[Nameplate] Fair ~ 66°F  
High: 82°F ~ Low: 58°F
Monday, Oct. 5, 2015

What is the most significant change in hunting?

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

For several years we have had huge advances in the type of camouflage we wear, the shotguns we turkey and deer hunt with, the bows we use, arrows we shoot, and of course the ammunition that has made us a better shot and more environmentally conscious.

With all these changes it has helped us become better hunters in the field.

But out of all the things I have listed, I have not listed the most significant change that has taken hunters by storm, and has affected the hunter in unlimited amount of different ways.

You may be curious but I believe you already know what it is. The surveillance game camera has taken the average hunter and turned him into the professional guide and taken the average landowner and turned him to a wildlife biologist.


* The service a professional guide provides us is the fact that he scouts the land and the animals before we arrive in a place we have never hunted before or cannot scout before we hunt.

That now has become the job of the surveillance game cameras on our own land.

They have turned the weekend deer hunter into a 365-day hunting professional by allowing us to scout our own land all year long. They also go one step further and can allow us to scout under the cover night. Most hunters realize that the majority of deer movement occurs at this time.

During the three years of using surveillance a game camera I have learned that 80 percent of the deer movement occurs at night.

Also it allows us to scout Monday through Friday while we are at work.

Then when we do get to hunt that weekend and we are hunting one area of our land, they have become our hunting buddy by scouting another area.

In which some cases can make us very humble with what the camera has seen while you are in the woods.


* Another purpose for this tool and it's original purpose was to help biologists across the world keep track of animals without becoming to intrusive to the animal surroundings and daily routine.

What this has done for the hunter and land owner trying to create habitat for local wildlife such as deer is to give all of us an idea what kind of deer are passing through the land. Along with what deer have made its home range on your land and how healthy they look.

As a game management tool there is not one single thing that can help us solve the life long question. What works and what does not work?

When it come to planting food plots, cutting timber, putting in watering holes, mineral licks and in general the habitat we have provided for the deer on our land.

Time and money can be wasted. These surveillance game cameras can help reduce the time on things that don't work and can help us spend money on things that do.

They can also show the main direction of deer travel through your land and allow you to place food plots in areas you may have never thought of.

Basically you can become your own type of wildlife biologist on your own land.


* Surveillance game cameras are just not for deer. They can also tell you how many and what size of wild turkeys are in the flock you have in your own little hunter's paradise. You don't have to wait until your local game and fish biologist tells you how the state or regional spring hatch was for turkey.

It might be co

mpletely different once you have looked at your pictures. In the fall I have found that you can pattern wild turkey travel time in an area, if you have watering holes on your land and a surveillance game camera. Those two things during a dry season can make you buy film by the bags full. Along with hundreds of deer and turkey pictures the surveillance game camera has taken in Southern Missouri they have also taken pictures of armadillos, coyotes, bobcats, gray foxes, dogs, raccoons, gray and fox squirrels, and rabbits.

This can also be a valuable tool when trying to determine the amount and type of predators you may be competing with.


It basically comes down to that there is no limit to the use of these surveillance game cameras.

With some surveillance game cameras imprinting time and date, they can show what time deer and turkey travel. They can keep track of what type of weather they move the most in, which moon phases effect the deer the most, the temperature that increase movement and how hunting pressure, pre-rut and rut affects the movement of free ranging deer on your land. Also the cameras can introducing you kids on what type of local wildlife roams around the farm or the woods they may be hunting that day.

Instead of looking at tracks guessing if it was a buck, when you look at the track in front of a camera and then look at your pictures you can know for sure and in turn makes the hunter want to stay longer and hunt.

Plus it is just like Christmas every time you get a roll of film developed.

First you can't wait and in turn you will find the closest one-hour photo service and you never know what will be inside that next stack of pictures.

Now that there are so many out there it has become hard to choose.

This is one of the best links on the Internet that compares the different models. http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/cams.ht...

Hope to see you in the woods. horntagger.