The first step in hanging any trail camera is considering the angle of the sun. At this latitude, pointing the trail camera any direction but north is likely to create washed out photos and lens flare at certain times of day. By facing the camera north if at all possible, you’ll keep Murphy’s Law out of the lighting side of the equation. If north is not possible, south will do. If you have to pick one of the other two cardinal directions, know you’ll be sacrificing either sunrise or sunset as the case may be.
The best trail cameras can reliably take clear pictures of walking deer, but almost any camera on the market can take good photos if the deer stop in front of them. The trick, then, is figuring out how to stop deer in front of the camera, or, better yet, how to put a camera facing north toward an area where deer stop. Where the deer can be expected to stop at this time of year is at a mineral lick. Whether natural or man-made, mineral licks provide grazing animals with sodium, calcium, iron, zinc and phosphorus – critical components for muscle, bone and antler growth. These sites are effective draws for deer in the spring and summer when these growth processes are taking place. Bucks, especially, can be expected to use mineral licks in the current weeks as they’re finishing their antler growth for this year.
Summer food plots are also excellent spots to monitor with trail cameras, and are ideal venues to use the cameras’ time lapse features. Time lapse photos of a wide area can show numbers as well as sizes of deer and also indicate when and how they’re using the field.
Travel corridors
As the season transitions to fall, deer will use mineral licks less and food plots more. For the best photos, locate the points deer most commonly use to enter and exit fields, then place a north-facing camera strategically to catch them as they pass by.
If you’ll be using your cameras on public land, or even on land commonly crossed by the public, it’s a good idea to put some thought toward hiding the cameras themselves. Strapped to a bare trunk in plain view can help a camera get good photos, but it can help the camera get vandalized or stolen as well. If this is a concern, and especially if poachers and trespassers are one of the main things your trail cameras are set out to monitor, experts say hanging the cameras 10 feet high or so can be just the ticket in more ways than one.
As summer gives way to fall and the bucks break out of their bachelor groups, strategies for getting them on camera change, but a full summer’s history of their growth and travel will give you a solid place to start, not to mention a good idea of exactly what you’re looking for.
Walking still required
If the deer your trail cameras say should be showing up around sundown have recently disappeared, chances are high their feeding patterns have been disrupted by falling fruit or acorns. That’s when a midday walk in the woods is well worthwhile.
In the late summer months, when the urge to spend time in the deer woods is all but overpowering, it’s easy to dedicate daylight hours to walking the woods in search of sign. Once the season has opened, though, many spend every available hour hunting, even though deer patterns continue to change with the food and the mood through the seasons, just as they do all calendar year long.
Trail cameras and planted food plots have supplanted much of the old-school necessity for scouting, but it’s just as valuable now as it’s ever been, especially in the season’s early months. With the rut still many weeks away, the daily schedules of deer are still dominated almost completely by the search for food. The shorter days and cooler nights of early fall mean both acorns and soft mast have certainly begun hitting the ground, and the deer are following.
Mighty, mighty acorns
Acorns are low in protein but high in carbohydrate and fat. Once they eat enough of them, they’ll fulfill deer’s protein needs as well. This makes them one of the forest’s power foods. When they’re available, they make up the vast majority of a whitetail’s diet, no matter how lush and attractive a field of fresh wheat, beans, peas or turnips may be.
The primary mast crop affecting deer through the weeks of October are acorns from the red and white oak families. In fact, sawtooth oaks, typically the first to drop their deer-attracting crop, have been dropping acorns for many days already.
Of the two primary oak categories, white oak acorns are more palatable than red oak acorns because they’re lower in tannins, the natural chemical that is bitter on the tongue, but deer will definitely eat both. As you’re cruising the woods and checking trees, give top preference to developing hunting solutions around white oaks.
White oaks have bark that is an off-white, ashy gray color that can be very scaly. Typically their acorns are longer overall but smaller in diameter than red oak acorns. In this area, common white oak varieties include the bur, chestnut, overcap and post oak, among others, along with the typically-early-dropping sawtooth oak.
While every stand of trees is unique, white oaks generally drop their acorns earlier in the season than red oaks as well, so if you’re looking for somewhere to hunt in the next few weeks, white oaks are certainly the more certain way to go.
Not far from the tree
While red and white oaks drop acorns over the course of months, fruits from soft mast trees generally hit the ground through the course of a few weeks in the early fall. If you have access to persimmon, pear, plum or apple trees, check them closely for deer activity. Don’t overlook dogwood trees as well. These provide showers of a berry deer can’t resist. When they’re available, all of these are attractive as candy to whitetails and provide them with critical and welcome nutrition as well.
If the deer you’ve been expecting to see along your greenfields’ edges at prime time have suddenly started arriving much later, chances are good they’re swinging by one or more soft mast spots on their way from their bedding areas to their traditional food sources. Even if the fruit trees you find aren’t dropping yet, it’s likely their under-stories are playing host to the tardy deer you’ve been expecting to find coming along. Find a downwind spot near such a tree for your archery and early primitive weapon action, and you’ll be well-set for success.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
