This one was with a bow at 20 yards:



So, in "short," people can say what they want...cameras are just plain cool things for those that want to play around with them. My personal belief is that they don't directly result in much additional harvest...certainly nowhere near that driven by the use of portal treestands! But they are a great, fun learning tool. To each his/her own.

 

[Robert Egler]

Those are really great pictures, thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

"...certainly nowhere near that driven by the use of portal treestands!..."

:thumbsup:
...or camo clothes, camo blinds, scent attractants, scent blockers, rattling horns, grunt calls, salt, bait, cornfields, apple orchards, food plots, etc, etc...and the list goes on.

 

[hanshi]

I guess to be PC/HC a camera would have to be the pin hole type? :idunno:

 

[satx78247]

And to All,

A fellow in Hudspeth County Texas put-up game cameras all over his ranch last Fall & in the month of November 14, he got/counted the following results:

41 deer (11 bucks)
1 puma
2 ringtails
6 raccoons
11 possums
8 bobcats
22 coyotes
34 feral hogs
14 feral burros
Too MANY rabbits, birds, armadillos & squirrels to count
AND
884 humans passing through his land, on their way North.

The landowner found his results: INTERESTING.
(His results were reported to the DPS, Texas Rangers, The HCSO & the Texas Border Volunteers.)

yours, satx

 

[Archer 756]

:hmm: Game Cameras work great on getting the ones that don't hunt by the LAW !! :hatsoff:

 

[longcruise]

Montana and Alaska have outlawed drones for use as hunting aids and rightfully so.

Add Colorado to that list.

I guess to be PC/HC a camera would have to be the pin hole type?

There ya go. Guess we would have to stand there all day to uncoover the pin hole. Shucks, think I'll take my gun along. :haha:

Spike bucks pics show how much fun these cameras can be. I'm also in the school of not using them to hunt, but if others do, thats their right.

For me, it would be a 200 mile round trip to put a camera where I hunt :shocked2:

They look like a lot of fun and maybe someday I'll get one but not as a hunting aid.

 

[biliff]

I guess to be PC/HC a camera would have to be the pin hole type? :idunno:

I think you'ld have to hire a sketch artist to sit in the woods and draw a buck to be truly PC/HC.