Summer
Heading into the 2013 shotgun deer season, there are always high hopes among the group of the big bucks they had been seeing. After the first four days, they hadn’t seen “the big one”. After a phone call from a neighbor it was confirmed, that buck was dead since bow season. After talking to the guys that had been seeing this deer, come to find out it was early November when he was last seen.
Had they kept running their cameras throughout the year would they have known not to waste 4 days chasing a deer that wasn’t there?
Over Scrapes
Now I for one, run my cameras until I notice deer start to shed antlers. You can learn so much through the year by watching the deer and keeping your cameras active. I rotate my cameras from mineral licks early in the summer for an inventory list, to the trails during early season, then to scrapes as the rut gets to kicking in. After the scrapes start to die down, most people pull their cameras for lack of activity. I tend to move my cameras back into staging areas, and onto trails that I know the deer use heavily for escape routes before the gun seasons open.
Winter – Over Feed
Finally I move my cameras after the season to feeders to collect inventory and see what “hit-list” bucks made it through. By keeping your cameras active and rotating them around, you can keep tabs on your deer and know what is using the area on a regular basis. After I started running my cameras throughout the season, I started to become more successful by not wasting time where the deer were not at. So this next year, give it a shot and see if it helps you tip the odds in your favor.
