2018 trail cam pics

[Leadeye]

Hope you find them Leadeye. We always get new bucks on cam in January, sometimes they stick around and sometimes we get a pic or two and never see them again.

In your experience, how far do they travel? North and East of my ground is 3K acres of HNF that's never hunted simply because it's miles from the road access points. I explored it a little, thought about posting a few cameras back in there.

 

[phylodog]

In your experience, how far do they travel? North and East of my ground is 3K acres of HNF that's never hunted simply because it's miles from the road access points. I explored it a little, thought about posting a few cameras back in there.

I don't have any way of knowing. The biggest we had on our farm this year has made laps around the entire 1k acres for the past two years making it nearly impossible to figure out where he will be. A few years back we had a friend kill a nice dark horned 10 pointer a mile south of us that we had seen two days earlier on our place.

I think the distance they'll travel is likely dependent upon several factors. If there are still hot does putting out that scent in January and the bucks aren't too ravaged or exhausted I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a buck traveling several miles in search of "relations". Population density and the type of area would play a part as well, scent is going to travel farther across picked agricultural fields than it would through heavily wooded areas. I recall seeing an extensive study on the home area of mature bucks but I don't recall if it included how far they ventured out during the rut.

 

[BoilerWes]

https://www.realtree.com/brow-tines-and-backstrap/michael-waddell-s-radio-collared-buck

Waddel killed a radio collared Buck whose home range was 9 square miles.

My father in law has an awesome lease in southern Illinois in the Wabash river bottoms. The buck traffic there is crazy. Bucks cross the river back and forth and you can literally see deer you have never ever seen before at any given moment. At times they will have up to 30 trail cams out. I know for a fact, a guy who hunts the lease skipped an arrow off a good buck and it was killed the next day 5 miles down the river by the adajacent outfitter.

 

[two70]

In your experience, how far do they travel? North and East of my ground is 3K acres of HNF that's never hunted simply because it's miles from the road access points. I explored it a little, thought about posting a few cameras back in there.

At this time of year it really depends on the amount of available food sources with less food equaling greater travel distance in my experience. If you are running your cameras over bait or near a very good food source you can easily pull bucks in from a couple of miles or more provided there are few other quality food options in the area. The catch is that most of these bucks won't stick around through the spring, summer and fall though some of them will likely make return trips through the area again in the fall when they start looking for does. A lot of whether they stay or not seems to depend on how dominant they are and the presence or absence of a more dominant buck in your area.

 

[halfmileharry]

Watch your trail cams.
I'm noticing a lot of them in the Pawn shops lately. Not saying they're not legit but I never see them.

 

[phylodog]

At this time of year it really depends on the amount of available food sources with less food equaling greater travel distance in my experience. If you are running your cameras over bait or near a very good food source you can easily pull bucks in from a couple of miles or more provided there are few other quality food options in the area. The catch is that most of these bucks won't stick around through the spring, summer and fall though some of them will likely make return trips through the area again in the fall when they start looking for does. A lot of whether they stay or not seems to depend on how dominant they are and the presence or absence of a more dominant buck in your area.

I'm not convinced our January newcomers have anything to do with food. Our farm offers nothing which isn't available on any other farm for 35 miles an any direction yet we still see new bucks in January. We have food plots and while the deer do eat what we plant they don't flock to them or even hang out in them for extended periods of time. Food doesn't seem to be much of an issue around our 95% agricultural area.

 

[two70]

I'm not convinced our January newcomers have anything to do with food. Our farm offers nothing which isn't available on any other farm for 35 miles an any direction yet we still see new bucks in January. We have food plots and while the deer do eat what we plant they don't flock to them or even hang out in them for extended periods of time. Food doesn't seem to be much of an issue around our 95% agricultural area.

I was speaking specifically of the southern parts of the state where forested acres equal or exceed agricultural acres and food is not always abundant. I don't doubt that having a prevalence of food available reduces travel distance at this time of year. Even where food is abundant though, not all food sources are equal and while the distance that deer will travel for good food sources may be greatly reduced I suspect it is not completely eliminated. I would bet some of the new bucks that appear at this time of year are also still looking for a receptive doe and that may be a much greater factor in areas(and during years) where food is more abundant but I doubt this is the entire answer either.

As a related aside, I remember reading an article somewhat recently about a rather large property(I think it was 600+ acres in Iowa) that was purchased for hunting. As I recall the property hadn't been managed for deer previously and was purchased too late in the season for the author to plant food plots. The interesting thing about it was that despite being in prime farm land and surrounded by uniform looking areas of ag fields, the majority of the shed antlers and post season sign were concentrated in a few relatively small portions of the property. Subsequent years of habitat management and planting food plots had the effect of spreading out the locations where sheds and post season signs were found over a much larger portion of the property. While the experience from a single year of no management is not sufficient to draw any firm conclusions it is nonetheless interesting.

 

[King31]

Just a few of the better pics on mine after checking today. For $30 trail cams they are quite a bit better than nothing. Still on the initial batteries after 5-6 months.

 

[mom45]

 

[johntheplinker]

Out behind the house there's a steep hillside with a large area of boulders. I found several holes that were showing signs of use and lots of very small (2-4" wide) trails seeing heavy use so I decided to put a camera near one of the holes that was near a few intersections of the trails. Got lots of night time pics of coons but most are really washed out. Did get some good day pics tho.

Hello? What's this?

Let's get closer!

It's still there.

doo da doo da doo

Foxy!

Kitteh

Neighbor's dog coming by to say hi.

 

[mom45]

Busy trail for sure!!

Hubby went out last night and shot #13 (big male) and a few hours later....

 

[johntheplinker]

Congrats to the hubby! I checked my other cams yesterday and thankfully had only 1 pic over a 2 week period of 1 of the damn things, and it was moving on.

 

[boosteds13cc]

Once I'm able to walk better I'll check my cams (just had major back surgery n got out of the hospital)

 

[johntheplinker]

Checked a couple this morning, got a couple of interesting ones.
DOOIIINNNGGGG

This guy doesn't seem to want to lose his antler. IIRC I was calling this one Hat Rack, very tall but narrow spread.

This doe we've had running around since 2012. Her right ear has a notch out of it so it makes her easy to identify. Also she won't spook if I walk outside, will actually let me get within about 15 feet of her as long as I've got a bag of corn in my hand.

A pic of her from 2013, need to dig through my regular camera pics to find the 2012 pics.

 

[mom45]

It's always fun to see them jumping for joy. I think some of mine are taking flying lessons.

This guy finally lost one side the other day....the smaller bucks have all lost their antlers but the bigger ones seem to be hanging on to them. I haven't found any sheds yet.

 

[bobjones223]

MOM45 us it me or do you have some funny white legged deer waking around your property? Or just the light in picture #2?

 

[MindfulMan]

Love the jumpers, Mom !

 

[mom45]

It's just the underside of their legs I think. They are starting to shed so that might be part of the color difference. I am finding big clumps of hair out where I dump their corn.

 

[mom45]

I had to go back and find this one...I knew I had saved it so I wouldn't lose it in the folders full of deer pics.

 

[johntheplinker]

I think you're right mom45, the deer know winter is on the way out and warm weather is near.