Too Visible to Deer??

huntWisely

Buck Fawn
Getting a lot of Doe activity on the cameras, unfortunately (I think) most of them look like the attached?

We have some black flash and some IR.. but this is a mid-day photo... I don't remember this in years past with my older Browning cameras..

Just looking for some reassurance that we won't be greatly negatively impacting the deer travel patterns, etc.

We are seeing little to no Buck activity and can't help but think this might be why...
 

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Can you move it to the side of the trail or up higher in the tree? Looks like the they're walking right down the trail at it.
 
Does it make a slight noise when it triggers?
 
I’m thinking click, or maybe to close to the trail and In Their face. I get that same look sometimes and have seen bucks actually walk around cameras. Their not going to vacate the entire area but may avoid the camera if they don’t like it.
 
I would move it. It is probably having at least some negative effect where it is now.
 
I would move it. It is probably having at least some negative effect where it is now.

+1. It's obvious they're either hearing the sound or it's way too close to the trail. Either way they're noticing it. A mature buck would avoid that after the first shot IMO..
 
You can go up too, I have found that a higher then chest height helps too.... something out of their line of sight.
 
Visibility is generally a small factor that fades fairly quickly as deer acclimate to it. Noise is a bigger one. Many cameras use a mechanical filter rather than a dual lens design. These often make noise when the filter moves. Some are better designed than others moving a few times a day while others move with every pic. Human scent is another big factor. If the cam is not wireless or even if it is and the battery live isn't measured in quarters, human visits to the camera can have an impact. I found that flash avoidance can cause age/sex bias in the pictures. In an open area, mature bucks will often hang in the fringe of the flash allowing younger bucks and does to trigger the camera. In a trail setup, mature bucks often circumvent the cam once flashed. True black flash can resolve this but not everything advertised as black flash is equal. The wavelength, intensity, and duration of the flash all play a role in detectability.

I'm still using 10 year old wireless cam technology. I use my cams for QDM decision making rather than hunting, so they are in permanent locations with solar panels and it is often over a year between battery changes. They are very obvious but silent with true black flash. I get plenty of pictures of mature bucks. Over time, they just become part of the scenery if they don't visibly flash or make noise.

Also keep in mind that mature bucks often use less obvious trails that are different from the trails young bucks and does use. You may have just picked the wrong trail. In my area, anyway, mature buck travel routes seem much less predictable.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I like to put cameras up and angle them down if possible. I don’t think the bucks can hear the camera and be out of view that quick.
It’s not uncommon to get very few buck pics in August when it’s hot!
 
I like to put cameras up and angle them down if possible. I don’t think the bucks can hear the camera and be out of view that quick.
It’s not uncommon to get very few buck pics in August when it’s hot!

No, that is not what I meant. Mature bucks know their home range like you know your living room. When your wife moves your furniture and you come home, you notice it. Likewise, when something is out of place bucks notice it. It is a combination of sight, sound, smell, etc. Younger less warry deer will often trigger a pic before a buck come into view. I happened to be testing a couple cameras years ago so I had multiple cams in the same place. One was set in video mode. The cam set in still mode got a great picture of a young buck. This was in a field. The video showed that after that picture was taken, the young buck continued through the field. It was followed by increasingly mature bucks. The more mature bucks in that group angled away from the camera trigger zone and walked around it and joined the younger bucks to feed in the bottom of the field out of range.

If I had not had the one camera in picture mode, I would have only thought there was one small buck. The cam in video mode was triggered by that small buck but was set to run for over a minute on trigger and that was the only way I knew the more mature bucks were there. These were some low end cams before I went with the high end system. They were not up permanently. It could have been my scent from setting them, the sight of them, the sound of the IR filter, or something else. This one was not flash avoidance as it was daytime.

Any or all of these factors can cause mature bucks to avoid triggering a camera. I've spoken in other posts about how I showed the sex/age bias when using red blob flash that goes away when you use true black flash. Most folks using these cams for hunting don't really care about the bias, but when using the data for QDM data analysis and decision making, the measurement bias can skew the statistics significantly.

Looking at large data sets let me see things statistically that we don't notice in anecdotally. I was then able to set up different multi-camera scenarios to learn more how my deer relate to cameras. By changing my setup and then analyzing large data sets, I could see how the changes statistically reduced the bias.

