Trail Camera data

I'll admit that I love using trail cameras.  I use them to scout new locations, and to see which deer are using the area and at what time of day.  I started out with the old 35mm film cameras.  You would load the film (hopefully correctly) and set up the camera, then come back in a few weeks to change out the film and possibly the batteries.  Next, take the film into the store and wait a week for your 24 photos to arrive.  If you were lucky half of them were of animals, if not, you spent $6 on 24 prints of limbs blowing in the wind.  Man how times have changed!  It's not uncommon to have hundreds of photos on a single SD card and the batteries last up to a year.  I used to save all of my photos in folders thinking that I would look back to see when deer were moving and when the big boys that I never saw while hunting were moving past my stand.  Sadly enough they've just been wasting space. 

This year I started something a little different.  I decided that there is no sense in keeping all of the photos and I don't see a use in giving names to the deer that I see like you see so many times on TV.  They aren't pets, they are prey so what's the point!  Instead I go through all of my photos and simply record when individual deer move past my camera.  If it's before or after shooting light I simply move past it.  I guess it's helpful to know if there is a giant deer in the area but it doesn't do much good if he only comes by your setup at 2 am! 

​Once I have the times recorded for deer movement I put it into a spreadsheet then make a line graph.  It seems to be a fairly reliable indicator of when to concentrate my valuable hunting time.  For instance look at the image below.  You can see that for the first half of October, mornings are definitely best for my area.

The number of deer seen in the first half of October is at the right and the specified time is below.  Between 7:00 and 8:00 am I had 11 photos of deer and the number jumps to 15 between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00 am.  However after 9:00 things really slow down and it doesn't pay to be in a stand after 10:00.  The same is true for the entire month of October for the year 2015.  I went back into my saved photos and created a line graph that looks similar (see below).

The big difference is obviously there was good reason to hunt between 6:00 and 7:00 pm last year where as this year, for whatever reason be it changes in food sources, or more dense cover this year, or more water sources available, the deer are not walking past my camera in the evening.  It doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't in the area or that they are not moving in the evening but just that they aren't using the area around my camera in the evenings this year.

​The good news is that November is just around the corner.  Look below at my data from the first 15 days in November from last year.

Here you can see that mornings were still good but things really picked up in the evenings. Also things didn't slow down until after 1:00 pm so it paid to sit a longer although not all day.  Get out around 12:30 take a quick lunch and maybe a nap and get back in by 3:00 because things picked up quickly.  Lastly lets look at November 16-30 of 2015 below.

Not only were there deer up and moving most of the day, but the total number of deer seen in the second half of November was 3 times that of the first half.  This tells me that all day sits have the potential to be more productive in the last half of November and that I am more likely to see many more deer during this time as well.  Now remember this is just a small snapshot of the area that I hunt but it is something that I find more beneficial than simply looking at photos and then saving them in a folder.  Also I should mention that I did my best to only count each deer once per visit.  I may have had 10 photos of an individual deer in a 3 minute span but I only counted that deer once. I encourage you to try finding the data that is in plain sight in your trail camera photos.  It's easy to do and doesn't take much time.  Hopefully it will make you more successful this season.  If you have any questions on how I set up the graphs send me an email at coyotecreekarchery@gmail.com and I'd be glad to help you out.