SUMMER DEER MANAGEMENT WITH TRAIL CAMERAS | RUNNING TRAIL CAMERA SURVEYS
Do you fully understand the deer herd on your hunting property? Many hunters might say yes without truly considering the question. However, understanding your deer herd goes beyond simply harvesting deer consistently. Trail cameras offer insights into the health of your herd and the number of harvestable bucks present before and after the season. But there is much more to it than merely placing a few trail cameras and reviewing the pictures.

Starting with the Deer Trail Cameras

Whitetail camera surveys are more than just placing a variety of trail cameras. Initially, if you aim to gather more than just a collection of pictures by the end of the summer, you must apply some science and strategy in how you position the cameras on your property. It begins with selecting high-quality deer trail cameras. Cameras of lower quality will provide inadequate images, making it difficult to review, categorize, and compile actionable information for managing the deer on your land. The best trail cameras for deer hunting possess several essential features.

• Fast Trigger Speed – This is one of the most crucial characteristics of a high-quality trail camera. Generally, faster trigger speed is better. However, it ultimately depends on how you intend to use the cameras. For monitoring deer populations, where cameras are often set up over food sources where deer tend to stay still for a while, trigger speed is less critical. On the other hand, when surveying trails, fast trigger speed is vital. A slow trigger speed may result in missed opportunities, such as identifying a buck versus just capturing a passing rump.
• High Image Quality – Along with fast trigger speed, high image quality enables you to distinguish between different bucks on your property. Poor image quality from subpar cameras makes it difficult to identify unique bucks clearly, which is essential when calculating deer density. Superior image quality also saves time when categorizing photos into shooter or non-shooter buck lists, as it allows you to observe all the relevant attributes of each buck.
• Battery Life – Battery life is another factor that many property owners overlook when selecting a good game camera. Perhaps the most important deer trail camera tip is to opt for a camera with a long battery life. Extended battery life is beneficial for three reasons. First, it saves you from continuously purchasing batteries to keep the cameras running. Second, it allows you to place cameras in more remote locations without needing frequent visits for battery changes. Lastly, it reduces the frequency of visits to the cameras. More visits mean more scent and disturbance, which can create pressure and alter deer patterns.

A quality scouting camera will take you only so far. There is a technique to capturing great game pictures that can inform management decisions. Trail cameras are commonly mounted on trees using supplied straps. To enhance security, consider adding a lock to protect the camera from potential thieves. Additionally, various trail camera mounts are available for monitoring fields or when trees are not positioned where you need them. These mounts are useful because they allow you to adjust angles and positions to place the camera in the optimal spot. While much of the image quality depends on the type of camera used, there are several deer trail camera tips that can help improve your results. Focus on the five C’s to capture better trail camera images: camera angle, contrast, color, composition, and chips. Click below to explore these trail camera tips further.

Trail Camera Surveys

Managing your property for deer requires gathering information. Traditionally, this information has been collected through scouting and field observation. However, trail cameras provide hunters with a technological advantage in this regard. Summer is undoubtedly the best time of year to monitor your deer herd using trail camera surveys. During this season, you can gather valuable data, such as fawn recruitment, sex ratios, the age structure of bucks, and estimates of deer density on your property. This information is crucial for making informed decisions about how many deer should be harvested and whether deer habitat needs improvement to promote healthier herds. Additionally, trail camera surveys offer images of most of the bucks on your property, which is an excellent resource for compiling "shoot" and "do not shoot" photo books for the upcoming season.

Trail camera surveys are typically conducted in mid-summer, when antlers are maturing, and again in late-winter, after hunting season but before antler drop. Pre-season surveys provide insights into herd health, including fawn recruitment, and offer a preview of the bucks that may be present during the upcoming season. Post-season surveys, on the other hand, provide a retrospective view. These surveys help assess survival rates from the hunting season and give a qualitative overview of the deer herd’s condition as winter approaches. Why conduct surveys during these specific times of year? To analyze your property effectively, it is essential to identify unique bucks. Mid-summer and late-winter are ideal because antlers can be used to confidently identify bucks during these periods.

Finally, the number of trail cameras required depends on the size of your property. The primary goal is to capture as many pictures of each deer as possible. A general guideline, based on a deer’s home range, is to use one camera for every 80-100 acres. The more cameras, the better. However, once you reach about 40 acres, the law of diminishing returns applies. Additional cameras beyond this point will only waste battery life. Ideally, place each camera near the center of each 80-100 acre section of your property, but more importantly, position them near areas frequented by deer, such as food plots, mineral sites, or watering holes.

Summer Trail Camera Strategies

Summer is now in full swing. Deer movements during this period are largely driven by food availability. To capture the most images as part of your survey, position game cameras along field edges or near food sources, such as orchards or food plots. Where legal, you can use bait or mineral sites to attract deer into the range of your trail cameras, especially in large forest tracts with limited available summertime forage. Regardless of the method, food remains the primary concern for deer at this time, making it logical to place cameras where deer are most likely to be. Additionally, consider water sources as another viable option for camera placement. The summer heat, coupled with increased food consumption, often forces deer to visit watering holes at least once during the day. These locations can offer a valuable opportunity to capture images of bucks that may only come to your property for water. Information gathered from such alternative camera placements is invaluable and contributes to obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the deer on your property.

The factual Deer Survey

A typical trail camera check should last for two weeks. During the check, check your game cameras at least formerly to insure that your results remain as natural as possible. Once the check is complete, transfer your images to your computer and begin the instigative task of reviewing the hundreds of filmland you’ve captured. It's important to retain all deer filmland, as each one contributes to a comprehensive analysis. Use these images to classify and count every unique buck, along with all develop does and fawns. A useful deer trail camera tip is to save all the buck images in a separate brochure. This way, you can fluently readdress them latterly and classify them as either shooter bucks ornon-shooter bucks. At the end of this process, you'll have a clear count of the unique bucks, does, and fawns. From then, some simple computations will give an estimate of the deer population on your property.

• Bucks – The computation then's straightforward. The number of bucks is simply the count of unique bucks captured by your trail cameras during the check.
• Does – To estimate the doe population, divide the total number of doe filmland by the total number of buck filmland. also, multiply that result by the number of unique buck filmland.
• Fawns – The computation for fawns is the same as for does. Divide the total number of fawn filmland by the total number of buck filmland. also, divide that result by the number of unique buck filmland.
• Total Deer Population – To estimate the total deer population, add together the results for bucks, does, and fawns.

That’s it! You’ve just completed a simple yet effective process to acquire birth data on your deer population using game cameras. This data is scientifically sound enough to guide opinions regarding herd health and crop conditions. More importantly, it provides precious perceptivity into long- term trends. By tracking data from time to time, you can fluently observe trends, similar as whether your population is growing or shrinking, or if the adult coitus rate is getting unstable. also, this exercise helps you fete bucks more snappily in the field, enabling you to make crop opinions seamlessly during the season.

Conclusion

In conclusion, trail cameras are an necessary tool in your whitetail deer operation plan. A well- executed trail camera check offers precious perceptivity into herd health, deer viscosity, and indeed uncovers trends that can impact operation decisions.However, summer is the perfect time to pick up a many 70MAX outdoors deer trail cameras and get started, If you have n’t yet enforced camera checks to cover your property’s deer herd.