Using Trail Cameras to Target Whitetail
Using Trail Cameras to Target Whitetail
If you have read many articles or listened to many podcasts that have featured yours truly, then you have likely heard the story of a buck that was hunted who was affectionately nicknamed “Coondog.” There was nothing super special about this particular buck outside of the fact that he was a homebody on my farm and he was mature when he was being hunted. At least that’s what I thought at the time.
Let Them Go, Let Them Grow
Coondog earned his nickname as a presumably 3 1/2 year old buck when he stood underneath my tree stand warding off any challengers from his hot doe queen for nearly 3 hours. I watched and filmed as he would bed the doe and stand on a particular knoll as youngster after youngster came into his domain. He’d promptly walk the invaders away and head right back underneath my stand to watch over the doe. I had to sit in wait until well after the sun had set and the moon had risen before the doe finally decided to move into a crop field to feed and he pursued. I told my buddies, who were waiting back at camp, he had me “treed like a coon dog.” Thus, the nickname.
Analyze Year-To-Year Data
Fast forward to the next year. I was in hot pursuit of a different buck on a different property so Coondog wasn’t even really on my radar. He was still around, as indicated by trail cameras and summer observation, but he was not on the list of deer I planned to pursue. Nevertheless, due diligence was done and trail cameras were placed around the farm in hopes of keeping tabs on activity. It wasn’t until several weeks after the fact when I realized something I thought to be coincidence through trail camera intel: Coondog had a doe bedded on that very knoll on the exact same date the year after I had the encounter with him where he earned his nickname.
The following year we deemed Coondog a “shooter.” He was 5 1/2 years old, a bully 8 point that would score in the high 130s or 140s and he needed to go! By this time I had invested in a few cellular trail cameras. On a hunch, I placed a cellular camera on the knoll at the very beginning of November in a location that I likely wouldn’t have tried before. The reason: “Well, he’s been here two years in a row on this date. Let’s see if he’ll do it again.”
Understanding the Target
As sure as the day is long, ol’ Coondog daylighted two days before the anniversary of our first encounter on the knoll. He had a doe tended on the hill in the same thicket where I had first gotten to know him. To make a long story short, my brother and I infiltrated the timber on the actual anniversary of the encounter and were able to secure victory over what had become a very special buck!
Between personal encounters and trail camera data we were able to do something that is quite difficult: harvest a mature Iowa whitetail buck. Intelligence from previous years are inevitably what led to his demise. That particular series of events which transpired over the course of three deer seasons has seriously altered my approach to deer hunting in general and rut hunting in particular.
Collect That Data!
Chart your trail camera data and hunt daylight bucks! As a novice trail camera user, I often found myself checking photos, seeing a big buck on camera in the middle of the night, and hyping up my expectations for the hunt. What I’ve come to realize over the years is that is a laughable concept. Why? You’re not allowed to hunt deer at night. Sure, it gives you an inclination that a particular buck was on that particular property. Also, it gives you a glimmer of hope that he might stumble by your stand location if you put in tree stand time. However, why not hunt deer when deer are huntable?
In 2020 I began a system of charting the daylight activity of particular bucks that I intended to hunt for the next year. Thankfully, I had trail camera data from previous years so I was able to go back and catalog for several years prior and have cataloged ever since.
(Note: there are many great trail camera tracking software packages available from several different resources. This is a concept that has been around for several years and the software, presumably, is only getting better. For the sake of this article, however, we will discuss the archaic way of personal data tracking of deer habits utilizing our trail camera data. Also, this article assumes access to the same parcel of property for at least one season prior to the information.)
Cataloging
The first thing that I do anymore when I check a trail camera is clean off the memory card of any deer that I am not interested in tracking. Usually, I keep up with 3-year-old or older bucks. Occasionally, there will be a distinguishing mark on younger deer that will help identify them from year to year and I will track those particular deer. Also, I have two particular does on one farm that have unique features that allow me to track them. I have found this information to be powerful as well when it comes to their estrous cycles and their locations on the farm.
As I’ve identified deer I’d like to keep tabs of I place them into folders on an external hard drive. Each folder is categorized by year, then farm, then the month the photo was taken. The exception is the summer months where I’ll lump velvet photos into one category called summer for that particular year and farm. Categorizing things this way gives me a tidy way to check different months from particular years quickly and efficiently. (Pro Tip: if you want to get crazy with it you can create particular folders for particular bucks during the years and months of the photos. This could streamline things for you but could take some work.)
Tracking
Once the cataloging has taken place, I like to look over the photos and notice trends. The biggest: what dates did particular bucks move during daylight hours and where were they? Also, which way was a buck approaching during the morning hours on this particular camera? What time of day was he coming into the camera and where might he be go? These are questions to ask yourself because they let you have an educated guess as to where the deer might have been coming from and where he might be going at particular times of a day. This is good for year-to-year tracking on bucks in general because often times the deer have similar tendencies from year to year.
This is great to know for specific bucks from year to year. I have found through this nonscientific research that deer are incredible creatures of habit. While they’re not perfectly predictable they are fairly predictable. Coondog, for instance, daylighted on the exact same spot of the farm three years in a row because that’s where he liked to tend does during the rut. After using that information to pursue other bucks I have found that more often than not deer will daylight on or around the same days of the year nearly yearly in similar locations. Again, there are tons of exceptions. Some include varying weather events, pressure, timber/crop management, and human intrusion amongst others.
Apply That Data!
The late October to late November range is a wonderful time to utilize this type of information to make an educated guess as to where he might want to be. I have found this strategy to be effective during the late season also when it comes to preferred food sources.
I’ve also used this strategy to keep from panicking when I lose track of a particular buck. I’ve had deer abandon the farm for weeks at a time only to show back up during the late season. This seems to happen yearly. I can almost predict, now, when he will leave the farm. This gives me the good sense not to worry so much about hunting that particular deer because he likely is not on my property.
Understanding that deer are creatures of habit led me to believe they were trackable targets. Taking into account that some bucks daylight on or around the exact same days of the year every year has helped me to narrow down my hunting efforts in order to maximize time and intrusion on my farms.
by Noel Gandy
September 2024
