I’ve honestly never owned trail cam

They are a tool.....plain and simple.

Whether you know how to use that tool to your advantage or not is totally up to you!

Human activity, Intrusion into a buck’s area and hunting pressure are problems. No need in blaming those things on the cameras. They can be easily utilized while avoiding those type issueas.

Some folks get it, some don’t.

My hunting success would drop tremendously if not for trail cameras. I’m fortunate to have several different properties to hunt. I rely on cameras to find a “shooter” before season starts. Once season begins I’ll keep them out but don’t really check them that often. I just need to know which property I should be hunting.

Now if I could only hunt one property, trail cameras wouldn’t really matter.

I haven’t killed a buck in years that I didn’t have a pic of.

Now, Danny why did you have to go tell the entire innerwebs how useful a camera can be on killing mature bucks consistently You and I would not anything about that, now would we

Some of you fellers need to do some reading up on the use of trail cameras. Their is a lot of good information out their to help educate yourself on the correct use of trail cameras. The deer on my wall sure wish I would not have learned what I know now. They can be a very effective tool to help put yourself in the right area at the right time!! The key here is, how to utilize them without spooking the deer you are trying to locate then kill him.

The one thing about cameras that I have found is that it makes me pass on bucks that I probably would have shot without the pictures of the monsters. Then again, I don't think I'm any happier about it. So yeah, maybe I should give them up too.

I was hunting this giant 160 class eight point in Illinois a few years back with an absolutely tiny home range. I moved 9 cameras to alternating 40 acre blocks for several weeks until I started getting him on camerA. I finally got him hitting the same scrape every 3 or 4th day early in the morning for like 4 straight cycles. I sat that scrape for 3 straight mornings and he showed up....I blacked out and missed.

He disappeared afterwards, Have never gotten that intense with cams since. You can definitely pattern them to kill them though.

So I've said this a lot, but more than anything, trail cams make it much easier to wake up after 3-4 hours of sleep...drive an hour to the lease and sit in 30-40 degree weather for hours at a time. Most importantly, they make it easier to turn around and do it all over again the next day. I probably wouldn't hunt near as much if I didn't have hard evidence of exactly what I'm hunting.

I'm sure running cameras can also negatively effect your hunts. Of course, there is some added pressure to the herd...but that is probably offset by doing less scouting by foot. If I weren't running cameras, I would probably be doing even more walking and scouting which would also add some pressure to the deer. Additionally, I've ran too many or had them spread out too far, so that checking them almost became a hassle. At the same time, not checking them had me convinced my chance for success was being impacted negatively too. Overall, I try to be smart. Don't visit the same spots too often, check the wind and pay attention to entry and exit routes, etc.

I've killed 11 bucks in 7 season. Of those 11, I'd say at least 6 were tied to trail cam use in some way. I either knew that deer was in the area or I was hunting the area for another buck(s) when I killed the one I killed. Plus there's countless bucks that have been killed that I knew where they were, just didn't get on them soon enough. Trail cams have also helped me develop a few consistencies on our place. Key times bucks seem to hit plots, the 3-4 days they seem to be most active at scrape sites, how often they keep the same home range from year to year, etc.

Plus they are a lot of fun.

Good for you!

Trail cameras are of the devil.

Love trail cameras... we create "hit list" and "DO NOT SHOOT" list from them. We had a young 2 1/2 year old 8 point, several years back, that was put on the do not shoot list for 2 straight years. That deer was finally added to the hit list and scored low 40's. I treat trail cameras as my second hobby, I love seeing all the critters and watching deer grow from year to year.

For the guys giving up cameras, shoot me a PM and I'll give you my address so you can ship them to me. I like running cameras
because I hike and bike to check them and its healthy for me. That is all

^^ I agree with the above post.

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I have found game cameras to be an invaluable tool.
It shows me what I really have in terms of bucks especially mature bucks that are completely or almost completely nocturnal.

It reveals a lot of valuable information about what is really happening during the rut too.

