Fall ranges. Are you ready for the switch?

[mainebowhunter]

Its interesting every year, it happens. Summer trail cam pics...the great bait and switch. I see guys getting photos, piles of big bucks...talking about which one they are going to shoot. I admit, it is exciting if you have a season opener around the 8th or 9th. You might just catch a buck on the tail end of a summer pattern. My buddy did and shot a beauty.

Then Sept 15th rolls around. Less bucks are showing. By this time, trail cams that were filled with big bucks are empty. And if they are showing, its in the dark of night. If you have done this long enough, you know the drill. Over the years, I have really tempered my expectations...I am not going to lie there is always the small part of me that thinks "just maybe...that buck will stick around" but they rarely do. Cover changes. Beds change. Deer change. Pressure changes. Food sources change. Its the #1 reason why a lot of guys struggle to even get daylight pics of bucks in October, let alone kill them.

I really have become more reliant every year on historical data. It also shows what parts of the season I am struggling with. I put more cameras out even when others have not been touched. Many times, I have been too fast to pull cams -- my timing is off. Much better off to leave them and see what shows. I will still check them every so often when I am in the area...because many of these areas I will in season scout them with a stand and hunt if the sign warrants it. The sign is there...so at some point in the year bucks made it.

Inseason scouting also proves invaluable.

Lots of lots of variables for sure. Curious what you guys are doing to keep up with the deer?

[jman22]

I also utilize historical data. I'll go back through my calendars I keep with dates, times and weather (fronts, temps etc..) that a certain buck showed up in previous years. Can be surprisingly helpful. I'm mostly hunting farm country, so I'll also make notes on what's planted in crop field and mast production.

On one of the larger farms I hunt I am also fortunate enough to know the guys that hunt the surrounding land and I have learned a lot from them by the bucks they shoot and the trail cam pics they show me (which are typically the same deer I'm getting pics of). Depending on where the bucks were located on the farm I hunt I can now very accurately guess where they go once they leave for their fall range. More importantly, once those guys start putting heavy pressure on the deer and once crops begin to come down, I can get a good idea of when they will return. I'm not talking an exact science here, but I can definitely draw some good assumptions.

[brancher147]

Summer ranges changed to fall here about a month ago when acorns started falling. Pretty easy to see when there are no deer in the fields in the evening, and deer are not even under apple trees anymore.

I started moving cameras about a month ago so I could beat the deer to these spots and not spook them. One spot I moved from mineral site to scrape in the white oaks and went from a few regular bucks to about 20 bucks and a bunch of does, nothing too big though (mostly under 100 inches). This is where I will be focusing the early parts of October. The third week of October I will start getting more aggressive and scouting in other areas. My other cameras I do not check until I hunt the areas, and some I don't check until after season.

I have a couple areas I am dying to get into, but history has taught me to wait until closer to November. I have never hunted these areas with acorns though, and that should make them better than usual. If I get perfect conditions I may try something early.

I have learned from past mistakes and every other year I would have most of my stands up by now and I would not move them. This year I have yet to hang a stand (our season does not start until saturday), and with 3 aluminum stands and climbing sticks, I plan on being a lot more mobile and doing some hang and hunt's, plus I have spots I hunt from the ground and will be moving around a lot mainly based on wind and sign. Especially in a year with lots of acorns I think it will be essential to be mobile and find fresh sign to hunt.

[jman22]

Its interesting every year, it happens. Summer trail cam pics...the great bait and switch. I see guys getting photos, piles of big bucks...talking about which one they are going to shoot. I admit, it is exciting if you have a season opener around the 8th or 9th. You might just catch a buck on the tail end of a summer pattern. My buddy did and shot a beauty.

Then Sept 15th rolls around. Less bucks are showing. By this time, trail cams that were filled with big bucks are empty. And if they are showing, its in the dark of night. If you have done this long enough, you know the drill. Over the years, I have really tempered my expectations...I am not going to lie there is always the small part of me that thinks "just maybe...that buck will stick around" but they rarely do.Cover changes. Beds change. Deer change. Pressure changes. Food sources change. Its the #1 reason why a lot of guys struggle to even get daylight pics of bucks in October, let alone kill them.

I really have become more reliant every year on historical data. It also shows what parts of the season I am struggling with. I put more cameras out even when others have not been touched. Many times, I have been too fast to pull cams -- my timing is off. Much better off to leave them and see what shows. I will still check them every so often when I am in the area...because many of these areas I will in season scout them with a stand and hunt if the sign warrants it. The sign is there...so at some point in the year bucks made it.

Inseason scouting also proves invaluable.

Lots of lots of variables for sure. Curious what you guys are doing to keep up with the deer?

I'm with you there Maine! And I completely agree that most don't stick around, but isn't it great when there are those few bucks that DO actually stick around. I have a really nice 4 yo I'm hoping to encounter this yr that is one such buck. He stuck around as a 2 and 3 yo in this swamp and he's still in there. I had pics of a 3 yo buck in this same swamp last yr that showed up on another guys trail camera 7.5 miles away. Just goes to show how bucks personalities can differ greatly!

[mainebowhunter]

My hunting partner...I had a piece of ground with a good buck on it, turned it over to him and all my scouting intel. He hunted him but never saw him in 2016. So we went back in and prepped a set in the summer and he put up a cell cam. He has not been back since. That buck showed last year in August through Sept...but this year the buck never showed until 4 days ago. Definitely does not match up with the data from last season. Where he is showing, he appears to be using the bedding areas I scouted spring of 2015.

I know Joe talks a lot about long term cam soaks. The catch 22 is if you only have a few cams OR limited areas to hunt OR are new to this game.

