DaveT1963 wrote:may21581 wrote:DaveT1963 wrote:actually, right now through August is the best time to take inventory of bucks IMO. Just use sound strategy. I have 30+ cameras up right now, most are not where I will hunt but all of them focused on new spots where I'm not sure what caliber buck is in the area.
Ok so you mentioned a few things that I think I was talking about in a previous post. They are very good points and couldn't agree more. You mention running cams right now for an inventory purpose, I agree with you 100 percent on that. This will give you the Intel that some good bucks are in the "area".
The second thing you mentioned was putting them in new spots that you may or may not hunt based on what you see. So by what I gathered your early enough in the season to not rattle them up enough where you push them off and your not to worried about spooking the others because their new properties you are trying to gather data on.
I will say that some of my best properties I had i ran several cameras on only to be disappointed by what I seen. However I knew better than to just rely on the cameras so I threw several observation sits at them only to be blown away by the bucks I got onto. I always wondered how I never had them on camera, well it only takes a few yards to miss a picture or maybe a camera isn't set up in a particular area.
Running 30 cameras is alot. That to me is totally different than running two or three. To saturate a property to that level is getting into a new game, I'm a boots on the ground hard core spring scouting type of hunter. All my big bucks were taken with observation stands first then moving in for the kill. I honestly dont even know what I would do with 30 cameras let alone try to connect the dots on them all, that would be a real chore.
I hunt 100% public in 3 states. The cameras are spread out over many properties. I seldom have 2 cameras within 1/4 mile of each other. Yes it's a lot if work but I enjoy it. I will only check them 1 or 2 times. half of them will wind up in actual hunting spots come august where they will sit until March as I have no plans hunting there but there might be a nice 3.5 year old I want to keep tabs on.
This would constitute good use of cameras! I know alot of hunters are trying to use them in a month or two to connect on a buck during the season. This would be great if it were so easy and one can get lucky by doing so but with my experience and what I see and hear it's a very low odds game they play. To build a pattern, learn the history of a property, learn some tendencies and figuring out when and where you need to be based on current and past sign in conjunction with the data you pull from the cams is the name to the game to connect on the big boys.