Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting One reason I don't use game cameras

My brother lives 2 1/2 hrs. from our deer lease and with his work, he doesn't get a lot of days to hunt. And, we all know that the weather doesn't always cooperate when you have a schedule like that. The buck in the 1 photo was showing up regularly before season opened, but the only time he had shown himself in daylight was opening morning of primitive season. But my brother didn't hunt primitive this year. He didn't have another daytime picture of the buck until this past Monday...but he was working. This evening he got in and went to pull his card from the camera and put out a little rice bran. When he got to his travel trailer and looked, this is what he found. Look at the time stamp of the one with the deer in it and then at the time on the one of just trees taken when he pulled the card. He has passed up numerous bucks waiting on this gentleman. If he hadn't had the camera, he would not have known he was in the woods and would have venison by now, probably a doe and would have let the young bucks walk. Hopefully he will be able to kill him the next couple of days. Showing up twice in daylight hours is a good sign. Looking at him, you can see he is a little gaunt from the rut and is interesting because of the long brow tines which I believe are going to be the longest tines the deer has. Long brow tines like that are very rare around here.





I like venison too much to wait all year on 1 buck that MIGHT come by while I'm hunting and MIGHT NOT come by when I am hunting...lol. This is one of the reasons I don't use game cameras.

Game cameras tell you a whole lot more than that....

They are good as long as you don’t have a lot of hogs. I got tired of looking at pig pics!

Are does not fair game?

I love them. I'll always have them out. I can tell what moves through, who moves through and I love to see the other critters besides deer that use the trails.

Yeah, i credit game cameras for all of My 150"+ Whitetails except for one. IMO They are an indispensable tool if you hunt only mature Whitetails like I do, but If your a meat hunter not so much, I dont see the need if you can halfass read deer sign.......Hb

Worrying about whether you kill the bull of the woods or not is the big problem here, not the camera. Cameras tell me often more what trash we have around, and yep, I've not been able to find some of that trash at times, and I really want to.

The big ones, heck they ain't dumb either and if I don't kill em maybe someone else will get lucky, and if not, then they are still out there breeding. All big plus's IMHO.

If you just want some meat, they ain't bad either, tells one if they are around and at what time.....

FWIW that doesn't look like a mature buck etiher, but somewhat hard to tell from that angle.

Game cameras provide LOTS of entertainment....

Game cameras have changed the way I hunt deer in Missouri

game cams will screw you up too. one yr I had a pic of a huge buck for our region. I hunted him all yr refusing to kill a doe cause you know he might be trailing her. guess what? I never saw that buck in daylight hrs. so, that yr I went hungry for deer meat. I learned a lesson though. don't hunt just one particular buck or they are liable to drive ya nuts. he certainly did me.
good luck to ya bro,
big ed

We use game cams all the time. Our hunting properties are 1 hour and 3.5 hours away so we are not there every day.

How do you guys keep game cams from getting ripped off?

Have a reputation....

Let's just stick out head in the sand

Game cams are a valuable tool

The last 4 bucks I killed I had on camera.
My son killed his buck this year I also had on camera.
So for us 5 in about the same amount of years.

Love being able to use game cameras.. It's amazing to see what's out there, even if we don't bag 'em.

Put out two cameras this year, and just those two cams revealed ten different bucks and two bull elk on the place. Only one whitetail buck was bigger than the deer that wife and I were both fortunate to take.

My only complaint with cams in the past was battery life, but the small cams I use now work all season on '3' AA's. I think a paid $39 apiece for those cameras when Midway closed them out a few years ago.

Just don't think you're getting all the pictures you should be getting. One of my cameras is within sight of my kitchen window, yes I live amongst 'em. Last week I saw a doe and two bucks walk single file by the tree the camera is hung on, and out an open gate in the fence that the camera is aimed at. That gate is only 10 yards from the camera and the deer were within 5 ft of the camera when they went by the tree. Thinking I'd like to see what the bucks looked like close up, I went out and swapped out the sd card to check it out on my desk top computer. Not one picture of the three deer were on the card. Don't know why it happens but this isn't the first time I've seen it . This time it was on a Moultrie, the other a nice Browning camera.

Guys-many on our club, as well as those on other leases around us, never shoot a doe because they might mess up a shot on a buck they are after. So, most years it is not problem shooting a doe...if you're willing to shoot one. This year has been a problem for me killing a doe, simply because I haven't seen but 1 deer that I know was a doe and it was the 1st deer I saw this year. It was early 1 morning and didn't want to shoot the 1st deer thinking I would have other opportunities to get some doe meat...but didn't happen.

