Cams in hill country

[Jeff25]

Where do y'all like to hang your cams in public hill country? Terrain features, creek crossings etc. where do you put them to get the best inventory of bucks in the area. In Ohio we can't bait or shine.

[Kybowhunter]

If you're confident the camera wont get stolen you cant go wrong with creek crossings. People hug the creeks and rivers around my parts so cameras get gone pretty easy on the crossings. Ill come back off the creek about 75-100 yds or so and hang them with my lone wolf stick. Let them sit about 6 weeks and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of whats there.

[Mschmeiske]

I'm interested to hear some peoples responses myself. I started running cams last year and worked food or edges myself.

[rempse2]

I've had good luck setting my woodland hill country cameras based on terrain features. I have two different spots where a drainage cuts down the side of steep hill down to a small brook in the valley below. The deer use these drainage cuts to go up and down to the top of the hill which has heavy mt laurel and is used for bedding, when scouting these terrain features I found active community scrapes with licking branches down at the bottom of the drainage in the valley. I put some Old Smokey's Pre Orbital lure on the branches above the scrape and set my camera the first week of September and left it out until March. I got pics of several good bucks, a bunch of young bucks and tons of doe family groups. The vast majority of buck photos were at night but it enabled me to see what kind of activity is going on and where the bucks are coming from and heading. I find that using cameras in the big woods is a process, the intel I collect then determines my next move which in this case was to climb the top of the hill and try to figure out where they are going. Once up the hill i found a subtle saddle as well as another drainage that went down the other side of the hill (the leeward side) . I set my camera over looking the saddle in March and will leave it there until the end of December. This will help me determine how many does call this hill top home and see how the bucks move thru there during the early season thru the rut to the late season.

[justdirtyfun]

From reading about thermal hubs where air collects from a few drainage I want to put one there. A buck can check a large area worth of scent from that one location. Common to have a community scrape also.

It would be great to place one early September and run through December.

[MikePerry]

Staying tuned for this one

[Joe68]

A nicely used bench is always a good spot. Our group has one set on a bench right whereit Y's off and goes to a higher elevation. There were a few bucks using this bench.

[Stanley]

Benches are good, saddles are good, pinch points are good.

[tbunao]

IMO it depends on the time of the season.

Spring scouting determined a few areas just outside of bedding. Like we speak of spokes on the wheel, these cams are on what I believe to be exit trails just past staging, about 100-150yrads past where I have sets, they should be pics taken shortly after dark distance away. Let those cams soak from June- August. Trust your scouting and you won't need to go in every other week.

September marks the loss of velvet. Those cams that where out off of bedding are now transferred to areas that will hold pre rut action. Looking for historical info from now on so they soak until December. The rest are in funnels, pinch areas, saddles and benches. Typical locations.

Hopefully I can ID some bucks from the initial cam placement and will have track traps around those exit trails so I can check them on my way in for a sit.

[DeerDylan]

Bucky touched on this a good bit in his podcast and thread:

viewtopic.php?f=295&t=34055&hilit=Bucky+podcast&start=60

[blizzardhunter]

I'm probably running mine on a combination of all those features. I also like to hang them over remote scrapes in big timber. It seems the lower deer density with the remoteness of an area means deer relate to the scrapes more so than in farm country. Great way to take inventory of all the deer in the area.

[Dewey]

Last year was my first attempt at setting cams in hill country. I did very well on paralell trails along streams and ravine crossings near the top 1/3 of ridges especially if in the thermal tunnel. Also trails coming off bedding points and benches provided nice buck pics as well. To me it seemed getting cams in good travel spots was fairly easy because travel in the hills is very predictable once you understand how they use the thermals.

[Jeff25]

Dewey, any way you could post a topo with an example of the parallel trails your referring too?

[Dewey]

Dewey, any way you could post a topo with an example of the parallel trails your referring too?

Don't have any I could post but basically any trail that follows along a river, stream or creek. Obviously more remote the better to avoid thieves. Due to thermals these can be tough areas to hunt but are great for getting bucks on cam for gaining intel on travel routes.