[jman22]

My hunting partner...I had a piece of ground with a good buck on it, turned it over to him and all my scouting intel. He hunted him but never saw him in 2016. So we went back in and prepped a set in the summer and he put up a cell cam. He has not been back since. That buck showed last year in August through Sept...but this year the buck never showed until 4 days ago. Definitely does not match up with the data from last season. Where he is showing, he appears to be using the bedding areas I scouted spring of 2015.

I know Joe talks a lot about long term cam soaks. The catch 22 is if you only have a few cams OR limited areas to hunt OR are new to this game.

Thats interesting. Based on your 2015 knowledge, do you think that buck will stick around for awhile this year?

I'm taking Joes advice this year and have set up a few of my best cams (battery-wise) in areas that I wont be going in all season, unless its for a well timed hunt. All are on new pieces of land that I scouted last winter/spring. I was lucky enough to find very large scrapes that are very tight to bedding. I'm looking forward to seeing how the deer use these areas, especially the times and direction of travel. My luck a racoon has already snapped the bungees and they are lying on the ground!

[tbunao]

It's the main reason why the 1st of September I had moved all my cams to those areas I suspect bedding would be used in the first half of October and others on those late through November ranges. I know the general time frame the areas are used but I want to try and narrow it down a little more. Hoping to collect data for years to come instead of hunting behind the photos.

[bowfreak8]

This time of year I move my cameras from mineral sights to scrapes or heavy trails exiting bedding. The number of pictures go way down but i'm really just focusing on finding the core area of a mature buck.

[rempse2]

I typically run my cameras from March - till January on an area that interest me, then build on that info for the following years. Right now I'm running a camera on a remote laurel covered ridge that caught my interest while scouting in January. Found doe bedding, and a few fresher rubs and saw lots of historical rubs, I set my camera on a subtle edge where the laurel meets the hardwoods in a subtle saddle on the ridge.

I see this as a prime rut spot, I've check on the camera back in july and will check again towards mid october. in July i didn't have a single picture of a buck, but do have a few sequences of a doe family group using the saddle in daylight. My expectation is I should see a buck or two show up as the velvet comes off and the bucks begin to shift. I would expect the doe sightings to increase as well as leaf drops starts and they shift bedding to the ridge top laurel thickets. Time will tell - so I'll let the camera continue to run and see how it plays out the rest of the year.

[mheichelbech]

Trying a different strategy this year. In years past I had cams in my 3-4 primary hunting areas. I seldom got any patterns on good bucks. Even though I only checked monthly and under good conditions, it left me wondering if I wasn't impacting their movements. I pretty well know the bedding and travel routes that bucks take in my areas so I have not run any cams this year and I am simply going to do observation sits in each area until I see one of the bucks I'm after.

I have concluded that it is putting unnecessary pressure on them to do anything different in season.

[ODH]

I typically run my cameras from March - till January on an area that interest me, then build on that info for the following years.

That's how I do it. Leave them alone for months then learn what's really happening in that spot through the whole cycle. Patterns become very apparent. I've learned to stop guessing where they are going next and let the intel tell me.

Example: I learned on one section of private I have a buck living there which leaves me in early Oct and doesn't return until mid Dec. I have 6 years of pics of this beast. For the first couple of years I was hunting a deer that wasn't there.

I also learned a seemingly plain strip of woods between two creeks which is mostly void of deer sign is an absolute hub of rut activity for just 8 or 9 days in early Nov, every year.

[mainebowhunter]

Trying a different strategy this year. In years past I had cams in my 3-4 primary hunting areas. I seldom got any patterns on good bucks. Even though I only checked monthly and under good conditions, it left me wondering if I wasn't impacting their movements. I pretty well know the bedding and travel routes that bucks take in my areas so I have not run any cams this year and I am simply going to do observation sits in each area until I see one of the bucks I'm after.

I have concluded that it is putting unnecessary pressure on them to do anything different in season.

I will be interested to see your results.

I thought the same thing to...until I started running cell cams and watched the deer come and watched the deer go without me being there. The patterns were no different than the year before.

[Greg4579]

Nothing really to add since this is year one for me. I will say that this is a bit discouraging as I simply do not have the historical data to fall back on. I am aware that bucks are going to disperse and in some ways I am optimistic that a few of the spots I ran cameras on and didn't show a whole lot may now show some worthwhile deer.

[JoeRE]

Yea the switch can't come soon enough! Getting sick of waiting. For the most part it has already happened, there is still just a lot of variability in movement. My experience is that in late September/early Oct bucks just appear and disappear pretty randomly around here. I still think human intrusion plays a role but food sources and dominance between individual bucks is a big part no doubt.

As of right now I have nothing that I feel like trying to hunt when season opens Oct 1. That's fine, its just kinda my style to sit and watch till I see something worth chasing. I have laid the ground work and know its only a matter of time. No sense ticking off the wife at the start of the season by being gone chasing wild geese.

It is absolutely true there is a learning curve for placing "long term" cams. I would not recommend it to anyone until you have confidence hanging cameras in the right spot and leaving them for long periods of time. Checking a camera after 2 months and realizing you never switched it to the "on" position or had a branch waving in front of it that filled up the camera in 3 days or the batteries died after 1 week makes you want to Don't ask me how I know.....

You also need to be confident its a great spot for a camera. I usually don't hang long term cams in any spot that's a "maybe"....I recommend trying it with 1 or 2 cameras a season or two, then do more and more long term deployments. That is what I did, just a couple cameras hung like that in 2013 & 14.

I still get by on 7-8 cameras, bought at a pace of 2 per year. I firmly believe you don't need a ton of cameras to learn a lot and I live in fear of relying on them completely and thus missing a lot of super obvious stuff just because my cameras did not show it. Its all I can handle time wise adjusting those 8 cameras every 1-2 months. I don't know how you guys do it that run 20 or more cameras, hire someone to check them?

[JoeRE]

double post