And yes...I can read deer sign and if it were possible on leases around here where I hunt to hunt the way a man should be able to hunt (you know, find sign and hunt a particular deer until you kill him), I wouldn't need a camera to tell me if there was a big buck around. That is the way I hunted for years before they leased all the open land around here. Of course, that was before the days of game cameras, corn, food plots, etc. IMO, game cameras has nothing to do with "reading" deer sign but everything to do with using technology to kill a deer.

This is not to start a world war, but this is my opinion and am entitled to it like everyone else. Many want to kill the big deer like some of the men and women on TV. You know, those who have their own farm and put out minerals all year, feed, and food plots. And then put out cameras the year round to where they know every deer on the place and have their hit list of those that need to be killed and those they want to let walk. Every buck is named. Now think about it and be honest, does that make a person a "good" deer hunter? Not in my book. They are patient. They have invested a lot of time but most of it has been planting, feeding, riding around on atvs, and running cameras. Go home and file everything on a computer. But they way I was raised and believe, that does not make one a good deer hunter. They have a great place and control over their land and try to out feed the properties around them. A few years ago when I looked at the TX hunting forum a good bit, there was a guy on there who made a comment that he could look at a person's box stand/blind and their feeding set-up and could tell you what kind of a hunter they were. Really!!!

No one wants to go back to the old ways of hunting (and I know that some of you in certain states might still have to hunt the old fashioned way). And if you do, cherish it. Don't wish you were like other places unless having to feed deer just to be able to see some, because if you don't, your neighbor is (4-500 yds. away) going to feed and you won't see much without getting in on it. Plus, I really believe that some deer would starve to death because many places have too many deer and without the supplemental feed some would starve to death.

I really am not saying these things to start anything, but apparently some think that I just started hunting and don't even know what a deer track looks like, or scrapes or tree rubs/hookings whatever you want to call them. I've hunted over 50 years and about half of it before all the modern conveniences many hold so dear. I kill more deer now, but just don't get the thrill out of it like I did before these days. I killed a nice 8 pt. earlier in the season. I wasn't feeding anything at that stand and have killed 3 out of it this year with no corn or rice bran, it is just in a good place. But it didn't thrill me like it once would have simply because that is where I have to hunt to keep from hunting too close to someone else. The only skill it took was making sure I put the crosshairs where they were supposed to be. So go ahead and apply the heat to my opinions. I can take it...you're not going to bother me too much...lol.

[quote=Ruger77Shooter]

No one wants to go back to the old ways of hunting (and I know that some of you in certain states might still have to hunt the old fashioned way). And if you do, cherish it. Don't wish you were like other places unless having to feed deer just to be able to see some, because if you don't, your neighbor is (4-500 yds. away) going to feed and you won't see much without getting in on it. Plus, I really believe that some deer would starve to death because many places have too many deer and without the supplemental feed some would starve to death.

Ruger77Shooter, I fully agree with you and what you stated in the above paragraph is true of every lease I have been on in Texas. I think this is what many folks who live where there is ample public land do not understand. Granted, in Texas there are some huge ranches where the deer never leave the property, but I'm not wealthy enough to get on a lease like that. At one time I owned 65 acres and deer were seldom seen until I put up a couple of feeders and fed all year long.

Where you get to hunt usually determines how you get to hunt.

One question for you concerning the feeder in the first photo, how do you keep the raccoons out of the corn??

One question for you concerning the feeder in the first photo, how do you keep the raccoons out of the corn??[/quote]


Not Ruger77Shooter, but I have tried everything, the shark teeth, motor cages, grease on the poles, and every other gizmo you can imagine. Finally came up with something that worked 100% of the time. Heck don't even get pics of coons like I used to. (up to 10 at a time).

Go to Lowes and buy a link of 3"dia. PVC THIN WALLED pipe, 10ft length. I used 4", but we used 3" on my buddy's and it worked great. Cut the pipe in 3 equal pieces. On one end of each 3ft joint drill a 3/8" hole about 1" from the end. Get a good piece of braided string like what is used for trot lines about 5' long, tie one end of the string to the 3/8" hole and run it thru the inside of the pipe. Now drill a small hole in the feeder legs, as high as possible, small enough a self tapping screw will just start, but will not screw all the way in. Slide the pipe over the leg of the feeder and secure the string to the screw in the leg. What you should end up with is a free floating pipe a coon cannot get ahold of. The coons will still come around and eat what is on the ground, but cannot climb the feeder. You will be amazed how much corn you will save.

Doug