Do you think deer can sense trail cameras ?

[Ikeman]

My hypothesis is that most of the reaction to trail cameras comes from sound. A single camera lens system, which 99% of cameras use, requires a UV/ND filter for daytime use, and the removal of that filter for nighttime pictures. There are also high frequency noises in cheap capacitors and cheap voltage converters (buck converters).

The largest sound for most cameras is the filter actuator. Once the camera assesses the lighting conditions, it may have to remove or replace that filter to meet the exposure needs. That physical movement causes noise.

For nighttime pictures, most cameras will also charge a capacitor to power the flash. That can’t typically be done directly off of a low voltage board (3.8-4.2v) as the amperage is more than the high efficiency components can handle. It will load a capacitor (or top off a partially loaded) to dump the whole thing to power the flash. Cheap capacitors can hum/whine a little.

I have hunted 90% public land for the last 15 years, and I learned to hang my cameras about 9-11 feet up just so other hunters didn’t find them. Just that little bit of height got rid of 99% of the reactions I get from deer.

As to scent being what causes the buck’s reaction…
I have several solar powered cell cameras 5-6 miles (by boat) from access that are going on 2 years since I put them out. I haven’t been back to 2 of them in over a year due to their remoteness and me needing to clear the creek of deadfall. Of those 2 cameras that have had no human impact in over a year… the one at head height still gets reactions out of deer probably 20% of the time. They 100% can hear some cameras.


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[Spike_Horn_Shooter]

I have a seen a beat down deer trail in the snow of deer going 1’ directly behind a camera, i assume to avoid the activation of it which spooked them; either via sound or light. I should have took a picture, but I didn’t.

There was no obvious reason for all these deer to avoid this camera, they had to walk off trail, and make a decently hard pivot back onto the trail to do it. The tracks in the snow don’t lie.

This was medium to high pressure public land in farm country. Cell camera about 3’ off the ground.

I myself will often get spooked walking around on public in the dark and hear the chunk of lens movement or see a flash of red light. And I am (hopefully) the scariest thing out there and holding a rifle!

The deer on my farm don’t really seem to care about the cameras. I assume because I have placed them along field edges and not deep in the woods. My cameras also stay out all year.

 

[Mtyhunter]

I think if there is one thing the drone studies make abundantly clear, it's that hunters who run cameras generally underestimate their herd size from the camera info alone.

I don't know about the secret bucks by any means but we have a lot of bucks who seem to get their picture taken a lot and others who rarely get their pics taken (even though they are spotted on stand frequently). Might be home range to an extent, might be travel patterns, might be wary of cameras. Lots of different realistic reasons.

i've tried many many things to camo or de-scent my trail cams, to an avail. They find them everytime. When I mount a cam high, like 6'+, they don't seem to notice these.
I've watched some videos on youtube where this guy tracks deer, and big bucks, with a thermal drone, during hunting season on known property.
Last video I watched from him was him putting 5 camera out in a pentagonal shape, all cams 150-200yds away from each other. with his drone at the proper height, he could see all the cams and track all the movement around the cams, day and night. His results indicated that the cams only picked up like 20% of the movement around the cams. Some deer went consistently behind the cams, some were in front the cams with no pics taken, etc. It was kinda surprising to me, but it was irrefutable evidence.
Same guy has another video segment on the same property, where he thermal drone tracks a big buck on this 300 acres for the hunting season. Monitored the buck when the hunters enter and leaves stands, and he know where the cameras are at on the property. That big buck was never seen by any of the 5 hunters, and didn't get a single pic of the buck from the cams, and the buck stayed on that 300 acre property almost the whole time.