Blasphemy I tell you...

Addendum to my note above about deer getting REAL smart, REAL quick, last year I had an incredible PARADE of nice bucks march across my back yard the very evening before season started, with at least 4 mature bucks penciled in as possibilities for a hit list. Of those bucks, from that point to the end of season I only saw one of them from the stand in daylight hours and that's with very limited pressure on my place -- I only hunted a handful of times, only with favorable winds, and taking great care to sneak to my stand midday and then leaving the stand well after deer cleared out of my plots after dark. Actually gave a pass to the one deer I recognized and a few weeks later harvested an even nicer "new on the scene" buck.
 
Howaboutthemdawgs, VERY much understand where you're coming from... BUT...

First, will say that as my place goes regular camera hits in spring and summer do NOT equate to daily hits in fall. The bucks, especially mature ones, have a 6th sense for when season's over and they're safe, and I regularly see and follow bachelor groups from the time they drop horns until rut is approaching. But let the temps start dropping a bit, folks start shooting at doves and sighting in rifles for deer season and my mature bucks get REAL smart, REAL quick. I generally do harvest one or two bucks I'm familiar with / have followed, but still have really pay attention to wind, hunt cold fronts to see them with any daylight at all, and then sometimes make all day sits for them to slip up

And also would share that each year I usually have at least one or two unknown / surprise warriors show up on the scene during rut that I've NEVER seen before.

Not trying to talk you out of camera use, but instead only saying I don't think camera captures outside of season automatically make for easy harvests once season arrives. :emoji_thumbsup:

Thanks for the reply. I don’t think I’m doing a great job of explaining what my personal issue is. Not so much that i think cameras make it easier, but as I type that I guess I actually do think that. Giving hunters the ability to keep tabs on movements from hundreds of miles away is almost a voyeuristic approach to wildlife. But i digress, my issue lies in excitement. I’m just not that fired up to see a nice mature deer I’ve seen literally 100’s of times in a span of several consecutive months. When I was younger I use to hunt some really crappy areas of Georgia, but damn if I didn’t think anything could happen on any given hunt. Now I think/know logically there are only a couple outcomes each time I walk to the stand. I guess I value the experience more than the actual kill. I love almost having a heart attack if a 140 walks out. Now I’m like “oh hey, that’s George. Been watching you take a crap every day since May!”
 
I get that way with the does we see all the time with fawns, I have way more empathy for them now than I ever did before owning property. We really enjoy seeing them on camera and in person from time to time. During season we see them about every sit, anymore we give them a pass. We can harvest does other places we hunt if we want the meat, in our area the road hunting during gun is terrible so our place ends up being a sanctuary for them. I am not in a high deer density county and they are also the best buck bait around so they draw in a lot of cruising Romeos.

This year I have been way off my camera game, have been busy with too many other projects and have really slacked on pics or keeping cameras going.
 
I use to run about 10 cams on about 400 acres. This year I only ran one for about 3 weeks. I pulled it last weekend, didn’t put it back up and couldn’t tell you what was even on the card. I don’t have cell cams and with my uncle spending way to many days afield I feel it is in my best interest to stay the hell out of the woods. I may put one camera up this weekend on a major annual scrape and let it sit till December before I pull it just for inventory reasons.


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I get that way with the does we see all the time with fawns, I have way more empathy for them now than I ever did before owning property. We really enjoy seeing them on camera and in person from time to time. During season we see them about every sit, anymore we give them a pass. We can harvest does other places we hunt if we want the meat, in our area the road hunting during gun is terrible so our place ends up being a sanctuary for them. I am not in a high deer density county and they are also the best buck bait around so they draw in a lot of cruising Romeos.

This year I have been way off my camera game, have been busy with too many other projects and have really slacked on pics or keeping cameras going.

I feel ya, over the past five years I’ve really gotten to know the does, and my bloodlust has taken a bit of a hit because of it. There’s a doe with twins on camera a lot this year and I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t draw on her.

The deer are already surveyed this year, but in 2021 pulling all or most cams is a low risk experiment, and OP can know for sure if the excitement comes back. Almost all the bucks I recall getting my heart really racing were before I had cameras and when I had little idea of what was out there. I also like the attempts to describe to buddies what I saw... “I’m thinking he was a really wide 8, possibly a 10, dark rack...” the fuzzy memories that just bounce around in your imagination. Yeah there’s something to be said for leaving more room for surprises.
 
I see both sides, I am all for cameras. I really like to see the pics and get excited about the possibility of hunting a certain buck. Maybe fewer cameras overall would help your situation? There is always a chance a buck will show up that is not a regular.
There are definitely hunters that do not want to know what is on their property.
 
It's hard to pin point why things change. I quit using cameras after 2018. I also got smarter and moved my sets back away from food and got smarter about access. Buck activity is going up on my place. No idea why. Could be lack of cameras, could be lack of intrusion, could be that there's simply more deer around.

I like to be surprised when I head into the woods. I wanna hunt the deer that are around when I'm out there. Spent many years drooling over the 2am camera bucks that never seem to exist when actually out hunting.
 
It's hard to pin point why things change. I quit using cameras after 2018. I also got smarter and moved my sets back away from food and got smarter about access. Buck activity is going up on my place. No idea why. Could be lack of cameras, could be lack of intrusion, could be that there's simply more deer around.

I like to be surprised when I head into the woods. I wanna hunt the deer that are around when I'm out there. Spent many years drooling over the 2am camera bucks that never seem to exist when actually out hunting.

That reason is exactly why I have moved to just soaking a cam on a giant annual scrape for a couple of months.


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I guess I'm not in it for myself much anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love to hunt and I'm out there as often as I can be. I just don't get the thrill from arrowing a big buck that I used to. What turns my crank now is putting big deer in front of my friends and their kids. I know many of their names, but my buddy's kid doesn't! A good friend of mine took a ten point drop tine last year that was easily the biggest buck of his life. I'd been watching that deer since he first showed up on the property a month previous. I knew somebody was going to tag him, and I knew it was unlikely to be me. In fact, later in the season I shot a small eight point because I was hunting with a partner in a tower blind who had never seen a deer harvested, and the opportunity presented itself. I would have never shot that deer, normally...but now we have another convert. For me, the game has shifted. And so I still appreciate cameras. Which is great, because I have so dang many of them lol...
 
Sounds like you’re bored, and are maybe taking the bucks that are around for granted a bit. Kinda like after you’ve been married for a while, your wife can start to seem a bit “meh”, and she’s there EVERY DAY. So go out to a bar and see what’s available, and you’ll likely come home much more in love and appreciative of the woman you married. Except the bar is pressured public land, and the few deer there are the fat chicks that you don’t want anything to do with unless you get extremely desperate.


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Sounds like you’re bored, and are maybe taking the bucks that are around for granted a bit. Kinda like after you’ve been married for a while, your wife can start to seem a bit “meh”, and she’s there EVERY DAY. So go out to a bar and see what’s available, and you’ll likely come home much more in love and appreciative of the woman you married. Except the bar is pressured public land, and the few deer there are the fat chicks that you don’t want anything to do with unless you get extremely desperate.


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you went a long way to make that analogy work... And I like it.
 
We experience these introspective ,ecclesiastical( is that a word?)," meaning of life" feelings every fall about this time

........all go away opening morning.......

be patient

bill
 
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