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

Fair chase is hunting naked, bare foot, and using only fingernails and teeth for weapons. God gave us smarts/dominion for a reason. Tools work much better.
I honestly dont understand how some can look down on others or judge eachothers ethics for using what God gave em, and then go buy a hamburger and think nothing about how fair the cow was treated. It wont ever be fair to be an animal, thats just the way it is. Wipe your tears and be glad your human.

Cameras don't give off scent,movement,much noise,sitting in the woods 24hrs a day,thats not a big advantage?
Maybe a bigger deal out west, in places where water is limited.

I do not think this was directed at me but just for the record I do not look down on those who use trail cams for hunting. It just is not why I would like a trail cam and I doubt I would ever use one for hunting. My trail cam would be busy keeping an eye on the new beaver dam of some other such thing as looking at what is trying to get into my chicken coop.

God gave us high fences,horse trailers also,do you use those tools to shoot your trophy there?

The local fly shop owner has always been very honest with me.

Ask him any question about anywhere and he'll answer it - rare for a fisherman and he explained it like this:

"I'll always tell you exactly where the fish are and what they're hitting on. Why would that bother me? I CAN'T make the cast or presentation for you and that's the IMPORTANT part - the rest, not so much."

I kind of look at it like that. I KNOW there are deer there, I KNOW where they travel - BFD. No camera is going to make that shot for me. I, STILL, have to knock that arrow or pull that trigger. It still requires me to have a skill.

We use cameras - sure. Have quite a few of them. If I set up a camera over a WalMart parking lot - I won't get much. I know where the deer are, I know where they move, what I don't know is WHAT deer are moving there or WHEN. I CAN'T be there 24/7. All a camera does is increase my odds of an encounter, it does nothing to increase my odds of the kill.

So long as it's legal - I could give a toss what someone else thinks or uses.

Deer cameras are a great entertainment tool, but I never thought much about using them as a hunting tool.
That is probably because I've used them enough as an entertainment tool to realize that they give little advantage to a guy hunting by legal methods. If you are a POS that will break the law anyway, a game camera is only gonna slow you down.

To get good game camera pic's you have to understand where game travels. Kinda like hunt for the spot. If you know game well enough, you set your camera where you get pictures. If you don't know game - or your ass from a hole in the ground - you get nothing. Kinda like hunting.

I can see them as a good educational tool for a guy that can't read animal sign and understand feeding and travel routes, etc... After a gob of years you might start figuring things out the round-about way.

I use cameras where I live for the shear entertainment and educational value. I was able to watch the progression of mange through the local coyote "herd" this year. I got to see the progressive beat-down of a fine set of unique antlers that were better in the looks dept. than function.
I was able to watch the attraction of what I'll call a sign post - something not usually mentioned for deer. A lone willow twig not much beyond 3/8" in diameter that was visited countless times by numerous deer, including at least 11 different antlered bucks. I could go on and on. I had to be smart enough to get the camera within bow range (less, actually) to get photos - I hunted for a good spot.

I do not use cameras where I hunt. I can recognize bedding areas, feeding areas, travel routes, scrape lines, etc...
I have never set a camera there.
I might, just for entertainment. I just killed the biggest racked deer there that I've seen come off the place in 40+ years of hunting, so I don't see a camera adding much to that.

I think that anybody that sees a camera as a threat to deer or hunting ethics needs to back away from the videos and outfitter BS for a while and spend some time in the woods.

They ain't hurtin a damned thing.

I don't use them, but don't care if others do.Not having them has not impaired my ability to keep my freezer full every year for many years.

Personally,my oinion, it is just another one of these high tech gadgets that make up for less than better hunting ability in the field.I guess some guys/gals do not have the opporunity to spend extra days in the field scouting and the cameras supplement that. I can hunt with a muzzle loader, iron sighted lever guns or scoped rifles and I still take animals consistently and not all of them are dinks.

