Setting trail cameras in hill country

[TallTines]

Ok guys give me some info on where everyone sets there cameras up in hill country.

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[CNYarcher88]

This is a pretty vague question but in general I place my cameras on the uphill side of the area I want to take a picture of. I put it facing perpendicular to the trail so the deer are never looking directly at the cameras. If anything I angle to a little toward the direction they are going to be traveling to get a couple angles as they pass. Obviously depending on how steep the terrain is you will have to angle the camera down quite a bit. I find that trying to face the camera uphill increases the chances of getting wash out and shadows because of too much backlighting like trying to take a picture of someone with the sun behind them...never comes out very well. If you are talking more about terrain feature dictate where you put them I like secondary ridges and saddles the steeper the terrain the more it will dictate the deer movement. I very rarely get the opportunity to hunt flat land so I have actually grown to really like the hills it controls deer movement so much more than in flat country where they have no particular reason to take a certain course.

[Southern Man]

The hills I hunt have relatively narrow ridgetops. Mostly all wooded, fields are in the bottoms, rarely is there a field on top of the ridge. Alot of sign can be found in the draws and bottoms but it seems the ridgetops are bigtime travel corrodors. Although deer can (and will) climb the side of the ridge anywhere, location of access trails to and from the ridgetops seems to be fairly consistant also. Meaning they have favored trails up and down. Bedding seems to be on the ridgetop, or fairly close to it.

That being said, I like to place cameras on pinch points on the ridgetops and on the favored up / down trails, either on the top or the bottom, just depending. I want as close to bedding as I can get, but I leave my cameras and don't check them but once or twice a year. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a pinch point on the ridgetop where the ridge is kind of narrow. A camera can cover it enough and with a little scouting, you can see where the buck is moving.

We put out 12 cameras last March to cover a ridge that is a little over a 1/2 mile long, and the favored up / down trails. We won't check them until this fall, maybe early October but may wait until December / January. Our goal is to see how bucks use and move the ridge.

[Dewey]

I'm a first timer at this so it took me some time to decide where to mount my cellular cam. Ended up on a shallower ravine crossing and on a fairly heavy trail at 1/3 elevation from the ridge top. Basically a travel funnel to croplands on top. So far my placement has been very good and about 70% are buck pics. Mine is aimed uphill but in hindsight kinda wish I had aimed it downhill instead but overall it's still been working out just fine. Plenty of great pics delivered to me daily.

All of my other cams are on trails at obvious funnels. No idea how those will work out till I physically check the cards but pretty confident on those locations. Nice thing about the hills is it's really easy to pinpoint travel routes. Only so many trails they will walk on a regular basis in steep terrain.

[DeerDylan]

There is some great stuff on camera placement in Bucky's podcast thread:

viewtopic.php?f=295&t=34055&hilit=Bucky+podcast

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[Divergent]

I have more luck in the bottoms during the summer. I don't usually start seeing much buck activity up top til it cools off. Most of my pics are taken at creek crossings, licking branches, and mineral sites in the summer. I find the deer near low lying water sources and under over hanging bluffs. Usually it's a good bit cooler in these two spots.

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