By Dan Gorman
This is the time of year I consider the trail camera off season. The carcass cam has run its course. There are a handful of bucks still holding antlers but most have shed, and I can only look at so many pictures of does and shed bucks, regardless of the scenery. I could probably get after some turkeys with them, trying to lock down some patterns, but I prefer to go after other interesting subjects. In the past I have run cameras over various holes in the ground, holes in trees, a random old pipe that a fox was frequenting, and even in my chicken house monitoring predators. This year as I was walking around checking a couple small areas for sheds, I came across a couple spots that looked like they needed further investigation. The first was a den in a brushy strip between a railroad track and a quarry. I’ve had the camera on it for a few days now, and I’m disappointed to say I think it’s just a raccoon den. I did get a picture of a nice gobbler, a small buck still holding antlers on March 27, and a very pregnant doe. I was really hoping for a fox, and would have still been happy with a coyote. I’ll give it a few more days, but if things don’t change, that camera will need to find a new home. The second spot was along a small creek where it was obvious a beaver had been working a good sized tree. I set the camera, but unfortunately the wind picked up that afternoon and blew the tree partially down.
I left the camera just to see if the beaver would come back, but so far I’ve only seen a cat and a raccoon. There is another tree about fifty yards away from this one, but it looks like it hasn’t been chewed on in a while. I’ll also give this location a few more days, and if it doesn’t produce, I will relocate that camera as well. Even though these spots aren’t working out like I had hoped, it is still a better option for me to be trying to get quality pictures of not-so-targeted animals than to let the cameras sit on a shelf or take thousands of pictures of antlerless deer. If you have the cameras, you might as well use them, regardless of the target animal.
