Wrangler95
Well-Known Member
I always use corn I put in front of my cameras to get pics but have also put them on mineral licks and trails.Where do you use your cameras the most?
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Trail Camera Placement!
- Thread starter Wrangler95
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backyardtndeer
Well-Known Member
Obvious game trails. Entry points to plots. Closer to season on scrapelines.
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
I really like fence crossings on my cattle grounds. Def scrapes in Oct. Thinking the new 360 cams will be good in the middle of plots this fall as well
As others have said on intersecting trails, plots, scrapes etc. I also put mine on the worn out creek crossings and ditches. Most all deer in that area will cross those types of locations as the path of least resistance.
I like to put my cams on trails, creeks, edges, and around acorn trees that are dropping. I use to put them on corn and feed like that but i always hated having start over to find them once the corn and feed had to go.
BSK
Well-Known Member
When running a baited census, if I have to choose between salt or corn, I would choose salt. I've seen older bucks be very hesitant to come to corn (probably because they've been baited before). In addition, bucks are heavily drawn to salt/mineral licks in late August as they are mineralizing their antlers. But I've seen using both work well - establish salt licks in spring but then add to corn to them for a late summer census.
When running a non-baited census, in late summer I like roads maintained through thick cover, food plots, and habitat pinch points. By late September, I'm switching many cameras to scrapes, while still maintaining a few on plots, terrain/habitat bottlenecks, and roads used at travel corridors. Last week of October through late November, primarily scrapes.
When running a non-baited census, in late summer I like roads maintained through thick cover, food plots, and habitat pinch points. By late September, I'm switching many cameras to scrapes, while still maintaining a few on plots, terrain/habitat bottlenecks, and roads used at travel corridors. Last week of October through late November, primarily scrapes.
JCDEERMAN
Well-Known Member
Salt licks and fields now. Come October, scrapes, pinch-points and trails until new years when I take them all up
All the usual spots that congregate or attract deer. Something I find that makes it easier is to make a mock scrape at each location whether it be a plot, water hole, mineral site, trail or creek crossing, etc. Put it right in the line of travel and most deer that come to or near the spot will stop at the scrape or come close enough for camera to catch.
I also have cams that I use while scouting. I put them around fruit/nut trees that are about to drop or are dropping, natural scrapes, rub lines, etc. I leave just long enough to see or not see what I want to know.
I also have cams that I use while scouting. I put them around fruit/nut trees that are about to drop or are dropping, natural scrapes, rub lines, etc. I leave just long enough to see or not see what I want to know.
Salt licks, scrapes, food plots, old logging roads.
Crappieaddict
Well-Known Member
Salt/Mineral licks and trails and old logging roads. Also, fields and food plots.
BSK
Well-Known Member
And as others have mentioned, if you have fences on your property, a low spot or gap in a fence, especially if it is along a travel corridor, can be a gold mine.
Wrangler95
Well-Known Member
All good suggestions,not many people use corn but I get lots more buck pics around corn.I only put 5 gallon corn at each camera and its gone in a few days.I use mineral sites with good luck also!Dont have any food plots but those would be great also!Im not like alot of you that run cams year round but mostly for me August thru 2nd week in September.I also use cams after season ends to see what bucks survived the season!
Forgot to say that corn draws unwanted animals(coons,turkeys)as you all know!
Forgot to say that corn draws unwanted animals(coons,turkeys)as you all know!
I can't argue with that. The times I tried it for sure made for more pics of bucks. It has undeniable drawing power.
For the purpose of getting random buck pics, it's hard to beat corn. That might be the single best way to do it. Corn has been domesticated for so long and so extensively in the American continents that there's no longer a wild source of it. It's an enigma. And you can bet deer have been eating it the entire time humans have been cultivating it. It would be hard to imagine native Americans didn't bait deer with corn. At this point it's as natural to them as acorns, and they love it. So if I were wanting to attract a bunch of deer fast to get pics of a bunch of random bucks, corn is exactly how I'd do it. It flat works.
BUT for census purposes it's terrible, IMO, at least for less than giant properties. I use census to chart population, sex ratio, and age structure of the deer using my property so that I can compare with previous years to pick out progress, regress, and trends. I also use it for a realistic preview of which bucks survived the hunting season and reasonably might be available to hunt the next season. Corn attracts so many other deer that disappear again as soon as the corn is gone that I cannot get a dependable, accurate census. A more accurate & reasonable way to see what's actually happening on my property is to have multiple cameras set up around the property year round so I can see all the deer on a regular basis going about their business. Doing that on a multi-thousand acre place would be a job, so a temporary corn pile right in the middle once or twice per year would probably serve some purpose. But for a small place like mine it would be nothing but a photo shoot for all the surrounding area's deer that I cannot realistically hunt because I'd never see them if not for the corn.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Interesting perspective Ski.
