By Scott Bestul
As the buck crashed off, I sat down to collect myself. Several minutes of replaying the shot finally convinced me I’d made a fatal hit on one of the largest whitetails I’d ever encountered. Trying to infuse some logical thought into my mental patter, I happened to glance to my right. There, not 35 yards from my stand, grew an apple tree that I’d come to know well. It was the same tree that held the scouting camera responsible for “shooting” this buck a few weeks before.
CONVERSION EXPERIENCE
I’ll have to admit that I’m a relatively recent convert to trail cameras. While I’d always enjoyed playing with them, I was reluctant to jump on the scouting camera bandwagon. My only explanation? My bulb burns several watts dimmer than that of most whitetail nuts. These days, I can barely wait to complete a “milk run” to pull SD cards, and in the brief moments it takes to download digital images onto my computer, I’m pacing the floor like an expectant father. Why the change? The main reason is perhaps the least mercenary; I just love whitetails, and scouting cameras offer a glimpse into their lives I can get no other way. But the secondary reason is simpler to grasp; cameras are a critical tool that make me not only a better hunter, but a more effective manager.
The buck I mentioned earlier is a perfect case in point. I harvested that deer from an 80-acre parcel recently purchased by my hunting partner, Dave. Though we knew the property was in the right neighborhood, we had little idea of the number and caliber of bucks actually living there. Cameras helped us take a census of the resident bucks, then go into the hunting season with reasonable expectations. Further, cameras helped us nail down an approximate overall deer population and decide on an appropriate doe harvest. In combination with other measures such as sign reading, habitat quality and visual observation, trail cameras played a vital role in evaluating the property. Like many aspects of whitetail fanaticism, maximizing the effectiveness of trail cameras is best achieved through year-round commitment. Here then, is a look at a seasonal progression of trail cam use, some recommended setups and how to use the information you gather to become a better hunter/manager.
SUMMER’S BACHELOR BONANZA
Not long ago, summer was down-time when it came to deer hunting. These days, I view July 4th as opening day of the trail camera season! Well, scratch that…I usually have several cameras running before Independence Day, but I get serious about camera work right after the fireworks have died. By midsummer, most bucks in my region have poured on some serious antler growth. Though certainly not fully developed, their headgear has matured enough to give me a head start on distinguishing shooter bucks.
In my experience, judging antlers is much easier when you can get a buck to pose close to the camera and reveal multiple angles of his rack. This requires getting the deer to stop and linger at a specific spot for several minutes, and I’ve found mineral licks to be a perfect spot for this purpose. Ideally, you’ve already established several mineral licks on your property, using a quality product like 30-06 or 30-06 Plus Protein spaded into the soil. But I never hesitate to establish new licks any time I’m on a new property, or even when I suspect I’m missing bucks at some of my long-time hotspots. I’ve also had well-established licks suddenly go dead. When that happens, I immediately set up shop in another area.
One of the challenges of taking good pictures of bucks at a lick is that the deer are constantly bobbing their heads as they work the lick, then raise their head. Mount the camera too low, and you stand an excellent chance of snapping nothing but the top of a buck’s back! An Iowa hunting buddy taught me how to solve this problem by strapping the camera 5-6 feet high on the tree, but leaving a little slack in the rope or strap. Then I shove a stick or other brace between the strap and the back of the camera. This tips the camera downward toward the lick, creating a slight aerial view of the antlers. This can take a little experimenting to perfect, but once you establish the proper camera height and angle, it’s almost impossible for a buck to escape a visit to your lick without getting his mug shot. Even better, this camera angle provides an excellent view of most of the features of a buck’s rack.
Mineral licks are also an excellent place to begin an inventory of does and fawns, as lactating females crave minerals and visit licks frequently. In fact, doe visits to some of my licks are so frequent that in a few weeks I can usually identify individual animals and their offspring. I’ve learned to truly enjoy looking for the distinguishing characteristics of each doe, and even get a kick out of naming certain deer.
