Now we have found which bucks are consistently utilizing our hunting area, and you likely have found a buck you’d like to slap a tag on, it’s time to hone in using our trail cameras.
Our goal with the summer survey has been to locate bucks, and get a better understanding of our herd. This all plays right into our hand. During the early part of the season in the Upper Midwest, September is often forgotten. People think the rut is the only time to kill a good buck…well it couldn’t be more wrong. The early season ranks right up there with the rut as one of the most opportune times to stick a bruiser. Trail cameras are going to be your best friend.
Using the knowledge we’ve collected with the survey, we can position cameras appropriately. September is still prime time for deer to hit beans like they are going out of style. If you’ve got a large bean field there is a tactic which has gained a lot of popularity, and has worked out quite well for me. Either using a tall 4×4 or a tree, position the camera at 10-15 feet off the ground facing out into the field. Ideally you will want the camera to face South. Why is this? If you set up a west facing camera, the sun will be right in the lens of the camera creating difficult lens flare, essentially creating a unusable picture. The same applies for East facing cameras in the morning.
The time-lapse function of a camera is going to be critical to finding out where the deer are going to exit and enter the fields. The Covert MP-8 is one of my camera’s of choice for collecting time-lapse footage. The low light performance is outstanding, and the easy to set up time-lapse feature makes getting the correct settings a breeze.
The settings I use are 1 picture every 30 seconds to 1 minute, for the last 2 hours of daylight and the first two hours of daylight in the morning. This should provide you with the knowledge of where deer are entering and exiting the fields so you can adjust your stand locations accordingly. The other benefit of using a higher quality camera is the resolution. Often times the deer will be very distant in the picture and having the ability to zoom up slightly in the computer and still maintain a fair resolution will be critical in identifying trophy deer.
This time of year deer essentially abandon salt and mineral licks, and with hunting season approaching or already upon you, baiting may be out of the question. This is where setting your camera up on mock scrapes as we talked about in part 1 of our Transitioning Trail Camera Series this August. The next viable option is trails leading up to field edges. As we get into and through September, deer are less apt to enter large fields in the daylight, and setting up cameras 50-100 yards into the woods leading up to the food source will often bare daylight pictures. My whole goal of running trail cameras in September is to find a mature deer I want to shoot on it’s feet during daylight in an area which is accessible. Now what does accessible mean?
As the buck’s testosterone increases they will be less likely to be traveling in bachelor groups and other deer, their season long paranoia will also kick in. You need to begin treading lightly on the areas you plan on hunting.
Don’t set your cameras in areas that require invasive action, try to stick to areas further away from bedding areas, as you don’t want to set yourself up for failure in the coming months.
Scent control is important now, as many mature deer with shift their patterns nocturnally with the presence of humans. This means rubber boats, latex gloves and other scent control measures.
Only checking your cameras during certain time periods is also important. From 11-2 is the ideal time period to be getting your cameras. Don’t be going in every 4 days to check them either, as it is only introducing more disturbance in the area. at least a 7 days, and even more if you are closer to a sensitive area.
If you’re scoffing at me saying, “OOO my deer don’t care, they are used to me romping through the woods all the time”, you may want to think again. Booners or near Booners don’t grow to be giants by being stupid, most of them will not tolerate human disturbance. Either they will go completely dark, or leave the area, and essentially you have ruined all hope of arrowing this buck before the rut starts. Do I need to reiterate myself? I think you get the point.
As the fall progresses this is prime time for bucks to start transitioning to alternative food sources, especially acorns. If you have Oak trees in your area, this is a prime chance to move your cameras to an ultra hot food source. Finding main trails to and from the Oak trees along with particular trees which are producing loads of acorns will provide you with the best opportunity to catch a big buck on his feet. The same goes for fruit trees, apples will be dropping and where there are apples, there are deer!
Scrape and rub lines are key ingredients to find deer in September. They aren’t hard to find and often every year they will leave their markings in the exact same spot. Finding a scrape with a licking branch is your best bet and freshening it up with some buck gland scent will keep the deer frequenting the area.
Daylight pictures are king this time of year. If you are getting 100’s of pictures of your stud booner ever single night at 2am, but not one single daylight picture. Your odds of sitting near there in September and harvesting that deer are pretty poor.
Keep moving your trail cameras until you can get deer on their feet with time to spare in the mornings or evenings. It’s when you finally figure out where these deer are moving during the daylight is when the puzzle is ready to finally be put back in the box. It’s time to hunt!
Use your trail camera data and figure out how often he is coming in, from which direction and what wind would offer you the best chance at getting within range without him winding you.
There are softwares such as HuntForce which automatically calculate all of the above factors and many more. For example it will tell you how many morning, evening and dark photos you have of the deer and what percentage of the time he is showing up for either. It’s a cheap way to manage all of your photos, and with the ability to create different “deer profiles” and set up different properties, it’s great for the guys trying to manage 1000’s of photos a year!
In a nutshell, a lot of your summer tactics in terms of trail camera set up aren’t going to be applicable moving into middle to later September. Go back deeper into the woods and begin to find areas deer are moving during the daylight hours where you will be able to get a chance at harvesting him! It’s all about decoding the puzzle, and hopefully putting your butt in a seat 20 yards from 150″ of antler!