Trail Camera Surveys

[Long Cut]

Now is the time to get trail cameras out and do surveys of your Winter deer herds.

We bought this farm in August 2020. Immediately it was clear we had way too many deer after seeing 20+ a field every night. Being we’re NOT in AG Country, the woods didn’t provide enough forage to sustain the numbers we’ve seen. The 2 DMAP Biologists that walked the farm with me also advised to kill 6-10+ does.

After the help of some trigger happy buddies, we had been able to kill 12 deer (9 does and 3 bucks) off of 61 acres.

Fast forward 2 years and we have food plots that can grow more than 2”, trough feeders stay full longer than 3-4 days and we’re starting to see larger bucks already.
The Rut for 2022 was the most action packed I’ve ever seen on this farm. More chasing and bucks cruising in daylight than years past. Granted the habitat has been the thickest it’s ever been as well.

So get out there, drop a trail camera and corn pile every ~100 acres and set the camera to a 5 minute trigger interval.

Hope this helps. Happy hunting

 

[mattb78]

A word of caution that trail camera studies can be inaccurate for small properties.

If you dump a bunch of corn at a time when nobody else is baiting your population density will be artificially high. Consult a biologist as OP did if you think you need to reduce the population.

A great tool for fawn recruitment which is very important these days in areas with coyotes.

 

[Long Cut]

A word of caution that trail camera studies can be inaccurate for small properties.

If you dump a bunch of corn at a time when nobody else is baiting your population density will be artificially high. Consult a biologist as OP did if you think you need to reduce the population.

A great tool for fawn recruitment which is very important these days in areas with coyotes.

There’s always a caveat when dealing with wild animals.

Other indicators may include browse lines at 4-6’ off the ground. Kudzu can be a great indicator around July-September for this.
Physical deer sightings, speaking with neighbors and driving the roads at night.

I’ve got 2 corn piles with cell cameras right now and a buddy texted me last night saying he saw 14-16 does on the neighbors power line at the same time I had 6-9 does on my 2 bait piles.

The surveys serve as a guideline for us. Some may argue you cannot manage deer herds on smaller acreage, which is true to some extent. But paired with likeminded neighbors, we can accomplish a lot.

 

[Jim Boyd]

We have too many and are very lame at thinning them out.

You could throw a pork chop past a hungry wolf before you can get anything past our herd.

I agree, TC survey can be deceiving.

My best use is to see bucks in summer.