How long to find/pattern a deer?

[chadwick9]

I was thinking the other day about the deer showing up on my trail cameras and got curious about how long it takes most of you to find a shooter buck and pattern it? I see a lot of guys in here who set cameras and don't check for months at a time. What happens when you go a month to check it and don't have pictures? Aren't you kind of screwed and a month is lost? Or do you only put cams in places you know are deer? If so, what makes you so sure there are deer there to begin with? I ask because it has taken me longer than normal to get on the bucks. I haven't patterned em yet to where I feel comfortable with and my hunting season starts October 1st. And I don't have as much time with work to devote 5 days a week to scouting. So I guess my question is how long should it take to pattern a buck and what should I do if I don't have the bucks I'm looking for yet?

[Zap]

The vast majority of bow hunters never find/pattern/kill a mature buck.
So, it may take a while...

[justdirtyfun]

Well I don't go after specific bucks yet. But I can say I will be hunting where they should be. Yes I have some beds and kill trees picked out but what buck is there is questionable.
I hope other guys chime in, good question.

[ Post made via Android ]

[headgear]

It depends, you could spot one and kill him in 24 hours or you could get it done in a couple of hour after finding fresh sign, or it could be years. Cams are one way to get it done but not the only way. Where I hunt in bigwoods shining and glassing just don't work all that well, even game cams can be hit or miss. I try and focus on offseason and in season scouting, team that up with a little historical data and I'm not necessarily after a single buck all the time but I try and put myself in prime areas on fresh sign and hope for the best. This particular year I am after a good buck (3rd season) and I know his area well so it's a matter of hitting his beds until I catch up with him. I'm not just after him, I'm after other bucks as well but I don't really have them patterned. Sometimes its more about increasing my odds by hunting dozens of good bedding areas at the right time of year. I scout when I can but like you said I don't have time to scout before every hunt to get the most out of my setups so I just do the best I can. Somestimes you just have to scout for years and let all that info soak in before you can put a plan together or feel like you are onto some bucks, other times it comes together in one hunt by being in the right place at the right time.

I try not to set rules or specific ways to pattern and kill big bucks, every one is different and you just have to use the tools and time you have and make the most of it.

[Hawthorne]

Another question is how many acres are needed to hunt a specific buck? After running trail cams for many years on the small farms I hunt in Michigan I've never been able to put a pattern on a individual buck. I knew the areas they liked when they were in town and hunted them and have done good. I believe if you don't have a large expanse of land its next to impossible. You guys that hunt the large public tracts I could see it happening tho. I think in my area if you get a pic of a nice buck you need to.get in there within a day or two and hunt him or he could be gone somewhere else.

[ Post made via Android ]

[cbay]

Sometimes you just have to scout for years and let all that info soak in before you can put a plan together .

I can relate to that. I have found some solid beds but a lot of areas will need more time and experience to figure out.

[BHC]

I generally pattern deer and kill them in early season and using cameras it takes 2 weeks or a month. But really it's not a definite time. I find him, locate how far he travels from initial location, evaluate make an educated decision opening week and sometimes it works! Id say it takes 10-20 hrs of physical and mental preparation and anywhere from 3 hrs hunting to 50 hrs. As the hunting time goes up after one animal your chances steadily decline. I generally have 10 sits after one buck in a yr most are 3 hrs. If it don't happen in that time it prolly ain't gunna. I've only killed specific target bucks opening day of archery. And they are my biggest.

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[Lockdown]

After running trail cams for many years on the small farms I hunt in Michigan I've never been able to put a pattern on a individual buck. I knew the areas they liked when they were in town and hunted them and have done good.

I think in my area if you get a pic of a nice buck you need to.get in there within a day or two and hunt him or he could be gone somewhere else.

[ Post made via Android ]

I hunt small farmland and this sums it up perfectly.

I have ran trail cameras and scouted extensively for YEARS... the only time I ever felt I had a pattern on a buck I felt I got crazy lucky at the same time. It was rut and he bedded with does in the same bedding area 3 days in a row. In my opinion it was crazy lucky he was there the 3rd day... I should have went and bought some lotto tickets that night.

"I knew the areas they liked and when they were in town I hunted them and did good" ... that sticks out in my mind.

Don't try and figure an exact pattern. Know your area like the back of your hand and say "Ok he's here" and hunt smart.

[WEEGEE]

I have spotted a big buck in the morning and came back that very evening and killed him.....i also spotted a big buck and chased that same buck for three straight years and never got him.
too many variables can happen. the only thing you can really count on is,the older he is, the smaller the chance to get him!

[mauser06]

As far as cameras and not checking for months...


If you are seeking info for NOW you might not wanna run cameras like that....

I don't care so much about NOW. I care about the big view of how and when what deer use that spot...when do I get the daytime pics of the shooter bucks? What was the wind? Weather etc..


I'm taking a camera into the Marsh with me on my first sit and I won't go get it until after the horns fall off...why? Its doing me no good sitting out there in the Marsh all season you say...see it as a full season of Intel...that will make killing deer there for years to come even easier...


I don't check cameras often because I don't wanna alert deer to me being there...even if I'm not intruding and on a field edge etc..I still think you can do damage going in there often...

Big buck comes and smells your scent...he gets a little cautious..starts sniffing around...now he spots the camera...it lights up or a flash goes off...makes some noise..guys wonder why they only get pics of him on time...

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[iowa whitetail]

The best way to pattern and kill a specific buck is to know him for most of his life. I take notes and keep every pic of a buck that i can so i can identify them them later.

[JoeRE]

Lots of good points made already.

"Pattern" is very vague. It gets thrown around a lot these days. I doubt anyone has ever gotten a 100% pattern on a free range buck in the entire history of hunting. All I am looking for is what a buck does MOST of the time in certain precise conditions and there are a lot of different variations to that. It might be only what a buck does 1% of the time overall. That is all it takes to intentionally hunt and kill it. The bigger part of a buck's home range you have access to, the more likely you can find a pattern....but if you have the right area all you need is a tiny area, its just less likely that will occur. Same with the more years you can watch a deer - more likely to find a pattern.

Typically leaving trail cams for long periods of time is not intended to find a pattern you can hunt right away. It might be just for inventory, or to establish patterns for next years hunts because often mature bucks will do the same things in an area over the years. I do both. I also have learned over time to check my trail cams around critical transition periods in the fall so as to take advantage of any recent pattern I see immediately before it changes but to get my camera in there long before that. In my opinion trail cameras are often misused to find current patterns, because checking them repeatedly often affects deer behavior unless you can do it in a low impact manner - but is possible in some circumstances.