I find it fascinating how deer in different areas react to certain attractants. Personally, I prefer salt licks for census work. But that is because of some research I conducted on my place comparing corn and salt licks. I created 6 baited sites using salt and 6 using corn. Some of these sites were nowhere close to each other. But I intentionally created two pairs that were close. In one pair, the corn and salt were only 50 yards from each other. In the other pair, the corn and salt were side by side. What I found was, at corn by itself, I didn't get a single buck older than a yearling. The only places I got bucks older than yearlings were at salt, with two exceptions. At the corn pile 50 yards from a salt lick, I got older bucks walking past in the background headed for the salt. At the salt lick side-by-side with the corn, I got numerous older bucks, but all were licking the salt and ignoring the corn.
What does this mean? Outside of my place, potentially nothing. But it just goes to show that perhaps "what works best" is highly site specific. For example, right now I'm analyzing census data from a property on the Plateau. They pre-bated the camera sites with salt licks in mid-July. I few days into the census (starting August 1) they poured corn around each salt lick. BINGO! Big change in use of the sites. The salt was attractive, but once the corn was poured out deer were all over the sites almost 24 hours a day. In that location, corn is the answer.
Each situation is unique.
I find it fascinating how deer in different areas react to certain attractants. Personally, I prefer salt licks for census work. But that is because of some research I conducted on my place comparing corn and salt licks. I created 6 baited sites using salt and 6 using corn. Some of these sites were nowhere close to each other. But I intentionally created two pairs that were close. In one pair, the corn and salt were only 50 yards from each other. In the other pair, the corn and salt were side by side. What I found was, at corn by itself, I didn't get a single buck older than a yearling. The only places I got bucks older than yearlings were at salt, with two exceptions. At the corn pile 50 yards from a salt lick, I got older bucks walking past in the background headed for the salt. At the salt lick side-by-side with the corn, I got numerous older bucks, but all were licking the salt and ignoring the corn.
What does this mean? Outside of my place, potentially nothing. But it just goes to show that perhaps "what works best" is highly site specific. For example, right now I'm analyzing census data from a property on the Plateau. They pre-bated the camera sites with salt licks in mid-July. I few days into the census (starting August 1) they poured corn around each salt lick. BINGO! Big change in use of the sites. The salt was attractive, but once the corn was poured out deer were all over the sites almost 24 hours a day. In that location, corn is the answer.
Each situation is unique.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Don't want to stear this thread away from original intent, but just wanted to mention for those running censuses: be very wary of any changes you make in methodology from year to year. And that could be anything from changing the number of cameras you are running, major changes in camera settings, changes in locations of cameras and timing of camera data.
I collect data on my own place (unbaited) from August 1 until mid-January. I then analyze all of the data collectively. HOWEVER, I also look at the same types of data (buck age structure, sex ratio, fawn recruitment) by the type of camera set-up used. For example, I will look at the data just for cameras pointed over food plots, and just cameras pointed at scrapes, and just the data for cameras over old logging roads, etc. Invariably, I find that each type of set-up produces different numbers, sometimes staggeringly different number. Now I still add them all together at the end of the year to get annual numbers, but I also track each individual type of set-up from year to year.
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deerhunter10
Well-Known Member
Salt licks for now. Then all of my cameras are go on scrapes.
DoubleRidge
Well-Known Member
Y'all aint bait'in me into a conversation about pouring corn out on the ground again...nope.
Trophy Rocks starting in July...three different sites on the property. Check cameras every three weeks and have thousands of pics to review each cycle....never used corn.
Late September couple additional cameras added on scrapes....running cameras almost as fun as hunting. (almost).
Trophy Rocks starting in July...three different sites on the property. Check cameras every three weeks and have thousands of pics to review each cycle....never used corn.
Late September couple additional cameras added on scrapes....running cameras almost as fun as hunting. (almost).
BSK
Well-Known Member
Getting the cameras out each late July is what lets me know deer season is getting close! It's when I start getting excited about deer season.
Low gaps, holes in fences and creek crossings are my favs.
110%. There are SOOOO many variables specific to an individual property that do not necessarily apply to other properties. To compound it deer seasonally migrate. That's why I run several cameras around the property year round and draw a census from all of the data, not just a snippet from only one time & place. With enough data over time I get to be pretty familiar with the deer using the property, but even then it can get tricky trying to identify 3yr old 8pts or individual does. I couldn't imagine trying to do what you do with so many different and large properties. I'd drive myself mad.
