If you only have one camera, run it for about 10 days in one location, while in the mean time you prime (pre-bait) the next location in the subsequent 100 acre block. Short survey periods of 5 to 10 days are adequate, but you’ll attain greater accuracy running each site for 10 days to two weeks. As an example, there’s no need to run a camera in the middle of an open field. Don’t worry about including areas not ordinarily utilized by whitetails. You don’t want to disturb the site during the survey if you can help it.ĭivide your property into blocks approximately 100 acres in size. Pre-bait each site for at least five days and try to include enough food to last throughout the survey period. Established feeding stations will be your best tactic. For optimum results you should conduct two surveys - one just before hunting season and another just after. If you can come up with one camera per 100 acres, that is sufficient. Mississippi State University researchers developed and refined an infrared camera survey technique that can provide an accurate assessment of your local deer population with a surprisingly small investment in time and equipment. So you could claim a buck to doe ratio of a little better than 1 to 2. 1,178 Pictures of Bucks with 17 being unique So your buck to doe ratio would be roughly 1 to 4. 200 pictures of adult does without counting fawns 56 Pictures of bucks with 12 being unique. Total Pictures of Adult Does = Z (not fawns).Keep your cameras moving! The more data you collect the more accurate your results will be. If you only have one camera, run it for a week or two and move it at least 200 yards to a new location. You must use multiple camera locations and run your cameras for a period of one to two weeks in each spot. The simple formula below is widely used for determining a ballpark buck-to-doe ratio in a given area – I think I first stole it from the QDMA, but I’ve seen it elsewhere. This, in turn, will give you what you need to know to make numerous management decisions, especially those “trigger finger” management decisions - how many deer need to be harvested and which ones. If managing your property is your objective, trail cameras will help you to learn the density, buck-to-doe ratio and get a good guess on the age structure of the herd. However, they will also supply you with the information necessary to make sound management decisions.

Trail cameras can provide the intelligence needed to move in close enough to harvest a mature buck. If you’re looking for a close encounter with a mature buck or are interested in managing your property for a healthy balance, trail cameras may be the most valuable tools we have. Antlers have grown enough so we can now distinguish individual bucks and next month is the perfect time to get your cameras working for you. It’s time to get those trail cameras going.

Timetool trail camera