Do Trail Cameras- tool or toy?

[Bear55]

I tell you what, if you would've asked me how I thought deer season was going to play out this past year I would have predicted a bad year. Barely any sign, no pictures on the camera, not even does. Now fast forward to today and ask me the same question, and I will tell you it was an awesome year. The deer didn't move into our area until the second weekend of rifle season. The first ground scrape I saw was the one next to the buck I shot(after I shot him). The scrape wasn't even one day old! Never saw this guy on the camera either.

After this experience my opinions have changed about trail cameras and deer hunting. Now, I do think they are extremely useful tool in bear hunting...

They clearly have their limitations, that big buck could walk on the other side of your cam and you'd never know he was there. To me they are just another tool in the toolbox. If I had to choose between 100 free game cam and be able to scouting I'd take scouting every time. You can learn a lot more be reading last years sign and walking the trails, rub lines, follow tracks or scrape lines, or finding the bedding areas than you can by getting a few pics.

[lakevet]

For what its worth, the sharpshooters who are the professionals used to reduce deer populations use them. They must think trail cameras have value as a tool that increases their efficiency at harvesting deer.

lakevet

[Musky Buck]

Off topic lakevet but I've always wondered what makes a sharpshooter a professional or a hunter for that matter. If I were allowed to hunt or had the resources, where professional hunters hunt I might get that professional by my name as well. Still a toy to me as where I hunt I can't really get any valuable information from a t-cam that would change a thing about where I hunt, how long I sit, etc. Can't pattern them during our high pressure central MN deer hunts, yes I can wooops, if I could hunt from Midnight to 3 AM I'd do great and would want to be a party hunter, could fill lots of buck permits during those 3 hours with a spotlight of course. JK

[Bear55]

Musky you haven't picked up a bow yet? Get with the program!

[Musky Buck]

Geez Bear, lol, no doubt, you have a memory like no other, not that I would get in range but my t-cam does show some patterns from the end of august to end of Sept, then everything goes haywire. Darn goose gets in my way. I got to get with the program is right lol.

[Bear55]

If you can hold off shooting your buck for a while, I have never tagged out in Sept but I am not sure what I would do with myself all season if I couldn't chase bucks around all fall.

Only half kidding of course because there is plenty to do all fall but one might go a little crazy if their passion is mature bucks.

[Musky Buck]

I hear ya Bear and actually did have a 8 point, likely 4.5 year old with a certain 20+ spread I know little about scoring but a 150" extremely even and heavy thick long tines, that was a regular on camera but not bow hunting which I do regret now as he was there within easy view of our picture window 2 nights during that first week of bow season an hour before last light. We never saw him again, proximity to town and was obviously spotted by some as we had like never before people asking to bow hunt and many ground blinds went up all around our property lines but never heard anything, who knows. In 30 years I've never personally seen a buck like him as an 8 pointer.

[gloomiseye]

Definetly a tool for me and a hobby.

[HunterLee]

I have shot the last two nice bucks i have had on camera. One sadly or maybe it was good that i didn't know he was there until after i shot him, but the two or three days before i hunted he was like clock work.

The one the year before was checking scrapes and was on the property across the fence. So knowing he was using my woods I got him several days before rifle season, so i guess it made me hunt harder/smarter knowing he was there.

Like others have said, when i get pics of a good buck i know he is around, and that helps a guy hunt areas that I would normally not.

My camera put me on two good bucks this year both of which I saw but never got a shot at. I also learned how far a deer will travel in as little as a week depending on food.

It is kind of a toy before season, but a very good tool if you use them right during the season which may put you on a deer that just moved to your area or letting you know when they are moving, like midday action.

They also make a guy mad as I had a nice 10pt stroll under my stand a mere ten min after I left, it was dark, but still. And it showed another hunter walking by my stand only to have a buck walk on his trail an hour later. And made my brother believe me when I tell him to hunt a stand. As that buck was working a tree right under the stand. But now its dead and not by my group. oh well

They also have a humbling effect on how a guy may never see some deer. Several were all over before rifle season only to disappear and only appear after muzzleloading and only late at night.