omicron1792
5 year old buck +
And for sure. You can see antlers with thermal, but also has a 60x regular camera with a better view than you can get with binos or trail camera. No BS.
Cover too thick for deer
- Thread starter SD51555
- Start date
I would say it is for sure. I think it is very rare deer actually get cold down here. With next to no understory, there is almost alway a breeze - and shade. And the forest floor vegetation allows them to be concealed but see over the top of it. They heavily use this area even in winter when the trees lose their leaves.
Have you ever done a standard ten day Jacobson camera survey and a thermal survey at the same time to compare results?
omicron1792
5 year old buck +
I haven’t. Tell me more about that.
It is just a standard camera survey where you count all the unique bucks, all the does, and all the fawns. The number of unique bucks are used to determine your doe numbers and fawns numbers. It is important to be able to differentiate between bucks - as in even somewhat similar spikes, etc. if you google jacobson camera survey, there is a lot of info.
BenAllgood
5 year old buck +
Be careful with the Jacobson camera survey. I used it for years until it was found that it did not accurately measure fawn recruitment.
I dont use it for exact numbers - more for trends from one year to the next. I have about ten or twelve years of data so I believe the changes from year to year are fairly indicative of trends. Fawns are bad to spend a lot of time on a bait pile - which will artificially increase their numbers. I also have done some spotlight surveys on my place (which I dont believe to be a good piece of land to do that), and do incidental sightings over a period of a week in late august - and those two informal surveys always show a lower fawn recruitment number than a camera survey. My camera surveys are fairly consistent with the annual statewide bowhunter survey and consistently lower than the incidental sighting survey done by g&f employees in Aug. The Aug survey I believe also inflates fawn numbers because a lot of my fawns go missing between the middle of Aug and the end of Sep.
But I also believe all surveys I realistically have available for use have shortcomings and should be used more for trends than actual numbers
BenAllgood
5 year old buck +
I found that the camera surveys I did during late summer under estimated fawn numbers.
Just the opposite here. I find there will be a fawn come in with some does and stay long after they are gone. I typically do my survey the last couple weeks of Sep and some of the fawns by then are spending some time by themselves. I feel like mid sept spotlight surveys are most accurate for fawns - but they are horrible for bucks on my place. I am still losing a lot of fawns in Aug, so the incidental fawn survey at that time is high. i feel pretty good about the buck and doe numbers on the camera survey - but I have adjusted my multipication factor to account for does that dont appear on a camera, because I know my doe numbers are low compared to bucks on the survey, because I know how many does are in most areas - but again, use it largely for trends.
Do you now do surveys and if so, what do you use. Always willing to try another one
Telemark
5 year old buck +
I would do one about a month before the rut, once during, and one about a month after the rut. That should give a pretty good idea about where they are at those key periods.
I think a late winter survey might be good as well in order to decide where to put some food to help get them into Spring in good shape. If you're really far south it might be mid summer, or whenever the deer are struggling to find nutrition.
BenAllgood
5 year old buck +
I don't anymore because my place is only about 50 acres compared to the 2100 acres I used to manage. I think the difference in my observations and yours were the breeding dates and timing of surveys. I had January breeding. When I moved my surveys from September to October, I showed higher fawn recruitment, but lower buck numbers. I believe a survey is good for that period of time in which it is done due to changing habitat resources. If done consistently at that same time, you can get good trend data for that time period.
It would be really cool to see the habitat type that is favored most during the gun season when mortality is highest. The thickest cover around has always been the ticket for us when hunting pressure is high, but during the archery season they use different areas when there is more natural movement.
