Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Trail cameras-Fair Chase?

What exactly is it that you think cameras do..? Do you think they send a signal to my Dick Tracy watch telling me to be in Deer Stand G between 08:36 A.M and 08:39 A.M facing the NW to kill buck #14..?


Unless you're walking around in a buckskin loin cloth with a piece of rock affixed to a stick, your argument is invalid.!



It apparently means if you use a camera, then you have no respect for game animals.!

Forward Looking Infrared...

I'm gonna get a trail cam one of these days...
Would have been nice to see who it was that came in to camp & took some schitt while I was gone...or ran off with my brothers tree stand...

Damn man, some of you guys are really taking this personally.


I know how much fun trail cams can be. It's a way to extend hunting season and checking the cards can really get a fella pumped up. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.


Some just want to take a step back from all the technology and go a different route. Nothing more.

They cant send photos to your phone,computer?

Hunting over a timed corn thrower,now thats respect,any means to take that trophy.Teach are kids to be lazy,everytime some new electronic comes out.

Real scouting takes time and work. It is another aspect to actual hunting. In this country it involves many weekends spent driving 400-600 miles out and back and a lot of walking and spotting.

I can see in more congested areas and thicker wooded areas where it would be different, however.

You don't know and will never have a clue.

Cameras can cut both ways.

You can get shut out completely waiting for that 200+ rack that you saw on camera to walk by.

LOL...

Good point, for sure.

We have a doe on our little piece of hunting land that we have been seeing for about five years now. She has half of one ear that is missing and is off limits to any of our hunters. No one has ever seen her during legal hunting hours, but we all get a kick out of watching her raise fawns each year on the trail cams.

Trail cameras can be used in a lot of different ways. I have used them in the traditional way to get pictures of deer and other animals as well as to catch a guy trespassing during turkey season and another guy that was checking my garage out for items of interest at 2:00 one morning. I like to use them to enhance my experience in the field (or garage) and never thought of them as necessary to ensure that I will kill a deer. I have no problem if someone else doesn't choose to use them at all or if they use them in a different way. It is just that the more of us there are that are out there hunting, the better off we will all be in the long run.

I like that.
Also this,

Is your truck fair chase or should you walk to the hunting woods? Binoculars? Radios? Rifle scope? It can get a little ridiculous. A deer that feeds and waters at night, isn't necessarily going to show up during the daylight. I don't use trail cams, but I can't see where they increase your odds of taking a trophy animal.
Dan


At our farm in east Texas, for three years beginning in early 2005 I kept three game cameras set up at 3 spin cast feeders, 24/7/365. During approximately 36 months I did not have one picture of a buck in daylight hours. They only appeared between the hours of 10PM and say 4:30 AM. Would see fox, hogs, bobcat, white-tail does, cats, coyotes.

I've had game cameras out in the Texas hill country, off and on since '04. Between August of 1999 and May of 2010, I made a monthly trip there to hunt and just hang out. Three hundred miles one way. The anticipation and enjoyment of looking at as many as 1700 pix, can be a very enjoyable part of a three day stay. I'd say I learned a lot by watching those pix, in conjunction with just sitting out either in a stand or hillside. Where I hunt, deer definitely have a spring/summer range pattern and a fall winter hunting season.
I watched this buck along with 4 others in one area for three years, both on camera and in person. Never shot him.



I would see him between say the middle of February until late September. Then poof, I'd not see him again till next year. This was an area of a 3,000 acre low fenced ranch that backed up to Lost Maples State natural area. No civilization other than county roads and ranch houses for at least 40 mile radius.

During the 5 years I was there, never saw this buck except this one sequence.







Even had a sequence where the shutter was set for 1 minute intervals. From the sequence you could see that a large boar had killed a shoat. Throughout the course of a day, you could watch buzzards come and totally devour the shoat. By dark there was nothing but a spot in the dirt.

I definitely have enjoyed seeing what kind of hill country hoglets were dropping by from time to time

GWB





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That is one of the meanest, foulest looking critters I've ever seen..

luv2safari,

I didn't say it was the only form of scouting and believe me I don't need your definition to tell me what it is. But it is a form of scouting whether you like it or not.

Would it then be unfair if you had more time to go out and scout then someone else? Maybe trail cams give those with less time better info or maybe you should be limited to time you are able to scout because you have an unfair advantage over someone else. Completely flawed logic.

I don't use one but have no problem with those that do.

You made some good points. I, too, have less and less time to scout and far less gas money.

I would consider just seeing a rack even close to that in one of my cameras to be a once in a lifetime hunting high point.

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Put one over a gut pile if you want to have a little fun. A corn pile can also be interesting.

Those fox pics are amazing.

I guess 'unethical long range shots' will be next!

As a former biologist and current game manager I love them. I don't care how often you are out in the woods there are deer you will never see. Period. End of story.

I lived on my property for over 10 years, hunted everyday of a near 6 month season, was out on the property every day the other 6 months, did spotlight counts multiple times and in 3 days with enough cameras you will see lots of deer no one has ever seen or will see.

It's a great management tool to manage people more than anything else. Hunters all the time are convinced there are no quality deer on their property and you can run a 100 cameras over a pile of corn over 3 days and show them only a select few and they suddenly realise it's not the deer but the hunter.

It's also hands down the most accurate way to census a population of animals (not just deer). Can get deer per acre, an accurate sex ratio (people who look at enough pictures often enough will learn to ID does from one another) and health of a deer herd.

I personally use them all the time. I have never shot a deer that I got on camera ahead of time except for does some younger deer.

One deer that I was glad I got on camera was one I shot too low with a bow and heard that terrible whack. Tracked him for days, looked for buzzards, checked out all the water holes etc...Never found him.

Then the next year he showed up on camera after the season with a missing leg. Showed up 3 more years with a missing leg where I hit him. Never once did I catch him on camera during daylight.

Without the camera I figured he would have crawled off and died in a pile somewhere but he lived at least another 3 years and became a tough cookie to find.

I have built over 30 trail cameras. It used to be some serious fun, until MT made it clear that they don't want them in the woods. Very sad, as I used to get some phenomenal shots, especially of the predators. I never filled a single tag thanks to one. In fact, when it comes to whitetails, I firmly believe they do more harm than good, flashing a big buck, stinking up the place checking them, etc. I just never felt I had some unfair advantage. If it did anything, at least up here in the timber country, it showed some good whitetails were around in velvet, in bachelor groups, then when the velvet came off, I wouldn't get them on cam until after hunting season. You just aren't going to pattern one of these rutting big timber bucks.

I just really liked them for the intrinsic value of something to get me out in the woods. It was also something my kids sure like to go and do. I also got some good info for the bios around here.

I think MT made a mistake with that. I will say, it does lead to some bad behavior such as salting areas for elk. That is rampant in this country. The cams kind of lead people to do that. Personally, I like the fun of getting a more natural pic, scouting for travel routes, natural areas of gathering, etc. To get animals in their normal activities.

MT changed the laws, I got rid of most of them, keep a few around the house, and on some friends property where trespassers cause him some real problems.

Personally, I'm glad MT doesn't allow them.