I try to only check a camera when I am hunting the area where the camera is, approach it only with the wind in my favor, as quiet as can be, and never touch it
with my bare hands, and wipe it down with scent kill on a piece of scent washed cloth after I change out the camera card.

I don't use cameras. I decided to quit using them after watching the guys in my club use them all over the place and not kill deer

Due to over checking , bumping the deer, and the deer patterning hunters. A lot of guys are guilty of this especially at clubs.

Cams are good tools that I think Ive learned a lot from over the years.
Ive learned that some of what i thought were really good looking spots almost never have deer in them. That has saved me a lot of wasted hours of sitting in a bad spot.
Ive learned that if you have multiple field or feeder locations that each buck acts differently with them. Some bucks you will see at every feeder or field. Some bucks you will only see at a certain 2 or 4 fields, some bucks at one , or some at none.
I run about half of my cams on roads and intersections year round. Mainly to watch for poachers and trespassers but what I found by doing that is some of the best bucks Ive seen on properties have been on those road cams and never once shown up on a single field or feeder cam. They seem to avoid the fields and feeders. And its not due to me over checking them or pressuring them. Most of my field or feeder cams go a minimum of 3 weeks up to maybe not even being checked at all during season. When I do check cams I try to do it right before a rain is coming so it washes scent away very quickly.
I would not want to give up running cams myself.

no body cares if you use trail cameras or not !!! i enjoy playing with my cameras, seeing what deer come to my corn pile is fun, I will use mine,and if you don't like them ,DONT use them !!!!!

You don't have to give up game camera's, you just need to have enough will power to not check them constantly. Personally, I like to put them out in the middle of September to see what's there. I put them out over a mineral lick and some corn. Leave them for 2-3 weeks and pull them. Lets me know what I got. I then, like to put them up the middle of December on typical scrape lines to monitor daytime mature buck movement.

The absolute only way I'll use cameras in season is to hang a few about 2-3 weeks prior to when breeding first kicks off. I never "check" them. I'll slip in midday pull them all and see what's up, then if there's one that's showing up with regularity that catches my eye, he don't seem to live long. That running all over the property every few days checking cameras during season is a good way not to kill a old buck , IMO.

I think there are several ways they can benefit. This year we had 2 mature bucks that we had several pictures of. One was a very good 9pt and the other was a short tined 8pt that didn't have much of a rack at all. We hunt roughly 500 acres and the 9pt stayed almost only at the northern part of the property. The 8pt stayed from central to the southern part. There were other bucks of course and during the rut you really dont know what's going to show up. But if you were after a big racked deer the odds of seeing that 9pt were very slim outside of the north end of the property. Without cameras you would have had no idea what was in the area and not known where the best area was to spend most of your time.

The other thing that I've noticed from my cameras and multiple stories of people killing bucks on camera is that during the rut if you have a mature deer show up in the daylight on a scrape or with a doe you need to get in the woods right then. Of course if you dont check your cams very often you may not know. If you have cellular cameras is the best way you'll benefit from that.

I use mainly cellular cameras and have learned that increased hunter numbers, pressure is why I'm not seeing any deer while on stand. I hunt Public land and have watched deer on cams all through the summer and fall right up
until the bow opener in Oct. and then nothing. I've hunted 200+ acres since 2005, harvesting some nice deer over that time and have shared this land with two other bow hunters. This past season three more bow hunters have setup
within two 70 acre tracts which are my tree stand spots. One guy set up a ladder stand right out in the open and the other fella used a climber stand which of course kept moving all over the place. The deer turned off, went nocturnal and that was all she wrote for that deer season.
I'm now in the process of moving all my stands out of this property to a new property 10 miles away. I will monitor it with cams and scout it out until turkey season starts.

Just like anything else,used correctly they can be a big benefit but used incorrectly and they can mess up a good spot.

? Why would you give up cameras? I’m confused. They make no Flash infrared cameras. Whatever floats your boat.