What I learned:

- Visual cues are important for mature bucks for the first few months a camera is positioned. This can be mitigated to some degree by elevating cameras angling them down but it often reduces the detection range. This technique works well on point source targets like scrapes where detection range is not important. After the first couple months, mature bucks generally completely accept the camera as part of their environment.

- Human intrusion can impact mature bucks for several weeks. A lot depends on the situation, but after at least a couple weeks, this is not a significant factor.

- Noise has a significant impact on how mature bucks relate to a camera. I would often get a single pic of a mature buck near the camera. After that, I may only see that buck when the camera was triggered by a doe or younger buck and he was in the background.

- Flash avoidance has a similar effect as noise. These rarely scare the buck, they just make it uneasy. The uneasiness simply makes them cautious and they will keep younger deer between them and the concern. At night, they are often just on the fringe of the flash and it takes photoshop manipulation of the pic to realize that.

One final note: All of this is generally true, but every deer is unique and has different tolerances. Like most things, deer behavior falls under a bell shaped curve. I'm describing how mature bucks at the middle of that bell shaped curve act. Individual bucks can relate to cameras in very different ways. The other caveat is that things like bait piles are not used and point source attractants can significantly alter deer behavior. They can overcome much of the risk associated with reward.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Visibility is generally a small factor that fades fairly quickly as deer acclimate to it. Noise is a bigger one. Many cameras use a mechanical filter rather than a dual lens design. These often make noise when the filter moves. Some are better designed than others moving a few times a day while others move with every pic. Human scent is another big factor. If the cam is not wireless or even if it is and the battery live isn't measured in quarters, human visits to the camera can have an impact. I found that flash avoidance can cause age/sex bias in the pictures. In an open area, mature bucks will often hang in the fringe of the flash allowing younger bucks and does to trigger the camera. In a trail setup, mature bucks often circumvent the cam once flashed. True black flash can resolve this but not everything advertised as black flash is equal. The wavelength, intensity, and duration of the flash all play a role in detectability.

I'm still using 10 year old wireless cam technology. I use my cams for QDM decision making rather than hunting, so they are in permanent locations with solar panels and it is often over a year between battery changes. They are very obvious but silent with true black flash. I get plenty of pictures of mature bucks. Over time, they just become part of the scenery if they don't visibly flash or make noise.

Also keep in mind that mature bucks often use less obvious trails that are different from the trails young bucks and does use. You may have just picked the wrong trail. In my area, anyway, mature buck travel routes seem much less predictable.

Thanks,

Jack

All great points Jack.

My first impression from the original OP's photo was sound, especially since the doe was cocking her head trying to figure it out. I've rarely had issues with camera placement, and deer reacting to them. I put all my cameras down at "deer level" and don't have any issues, my placement tends to be discrete however, with some cover around them where possible.

For me, the largest factor has been a visible flash.. I'm down to only one camera with a visible flash, but I'm careful not to put it near where I'm hunting. I regularly get mature bucks on that camera, but only once.. Almost always staring right at it. It's an old Bushnell FWIW, surprised the thing still works to be honest..
 
My point was sarcasm on the buck pictures. After years of putting up cameras in multiple states, I think some bucks are shy of cameras, and others are not.

It doesn’t hurt to angle cameras so they are not as noticeable for deer, and trespassers…
 
I wouldn't try hanging the Cuddeback higher to get it out of sight of the deer. Their detection range is fairly specific and the benefits don't outweigh the loss of detection.

I'm sure that it was sound. If there weren't any daylight photos taken prior to previous nighttime photo taken, the mechanical lense may have had to move back to daytime function. For what it's worth, I agree with bwoods11 and others that have said some deer care about cameras and others do not. I have 15 cuddeback cameras and I haven't noticed changes in patterns based on where the cameras are at.
 
Visibility is generally a small factor that fades fairly quickly as deer acclimate to it. Noise is a bigger one. Many cameras use a mechanical filter rather than a dual lens design. These often make noise when the filter moves. Some are better designed than others moving a few times a day while others move with every pic. Human scent is another big factor. If the cam is not wireless or even if it is and the battery live isn't measured in quarters, human visits to the camera can have an impact. I found that flash avoidance can cause age/sex bias in the pictures. In an open area, mature bucks will often hang in the fringe of the flash allowing younger bucks and does to trigger the camera. In a trail setup, mature bucks often circumvent the cam once flashed. True black flash can resolve this but not everything advertised as black flash is equal. The wavelength, intensity, and duration of the flash all play a role in detectability.

