In the waning years of my association with D&DH, I asked the blunt question: are game cameras really worth it? The answers I got were surprisingly honest. What it came down to was that everyone loved the eye candy. However, you had to be fairly dedicated to it to get actionable intelligence.
The guy who had the best success was running 6 cameras per 100 acres and tending them several times a week. He admitted it was a hobby unto itself. The buck selection was rather paltry at our farm for a few years, but the herd started turning around about 4 years ago. Last summer, I started seeing decent bucks on my camera. The result was that in 2016 we all had our buck tags filled with nice mature bucks on the Opener. None of them were fellows I’d seen on the camera, but you could see a trend building. Of course you could also see it by glassing the pastures that summer or scouting the edges of those pastures in October. Sign was everywhere. We knew were were going to have a good season.
This year? The Eye Candy has been extremely good, but so have all the other signs. Here is a recent set of pics gleaned off the camera.
It comes down to two ways of looking at buck behavior. On the one hand, there is all this talk about buck sanctuaries and core areas. I will not dispute any of it. I have had some real chandeliers take up residence on my property over the years. However, they can be up and gone overnight. The other way of looking at the situation is to concentrate on the vagabond nature of bucks in the fall. They will cover miles in a day. Part of that is about chasing doe. A big part of it is their calorie requirements. The former view makes for the best magazine copy. Guys want to read about bucks taken in their lair. The latter view is all about making the doe groups happy and then turning around to make them bait. It is not nearly as sexy. It also makes hunting bucks easier, because it is easier to keep track of the doe herds. Either way, a camera on the property does generate some good pics once in a while.
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