Food plots can be another suitable place for capturing summertime photos, as bucks are traveling in bachelor groups and feeding heavily. This is a time when clover plots really shine, especially smaller fields located in secluded areas. Broad, sprawling “destination” plots attract a lot of deer, but steering them toward a camera can be a challenge. I’d much prefer to set the camera in the corner of a smaller hunting plot, where any deer that enters the field (usually on a well-defined trail I’ve “encouraged” them to use by man-made funnels) is going to get photographed. I’ve had similar success in the summer by mounting the camera by a highly specific attractant such as an apple tree or water source like a small pond, seep, or spring.
FALL IS FOR SCRAPES; REAL AND MANUFACTURED
It’s easy to back off on trail cameras once the hunting season begins, but I’ve learned the hard way that this is a mistake. For starters, bachelor groups break up shortly after velvet shed, and some of the bucks I counted as residents simply relocate for the fall. Other bucks may move to another property. And one inescapable truth for all bucks is that patterns that seemed so predictable in summer tend to vanish like felons on the lam come fall. Running a trail-cam trap line is the best way to keep up with bucks.
One of the best ways to bait such a trap line is with mock scrapes. Like cameras themselves, I used to pooh-pooh the concept of mock scrapes as one more thing I didn’t have time to mess with. I’ve done a complete “180” on that belief. These days I enjoy setting up mock scrapes and hanging a camera over them. The pictures I’ve assembled have helped me to not only keep up with my summer bucks, but vagrants who suddenly show up in the neighborhood to check out the action. Of course mocks aren’t the only show in town; my scouting trips always result in a natural scrape inventory, and I never hesitate to hang a camera on the best sites. I found one such scrape on a field edge near my home last year (incidentally, hunting open-cover scrapes is marginally successful, but they’re a great camera spot), and I “shot” seven different bucks in a five-day period in mid-October. Three of those bucks I’d never seen before.
Much has been written about mock-scrape construction, but I get less technical about it every year. Rather than fret over making the perfect scrape, I focus on making lots of them in widely scattered locations, and my formula is pretty simple; I look for a field edge, intersection of trails, and/or a terrain funnel. Then I pick a rub-ready tree nearby with a licking branch (if that’s missing, I wire or zip-tie one in) that overhangs relatively bare ground. I kick the leaves off the ground in a two-foot circle and use a stick to rough up the dirt. If I have some inexpensive commercial urine, I dribble some in the scrape, but honestly I have just as much luck using my own “product.” That’s all I do. The bucks will take over the ones they like the best, and the others will go dead in a matter of days. I hang the camera on only the best sites.
POST-RUT PICS: NEXT YEAR’S FOUNDATION
The weeks and months following the close of the firearms season seem a perfect time to relax and stow the cameras. But now I consider photos I shoot at that time some of the most important of the year. Every year I create a folder of winter trail cam pics, which serves as an inventory of bucks that survived the hunting season and, given some luck, should be available for next fall.
The best way to assemble such a portfolio is by hanging cameras over food sources. The mineral sites and mock scrapes that served as perfect posing spots for deer are, for the most part, of little interest to deer now. Every deer in the herd is focused on groceries again, in an attempt to recover from the rut and maintain fat reserves for the coming winter.
This makes a high-quality, late-season food plot an ideal location for a winter inventory. In my experience, plots containing brassicas such as Winter-Greens have produced some of the most attractive, beneficial post-rut food sources a hunter could hope for…with the added benefit of serving as the ideal spot to shoot outstanding trail-camera photos. In fact, when designing and planting food plots, I always try to have some Winter-Greens growing right next to a woods-edge or an island of trees growing in the middle of the plot. To focus deer near the camera site, I’ll often pluck the tops off some brassica plants in a semi-circle near the camera, leaving a healthy group of plants growing within range of the flash. These remaining plants serve as a de facto bait-pile that attracts deer toward the camera.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The popular saying “never say never” has had broad personal applications during my three-plus decades as a deer hunter. Naturally, whitetails have continually surprised me as I’ve hunted and studied them. But the old adage has carried personal implications as well. Many of the things I felt I didn’t have interest in, or time for, have eventually entered my life and taken on new meaning and importance. Trail cameras are perhaps the best — or at least most recent — example. Only a half-decade ago, scouting cameras were something of a novelty to me. These days, I view them as one of the most important tools for learning more about the deer on the properties I hunt. If you’re not a cam-addict already, I urge you to experiment more with this valuable technology. Just don’t get upset with me if you get hooked as deeply as I have!