I'm still using 10 year old wireless cam technology. I use my cams for QDM decision making rather than hunting, so they are in permanent locations with solar panels and it is often over a year between battery changes. They are very obvious but silent with true black flash. I get plenty of pictures of mature bucks. Over time, they just become part of the scenery if they don't visibly flash or make noise.

Also keep in mind that mature bucks often use less obvious trails that are different from the trails young bucks and does use. You may have just picked the wrong trail. In my area, anyway, mature buck travel routes seem much less predictable.

Thanks,

Jack
Visibility and noise, if they can see it in their line of site and it makes noise its a done deal, if it makes noise and they can't see it - who knows.... I would say visibility is a pretty significant factor when coupled with other triggers, apart from smell I think they do queue up on something visible and out of place and take notice. They seem to have an eye for stuff that doesnt belong and if something is added to it - sound, noise, or movement, a flash they bugger off. If someone else randomly put a box someplace obvious in your house and you walked up on it you would be like what the hell, then it moved, chirped or stunk. I almost always try and keep the cam off from their direct line of site - hardly ever directly down an approaching trail... and usually try and camo it structurally - especially if Im working those secondary trails. If you leave a cam up for months or years - sooner or later they will just ignore it - some deer never care, some are neutral and others are flighty - the deer you want on cam tend to be the latter so why take the chance.
 
Visibility and noise, if they can see it in their line of site and it makes noise its a done deal, if it makes noise and they can't see it - who knows.... I would say visibility is a pretty significant factor when coupled with other triggers, apart from smell I think they do queue up on something visible and out of place and take notice. They seem to have an eye for stuff that doesnt belong and if something is added to it - sound, noise, or movement, a flash they bugger off. If someone else randomly put a box someplace obvious in your house and you walked up on it you would be like what the hell, then it moved, chirped or stunk. I almost always try and keep the cam off from their direct line of site - hardly ever directly down an approaching trail... and usually try and camo it structurally - especially if Im working those secondary trails. If you leave a cam up for months or years - sooner or later they will just ignore it - some deer never care, some are neutral and others are flighty - the deer you want on cam tend to be the latter so why take the chance.

I don't disagree that visibility has more importance when cameras are initially placed. As time goes on, it fades to no importance where noise, flash, and human scent continue to be important.
 
I don't disagree that visibility has more importance when cameras are initially placed. As time goes on, it fades to no importance where noise, flash, and human scent continue to be important.
I can agree with that...
 
I can agree with that...
My wireless cams are silent and on solar panels (some quite large) and the batteries can run for over a year. They are attached to permanent 4x4s not trees. We had a trespass problem in the early days so many have cement bases with rebar and motorcycle chains and locks on security boxes. That is about as much disturbance as you can get and they are as visible and obvious as you can get. I, like you, suspected visibility was an issue. My pics of mature bucks was way off what we knew we had based of FLIR and spotlight surveys. That was when I did the red blob vs true black flash experiment.

Black flash cameras go regular repeated pictures of mature bucks.

The visibility of the camera setup was only an issue at first. In time mature bucks, like all deer, simply accepted them as part of the environment. When your wife moves the furniture when you are at work and you come home you notice it. For a while, you may even bump into stuff if you walk around in the dark. Bot after a while, it becomes part of the house. Likewise, mature bucks eventually accept warning signs on pipelines, fences, junk piles, and such as part of their home as long as they don't associate them with danger. They will even use them sometimes.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Cuddeback a have a very loud clunk when the IR filter changes. I've had it spook deer out of a specific area completely. I now hang them high and back. I've also had better distance detection with the 9004 fresnal lens as opposed to the wide angle fresnal lens. Hope this helps.
 
I have a Cuddeback that is at about 6.5 ft on the outside wall of my camp. It gets seen at night fairly often. I think the infrared must reflect off the walls of the building. The strange thing is it's typically doe that see it. I've gotten some mature buck that walk right past it at night and couldn't care less.
 
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