Buck Manager | Buck Manager

Game Camera Tips for Deer Hunters

Earlier this week I touched on how game cameras and deer management go hand in hand. Not only do digital scouting cameras work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week taking photos of deer on your property, but they also give you a good idea of quality. What could be easier? Here we go.

Camera Placement – I’ve written extensively regarding tips for camera placement, so I won’t go into as much detail here. However, for the beginners out there, the easiest way to photos of white-tail deer is to have something that attracts them. Food, minerals, and water are obvious and good choices. However, although these sites are great for getting deer photos they may not necessarily be the best for collecting deer survey data using your camera.

Game Camera Tips for Deer Hunters

Rechargeable Batteries – This sounds simple, but you can save yourself some heartache and money if you pay attention here. Digital cameras (and make sure you are using digital) are great because they can work around the clock. The problem is that they are motion activated and that requires power.

Each time they are activated and take a photo, the camera uses battery power. This increases with photos taken in the dark. The more photos you take, the more battery power you will need. Invest in rechargeable and be done.

Solar Panels – You have to love the sun! Sure, it’s not all that great when your sweating your butt off setting up feeders and stands in late summer/early fall, but it can take your game camera to the next level. If at all possible, buy a camera that allows you to hook up a solar panel. If you already have a camera, get it converted so that it will work with a solar panel. Then, when you get the chance to check your camera, all you have to do is change out the SD card.

Pattern Bucks with Game Cameras

Time and Date-This a no brainer, but many hunters fail to set the time and date when they place out there cameras. Or when placed out, the user simply fails to set the time. Let me tell you, it is extremely frustrating when you check your photos and the times are wrong. Make sure to set the date and time because it, if nothing else, it will give you the exact time when animals were in the area, regardless of whether they return or not.

Locks – Scouting cameras are not cheap. Even the cheapest cameras aren’t cheap enough to just give away. If you place your camera in an area where someone could steal it or if you even suspect that someone could take it, make sure it is lockable. Option number two is to buy an after-market locking system that works with your camera. It’s very exciting to get a nice photo of a monster buck, but it’s also exciting when you arrive to check your camera and it’s gone. It’s just a different kind of excitement.

Game Cameras and Deer Management

For as long as I’ve been fascinated with deer and deer hunting I have wondered about those big nocturnal bucks that no doubt walked across the land where I hunted. That was a long time ago, even before I knew “nocturnal” was a word. Cameras are great for “capturing” the deer on a property, but they also help with white-tailed deer management.

Nowadays, we don’t have to worry as much about the big whitetail bucks that “might” be out there because game cameras help us do a much more thorough job of scouting prior to and during the deer hunting season. I said “as much,” because there always seems to be bucks that elude everything, including cameras (pays to be scent-free when setting out your cameras).

Game Cameras for Scouting Deer

Using Game Cameras for Deer

Using a game camera can be fun and exciting. However, looking back at my first couple of years of using a camera, it was not at all what I had hoped it would be. Sure, I saw some bucks. That’s cool. Some were even better than what I had observed during daylight hours, but nothing like the images that haunted my dreams.

I think deer hunters as a group are very optimistic. How could be get up at the butt-crack of dawn, walk ourselves out into the dark, sit for hours upon hours in adverse weather conditions, and just hope to see a deer if we were not, right? We also want to believe that there is the potential for a “booner” on any given hunt.

Patterning Deer with My Camera

My first season with a game camera was mediocre. The camera proved time and time again that the same spike, 8-point buck, 5 does, and 3 fawns visited the are everyday at about the same time. In addition, an occasional “rogue” buck or two would be spotted overnight, but nothing to write home about. There was no freak nasty.

As it turns out, there really weren’t any big, magical bucks that sneaking through the habitat found on the property I hunted. The bucks I thought lived there, in reality, were not there at all!

Were they hanging out on the neighbors property? What was I doing wrong that swamp donkeys weren’t showing up on camera? Did their patterns include areas of the property where I didn’t have cameras. I moved cameras all over, but no massive bucks appeared.

Managing Deer Hunting Expectations with a Camera

Then I thought about it. If I’m not getting photos of quality bucks at night or at different parts of the property (at any time), then there are not any quality bucks to be found. It’s not that I’m not seeing them, then these whitetail bucks simply do not exists, are not found in the area!

The fact of the matter is if you (like me back then) aren’t seeing any good bucks on your trail camera, then it’s not that you’re having a problem seeing the bucks, it’s just that they do not exists. They aren’t on the property. They likely aren’t on your neighbors property either, or at least in close proximity.

In this case, what I had and what you may have, is a deer management problem. It could even be as simple as a deer hunting problem, where young bucks are being harvested well before maturity. If the only bucks you’re seeing on game camera are yearling and 2 1/2 year old bucks then it’s time to take a hard look at the activities on the property.

There are not many monster 2 1/2 year old whitetail bucks running around. I submit that there are none.

Game camera tips to get your buck!

More Deer Management with Cameras

You can use game camera photos to estimate buck to doe ratios, annual fawning success, and the quality of the bucks on your property, but it also gives you snap-shot after snap-shot of what your overall deer management plan (or lack thereof) is doing for you on a piece of property.

