3 In-Season Trail Camera Mistakes That Will Cost You a Buck

The difference between planning a private land rut hunt where I’ve had nine cell cameras going since July, and walking into some tract of public land in Wisconsin or North Dakota totally blind, is stark. It’s also a good reminder of how much of an asset cameras can be, but also how we can use them wrong. This was no more evident to me than during the first couple days of the season in my home state of Minnesota.

I have permission to hunt a 25-acre piece of dirt in the suburbs where I live. On it, the landowner runs a handful of cell cameras. One of them overlooks a lone apple tree at the far corner of the property. It’s an early-season deer magnet, and that means a couple of things.

The first is that it’ll show a lot of bachelor group activity in the days leading up to the mid-September opener. The second is that it’ll talk to the landowner into sitting that tree, regardless of conditions.

That happened this year, and on his first sit, a young buck came in and the shot did not work out well. The deer didn’t care, and they kept showing up on camera, so he texted me that he was going to hunt again. I checked the wind, and realized that it would be blowing right from the blind, to the tree, to beyond the tree into the woodlot where most of the bucks approach the tree from.

I mentioned that, and he said he’d consider it. I had my suspicions that the siren song would be too strong, and I was right. He sat there anyway, and the results were predictable. When you have an active camera, it’s a lot of fun. It’s also dangerous, because all of those pictures show up when you’re not there. When you are there, everything changes. Don’t let a trail camera talk you into sitting during the wrong conditions, because you could erase the value of all that intel in one ill-fated morning or evening.

This mistake can break the other way, as well.

A far more common mistake hunters make is deciding that their trail cameras haven’t shown them enough deer activity to prove that not hunting is the best move. This drives me absolutely nuts, even though it’s extremely common.

Now, if you have 10 acres to hunt and your go-to strategy is to sit over a feeder, then by all means, trust your camera. In about every other situation, be careful. A dead camera might mean a lot of nocturnal movement and not much to work with during shooting hours, or it just might mean things have changed slightly.

If you’ve ever seen a really hot oak tree, or maybe a persimmon tree, you know what I mean. One ridge, or a single tree could come on, and soak up the activity on a camera for a week or two. Sometimes more.

Don’t look for an excuse not to hunt. Trail cameras can absolutely be that excuse, and they only become more persuasive if we pair slow activity with some kind of weather condition we feel will put the deer down. Instead of calling it on a hunt because you’re not getting the pics you want, ask yourself where they might be moving instead.

Consider it a challenge to overcome, and not a problem that can be solved by staying home to rake the yard and watch a football game.

We all know how exciting it is to get a daytime picture of a stud buck. But a one-off event isn’t much more than an intriguing, yet small, piece of the puzzle. Two images in a week might be enough to get you to set an early alarm, or you might think it’s just not quite enough to warrant a sit.

The truth is, we often look for perfect when good enough should do it. Most bucks aren’t going to walk the same trail every day, in daylight, any more than they’ll hit the same field corner over and over for days at a time. Deer are patternable, they just often aren’t that patternable. This only gets more true as October winds down and November comes rolling in.

If a buck shows up in daylight, that might be good enough to start putting some effort into him. Don’t think about it solely as him walking in front of one of your cameras at whatever time of day it is, think about why he’s there. How he got there, and where he might have been going. This way, you won’t view that intel solely through the lens of the spot where your camera is at, which might not be ideal to hunt for whatever reason.

Maybe he showed up on your camera in one spot, because he likely walked through past one of your stands where you don’t have a camera. What can you surmise from a single image that might mean you don’t need to wait for another to convince yourself to go after him? Or, maybe it’s nothing more than a reason to sneak in and scout a little for fresh sign somewhere near the camera’s location.

Whatever it is, consider a daylight picture of a good one a gift. Then figure out how to use it to the best of your abilities, before it becomes old news.