Do Trail Cams Spook Deer?

Cool interview James, great questions Matt, good job on the 2nd place finish. Do they always put a camera, right in the tourney fishing boats ? Guess I never knew that, I always assumed they were in another boat and followed you around…?

big G

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMqMWSoLGDk

I stumbled across this video the other day and found it very interesting. I was wondering if you have seen a negative response from deer to your trail cameras over the years? Is this guy right or way off base with his info?

I have not used a trail cam yet, but when I do I will try to conceal my camera from the deer to reduce the number of negative experiences.

I agree with him 100% Especially placing cameras at or near licking sticks and scrapes. I have so many single close-ups of bucks, then they are all in the distance in other shots. I found that to be most true at night with the infa-red.

This is very common around my farm with cameras that have been out all year long – http://youtu.be/WtBNdNNu3BI

Maybe for some deer it’s true, but for example this year I have a big 9 that shows up a couple times a week in front of the same cam, both day and night. The cam is on a steak right in the middle of a bean plot. He can easily see the cam. He is not the least bit spooked. I have had the same thing at the farm, pic after pic of the same deer, mature ones too and they always come back. I have infared cams that glow red at night so they know they are there.

After watching this video last year or the year before, I started to place my cameras at least 6 feet off the ground. I only have one flash camera now (Cudde Capture) and have that one angled down just like in the video. However, I believe that every deer has a different personality and will react differently to different stimuli. Some may react negatively to a camera, and some will not

My deer are born and raised around cameras so they are comfortable with them. My buddy a few miles down the road moves his every so often because he believes the bigger bucks start to skirt around them.

in my experience with cameras it seems to be based on each deer’s personality. I’ve got a buck I guesstimate to be 5 years old this year that for 2 years now I get one good shot of him, then the next picture he’s high tailing it outta there (camera on a 2 shot burst, IR flash). But he will do this to the same camera in the same place multiple times so its not enough to get him to avoid the area anyway. I’ll get other ones that get curious and each pic the deer is closer and closer, until all that’s in the picture is their nose. And some still could seem to care less. If I could put any pattern to it I would say the older bucks and does are the more cautious ones when it comes to the flash, at least the IR flash cameras I’m using.

I think I am going to go and pull my cameras this year because once I get a buck on camera, I never see it again. Either on film or on the hoof. All the bucks in the pictures showed up on film once and I never saw them again. They all appear to be alerted. Of course I hung them low and along a main corridor where they would be fairly easily seen. I really only have one spot to hunt anyway.

Wowser. Now you know why Ill is a great destination state to hunt! Good luck!

I have wondered about this in the past as well.

It’s clear from my trail cam pics that the deer obviously DO hear the camera. As witnessed by how often I get pics of the deer looking dircetly at the camera when it’s placed low to the ground.

But does it spook them? I’m not sure. Deer are nervours creatures and they tend to react to everything from a chipmunk f#rt to an acorn falling. They react, but does an unexplained noise really scare them?

I’ve noticed on our camera pics that in areas near livestock where there’s a lot of human activity, the deer appear to ignore the camera almost completely. Whatever sound the camera makes, they must learn that it’s not a problem.

My guess is that the deer assess a threat by how many pieces of the danger puzzle thier senses can assemble at the point where they enocounter a “danger sign”. Just hearing something is one thing. Hearing something and then smelling a “danger” smell is much higher up the threat level. Hearing, smelling, and seeing is higher yet. Of course, at what level does the deer decided to go into “stay away” mode? That’s the tricky one.

One more reason to be very careful with scent and sound when placing camers. In areas with high hunting pressure, the deer are probably going to be very wary of anyplace they have had repeated encounters with any one stimuli that they can’t determine if it’s frend or foe.

As an interesting example, a great big tomcat adopted my wife about 7 years ago. Now this is a really Big Cat, he’s about 20 pounds and stands just short of knee high at the head. He’s a Big-Big Cat.

Before we got him, we had deer everywhere in our yard. Eating flowers, eating trees, eating shrubs, licking salt off the back steps, etc.

Then the Big Cat adopted us and set up his territory. This took about 5 days because he had to sort out Mister Biggums and the 3 Shitzus that live three houses down, so there was a slight delay in establishing ground surpremacy, but within a week he was clearly King of the Jungle.

We haven’t seen a deer on our block since. Nada. Zip. Zilch. We’re pretty sure the Big Cat never went toe-to-toe with a few deer to show them who’s boss (although it could have happend, he’s not short of self-confidence, I’ll say that), but my theory is it’s the smell alone that has made the deer move over to the next block. Whatever it is, they decided based on smell alone that they don’t want to deal with it.

Grouse

Mallard, I remember you posting picture #3 last year You were grocery shopping or something instead of hunting

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Mallard, I remember you posting picture #3 last year You were grocery shopping or something instead of hunting

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This is true and I suck!!! I was nearly in tears when I looked at the time and date of that picture last fall.