If you set the cameras out and then know where the game is, it is sort of like hunting on these pheasant hunting preserves where they set the birds out in the dark,the morning you are to hunt.You know they are there and know pretty darn close as to exactly where that "there" is.


Some will do about anything to put an animal on the ground.More power to them. After a lot of years, one gets the idea that the killing isn't so important and the ego involved( bragging rights) fades.

Teal,

Increased odds of an encounter mean better odds for a kill.

Out here trail cams are useless. There is far too much open country and too low concentrations of deer. Scouting and spotting for long hours work.

If I lived back east it would be fun to see what lurks at night, but IMO technology might be going too far in the field, at least for the way I like to hunt.

To qualify how I feel I don't have an I-phone, don't text, etc. If there were still phone booths I'd probably not use my cell phone except for work. It is pretty much a generational thing, and I'm not pointing fingers at all. I like having choices.

BTW, I have a trail cam on my big elm tree in the yard and enjoy seeing what critters visited from off the desert every night. I see a lot of kinds I never see in the daytime.

I hold nothing against a person who uses trail cameras, scent lok, high power scopes, etc. Not looking for a pissing contest. Just sharing some things that have been on my mind last couple of years.


For myself, I think getting back to the basics and away from all the extras will help me enjoy hunting in a more pure way if that makes any sense. Archery hunting has shown me a whole different side to the chase and I think I would just feel a greater sense of achievement if I went back to the more primitive route.

Well here's to hoping that FLIR technology gets smaller and cheaper, and maybe they'll come up with some sound wave technology that brings them slobbering in like zombies over top a big pile of corn and salt that we have built up under the bedroom window.

At some point it does become less about building our skills and more about killing livestock that gets fed, bred, and patterned.

Personally I see it like this, scope and rifle technology is simply a better arrow. But technology like game cams and FLIR and whatever else comes down the pike are a slippery slope. Just my $.02

If you set up your cameras over a WalMart parking lot, you'll get some pictures worth posting.

Yes and no. If a guy can't shoot, he can't shoot or is prone to "buck fever" - camera doesn't change that. If a guy has no concept of the wind, scent or movement (his not the critters) he's not going to be successful. Camera changes none of that. That's where I was with that but understand your point.

90% of my camera photos are after dark, I spend most of my time trying to figure out where the danged deer was 90 minutes prior to that pic. (I don't hunt over the camera)

It's definitely regional. If I hunted muley's out west - a camera would be useless to me but I don't. I hunt swamps/thickets of the upper midwest. Small plots of land (relative to western hunters) so it's different.

I have several and have a grand time with them on my land. Do they help me hunt? Not really. Game moves around through the area so much that getting a nice buck on camera does not mean he will ever show up when and where I am hunting.

Unless you are a cougar in California. Ok, make that - mountain lion.

Well then you could use one like you said you want to: to see what else is there.

A dilemma for me too. I don't own a trail cam and have never used one. But, I think it would be neat to see what's out there, game and non-game species alike.

A friend of mine who hunted deer in PA a lot last year, told me he put up trail cams behind his house AFTER deer season and saw six different bucks that he'd never seen during season. It's nice to know that several bucks made it through.

Billy Goat,
What is FLIR?

Not trying to get a pissing match going, I spend as much time in the woods as I can,now my oldest daughter is old enough to hunt and killed a great buck at 10 years old.It was a tough hunt,most rewardable hunt I have been on.We didn't use a device left in the woods to do are homework.I want to teach her how to hunt and to respect the animal and not use any means to take a trophy,even if it is legal.

I am not whinning,this has been bugging me since my Dec.hunt in AZ,just wanted to get others take on it.

That means you go back to a rock or snare, correct?

Exactly what does this mean?

I wish the game animal would be more fair by being slower, not able to jump so high, smell so well, see so good etc,etc,etc...

Seriously, all the guys I know using them have a lot of pictures of big deer that they never harvest. I'm not sure it gives any advantage.

I have a hard time really differentiating this to other scouting though.