Not even the best trail camera can find something that is not there. Later this week I will talk more about game cameras and even include a few more game camera tips for keeping track of the white-tailed deer on your hunting grounds. Until then, keep your hooks sharp and your ammo dry.

The Best Whitetail Deer Food Plots

There are as many different kinds of food plot mixes on the market as there are days in a year, but a lot of people do not realize that the best food plots for white-tailed deer actually grow naturally! In my opinion, natural foods are the best food plots.

I guess by definition what I am writing about today can not really be considered food plots, but more like techniques to provide additional foods for deer. But I believe habitat management is the first step in deer management!

Disking– This is a simple technique that can be implemented (get it) during both the spring and fall. There is nothing magical about how disking works. The only thing necessary is that you use a disk to disturb the surface of the soil so that forb seeds can become “exposed” and germinate.

To promote warm season forbs for deer, disk the selected area before spring green-up. To promote cool season food plots simply disk the area where you would like your native food plot to be during late summer. In addition, to promote more edge and diversity you can alternate disked and undisked strips (strip disking). Continue reading “The Best Whitetail Deer Food Plots”

The Fundamentals of Deer Management

Deer management. You have heard the words before, but what does it mean to you? To different people it means different things. To pure hunters, deer management revolves around harvest management. You either shoot to get the deer population down or you lay off the herd to let the numbers grow. Sure, harvest management should be an important part of any comprehensive deer management plan, but keep in mind that it’s not the only thing.

It’s real easy to talk about deer management, but there is talking the talk and walking the walk. White-tailed deer, like all animals, have three primary needs: food, cover, and water. This seems easy enough, but there really is a big misconception among lots of folks about what deer actually eat. If you don’t already know that deer eat primarily forbs and browse, then you have some homework to do because the words “browse” and “forb” mean absolutely nothing to you. But it’s not a big deal because it’s relatively easy to learn about and research the important deer browse and forbs in your area. Once you know what deer eat, the next step is to figure out how to provide more of those foods through proper habitat management.

Habitat management is important not only for the food that it provides, but also to satisfy the cover requirements that white-tailed deer need. Deer can live in a variety of habitats, but landscapes that range from 40 to 60% brushy and woody cover and interspersed with open areas provide ideal deer habitat. This is because, once again, deer eat both browse, the leaves and stems of woody plants, and certain forbs, which are commonly referred to as weeds or wildflowers by the majority of people.

A key factor to deer management is knowing that deer drastically impact the quality of their habitat. A lot of people to not realize this. Here is where it gets a bit tricky, but I will spare the more important details that are available elsewhere on this site. If your deer population is at the proper carrying capacity (winter density) for the habitat, then habitat conditions will be good. If habitat conditions are good, then reproduction of deer (fawning rate) will be high. If reproduction is high, then a large number of animals must be removed (harvested) each fall because so many animals will be recruited into the existing deer population.

Now, if one fails to remove these animals then over time habitat conditions decline. Once vegetative conditions deteriorate, the number of fawns produced each year declines. Eventually, you end up with a bunch of deer that exhibit poor body conditions and have very poor reproduction. However, if you strive to create good deer habitat through sound habitat management practices and work to keep the population in check, then each year you will have a healthy doe population, a high fawning rate, and a buck segment with excellent body condition and antler quality.

Of course, this is an overly-simplified article discussing the basics of deer management. If you desire to properly manage the white-tailed deer and habitat found on your property, then I encourage you to check out the rest of this site and subscribe via email above to get the latest articles sent directly to your inbox.

Whitetail Bucks are Dropping Their Velvet

With the fall deer hunting season just around the corner and thousands of game cameras attached to trees, posts, or anything else an ingenious hunter can mount a camera to, photos are constantly being taken of white-tailed bucks going through rapid antler transformations — from velvet covered antlers to fresh, clean racks. It really is amazing how fast antlers can grow, but just as amazing is how fast a buck can take it all off!

Last week we talked about how minerals are transported from a buck’s skeleton as its antlers grow, but this week we are are touching on the velvet removal process. Velvet is removed because testosterone levels of bucks rise during the fall triggering the mineralization of the cartilage-like tissue. Because a buck’s antlers are very tender during the velvet stage and they have low levels of testosterone, bucks are very friendly towards one another. In fact, you will rarely see bucks fighting at all during the antler growing period.

Antlers harden and then bucks rub off velvet

But don’t think they don’t fight. Bucks do fight, they just do not use their antlers. During the spring and summer, whitetail bucks often settle fights by threats and posturing, but when push comes to shove they fight much likes does — on their hind legs using their front legs to kick! But back to the mineralization of antlers.

Once antlers become totally mineralized, the blood vessels in the velvet surrounding them dies and begins to dry up. As the velvet begins to slough off bucks will aid the process by rubbing their antlers on nearby saplings and trees. Bucks will continue to rub their antlers on brush up until the rut as they work off building aggression and prepare for battle with other white-tailed bucks.

The photos below show a 9-point buck located in central Texas over about a week period. You can identify the buck as the same deer because of his short G4 on the right side, but you can see that this guy went from velvet to clean in short order. And just think, he will be shedding his antlers in about 5 months and starting all over, if he makes it through hunting season!