Reprinted from my March 2008 Know Whitetails column in Whitetail Journal
What if someone told you that it was possible to legally hunt before, during, and after the season? Crazy? Not really, and I have friends who believe that using trail cameras to "hunt" bucks is almost as exciting as the actual gun or bow hunt. They cannot wait to check their cameras to see what buck was captured on film and when he was there. Hundreds of thousands of you understand those feelings because you use cameras to pattern bucks.
The camera craze got going in the 80's, when we used trail cameras with film. The cost of developing film led to big expense, especially when you consider that on a roll of 36, you might get only 2-3 deer photos. Then there was the "flash" problem. It’s been debated whether the flash affects deer returning to that area, but there is some data with answers. A Texas study evaluated whether the flash had an effect on deer visiting bait sites. They placed infrared video cameras at bait stations for 5 days, to get an indication of how often individual deer visited the site. Then they placed flash cameras at the same sites for ten days. Some does had individual tags that allowed identification, while bucks were identified by their antlers. The researchers deduced that indeed the flash did cause some avoidance. They also determined that does, once photographed and "flashed", were less prone than bucks to visit the bait sites.
From those early days of trail cameras with film, things evolved to where we now have cameras with fast trigger time, infrared replacing the flash, and camera housings that are water proof.
Digital technology has also exploded with not only digital still photography, but also digital video. The digital still and video camera units use a flash card for storing large numbers of images that can be viewed in the field or downloaded to your computer.
No matter what equipment you use, there are several ways to use the images collected. Of course the most common use is simply to determine what bucks are out there and where they are located. In 2002 Dr. James Kroll presented an interesting paper where he noted that the purpose of managing deer is to improve the quality of deer and the hunting experience. He then pointed out that infrared-triggered cameras were a great way to pattern whitetails and that this improved ones hunting experience. He felt that these cameras could be used to do more than pattern deer. For example, they can help to determine sex ratios, fawn crops, as well as recruitment and age structure of your deer herd. He also pointed out that if hunters are diligent and willing to make an investment of time and money, they can use cameras to locate sanctuaries, breeding areas, staging areas, and where bucks scrape and rub.
Cameras can also assist hunters to better manage deer herds. The use of supplemental feed has expanded in many parts of the country. But this feed can be rather expensive, especially if a lot is eating by nontarget species such as raccoons. One Texas study used remote cameras to monitor visits to feeders and give land owners better guidelines on when and where to place feed to reduce consumption by non-deer species.
Determining how many deer you have on your property is critical to proper management and cameras allow you to do that. One idea is to place cameras at feeders to count deer. Will that work? Well, Auburn University researchers attempted to do just that by placing infrared-triggered cameras at soybean feeders on three study areas. The feeders were spaced at a density of one per 126 acres on two areas and one per 104 acres on the third. They found that most bucks visited the feeders at night and that estimates of deer numbers varied depending on the season. They further speculated that the estimates made from the photographs at bait may not reflect the actual population.
However, other researchers had better luck in using cameras to estimate deer numbers. University of Georgia researchers put infrared-triggered cameras along deer trails, near bedding areas, and other areas that had high deer use and found that estimates were comparable to more established survey techniques.
And Harry Jacobson, former wildlife professor at Mississippi State University, has found the camera can give excellent census data. Winter surveys seem to give better census data than fall surveys. Jacobson feels that fall surveys underestimated fawn and doe numbers. But by placing one camera per 160 acres, and running a winter survey for 10 to14 days, you can get good results. With this approach you can identify buck numbers from individual bucks photographed. In fact Jacobson utilized color-tagged bucks to determine just how effective cameras might be. Using the above approach, he was able to photograph every marked deer in his area. Other research done in Missouri used cameras to census bucks more than 3 ½ years of age and older. It showed that you would only get about half of these bucks on film. Even so, for most deer situations, cameras will help you get a handle on how many deer you have and the sex ratio on your property.
Jacobson points out that you can improve your estimate by comparing photos of bucks harvested to photos of bucks taken in a fall camera survey. This allows you to get a ratio of harvested bucks that you previously photographed to bucks not harvested that were photographed.
Cameras also let you age live bucks using techniques developed by various researchers and published by the Quality Deer Management Association. This may help you determine harvest quotas by age class, and also help you decide what bucks to protect.
For those who feel that using cameras violates fair chase, consider that most of us who use them still can’t harvest big bucks on a regular basis. In fact, one might make the argument that cameras give us a good reason to spend more time in the woods. Sounds like a good thing to me.
