Jeremy Flinn is graduate of the MSU Deer Lab and is now the Chief Marketing Officer for Stone Road Media, a company that represents many of the well-known brands in the hunting industry. We talk about the influence “brand-name” hunters have on the education of the hunting public and how Jeremy is working to insure that accurate, biologically sound information is being distributed. We also talk about habitat management differences in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest, and how Jeremy uses biological knowledge about buck movements, complimented with camera technology, to most effectively scout and harvest deer. If you would like to reach out to Jeremy, you can find him at jeremy@stoneroadmedia.com.
https://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/P1150710-1-scaled.jpg19202560BuckScorehttps://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/buckscore_logo_trans.pngBuckScore2019-02-07 20:01:142019-08-28 12:20:09MSU Deer Lab Podcast Episode 033 with Special Guest Jeremy Flinn
By: Weston Schrank, BuckScore® Specialist and Biologist
The first of a long list of responsibilities for a deer and land manager is to find out what is going on the property. It’s been a long hunting season… some deer have been killed by hunters, others killed by predators. The cornerstone of your new property management plan, and next year’s harvest plan, is taking a census of which deer and how many there are on the property. The best way to do this is by running a post season trail camera survey.
Post Season Trail Camera Survey
Most surveys are preseason surveys in summer, to determine which bucks are on the hit list… but a post season survey can be far more important to a deer manager. Population number, health assessments, post season age structure, and post season sex ratio are all very important to take note of after deer season.
Winter, specifically late February and March, is the hardest time for deer. A trail camera survey allows you to see the status, size, and overall health of the deer herd before this stressful time. Deer population numbers can fluctuate in terms of how many deer you actually see on the property. Your property may get an influx of deer stacking into your bedding areas, south slopes, and disturbed woodlots if you have a decent amount of cover and ideal habitat. This can cause a lot more stress to the property than what your management plan and property is set up for. Trail camera survey results combined with post season scouting can reveal management projects that might be needed before late February and March. This information also allows you to make smarter decisions on doe harvest, food plots, and even predator management!
What You’ll Need
300 – 500 lbs. of corn or more per 100 acres of property (depending on deer densities)
One trail camera per 100 acres of property
New batteries for your trail camera
8 GB or larger SD card (check compatibility with camera)
Time, enough time to refill trail camera stations every 2-4 days (depending on deer densities)
Trail Camera Survey Instructions
When setting up a survey you need to stick to the correct format that was conducted in the original research in order to get accurate results. The correct setup calls for a trail camera for every 100 acres. However, each property calls for different numbers depending on how it hunts, topography, and its habitat diversity. For example, while one camera may seem to cover an entire 70-acre property, you can learn from observations that each side of the property is used by different deer, and more importantly bucks, the number a survey uses as an index to estimate doe numbers. Setting up a trail camera on each side of this 70-acre property will give the ability to observe and identify each individual deer using the property. As another example, a 150-acre property in will have the same number of cameras. The habitat on this farm isn’t as diverse, meaning the deer move more freely from one camera location to the other.
After deciding how many cameras you need, the location of the trail cameras is your next decision. Your ideal trail camera location would be an area that you can maximize deer encounters with. You will want an area that is relatively clean of brush, saplings, and tall grass, essentially anything that can set off the camera besides a deer. Set up the trail camera about chest high and facing north or south to keep the morning or afternoon sun from blinding your image. Place 50-100 lbs. of corn out about 10 yards from the camera.
After the area is cleaned up and corn is down, turn your attention to the proper trail camera settings. The most important aspect that is often messed up by hunters and landowners is the setting and duration of the survey. The correct settings are 1 photo burst with a 5-minute delay. Make sure you have fresh batteries and an empty formatted memory card and run the survey for 3 weeks or 21- 24 days. During this time, keep coming back to ensure there is always corn on the site.
Trail Camera Survey Results
Once the 3 weeks are up you will pull the cameras. By this time you might have already been finding sheds, or deer will be casting their antlers within a few short weeks. There is no reason to keep the corn and trail cameras running this late into the season.
You are now ready to start the most important part of the survey, calculating the deer population and making decisions based on the survey. While the calculations are relatively simple, making decisions based on the data can be a little more confusing.
Look out for another video coming out in the upcoming weeks on how to start calculating these trail camera survey results. We will walk you through how to identify bucks, estimate does and fawn numbers, score bucks on the hoof, and what results management decisions can be derived from. I will also be pairing these videos with off-season responsibilities and activities you can be doing now that can increase deer movement across your property for next year’s hunting season.
In the meantime, here are several blogs that you can check out to increase your knowledge of deer, deer management, and deer hunting!
https://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/trail-camera-survey-setup_feature-1-scaled.jpg17072560BuckScorehttps://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/buckscore_logo_trans.pngBuckScore2018-01-09 20:36:082019-08-28 12:20:14Trail Camera Survey | Take Inventory of Your Deer Herd This Winter
By: Weston Schrank, BuckScore Specialist and Wildlife Biologist
The first two weeks of December can be a rough and confusing time for any deer hunter. Personally, if I have not tagged out yet I’m very unsure what to do with myself. Usually I am already focused on coyote hunting or just spending more time with family and friends… but again only if I am tagged out. The weather and deer activity are in a weird place and deer hunters are caught in the middle of it all. Before the cold temperatures of winter arrive, and after the intense rut action, a lot of deer hunters can catch themselves in this period known as the December lull. The only thing that I have come to know is that trail cameras can be a saving grace during this lull period. I aim to give you some solid trail camera strategies and tips for the late season. But I know reading this will also give you a better understanding of what is actually going on during the late season!
Late Season Strategies
While I might completely ignore my cameras around the rut and focus more on just getting time in the stand, this ideal completely shifts during the first weeks of December. Unless you are a fan of throwing “Hail Mary” hunts together, trail cameras are the best strategy for the late season. While it might be obvious to some readers, the main reason why trail cameras are your best bet for the late season is because of deer patterns. The late season is the second time period where hunters can accurately pattern mature buck movement down to literally the minute!
Late Season Patterns
Mature bucks focus on recovery and staying warm during the late season. This is similar to their focus during late summer when they are busy feeding on protein. Naturally, their late season patterns fall prey to the same opportunities that their previous summer patterns do. This means that with some simple scouting, and some well-placed cameras a hunter has the ability to pick up on a pattern and plan a hunt based off the intel.
The buck will be noticeable in only one location… a food source. He will spend morning to early evening hours held up in his warm thermal bedding. This is often a southern slope, a spot where sun can reach the buck but also where the cover blocks the cold wind. Early successional spots and native grass fields that are southern oriented are perfect spots for mature bucks to bed. When the buck does get up he will be headed to a nearby food source. This food source will be most likely one of the 4 most attractive food sources a deer can feed on during this time of year.
Late Season Food Sources
There are 4 food sources that you should take notice of, or plant next year specifically for the late season. Some are quite easy to establish and hunt, and others take quite a bit of investment.
Brassicas – the fancy name for turnips, radishes, and rape. If enough acreage is planted, the green sugary tops and robust buried treasures can be a potent combo for cold winter days.
Cereal Grains – winter rye, winter wheat, and oats (winter hardy) can be a great green source of food that will stay green all winter long. They make great cover crops if you are managing soil properly.
Standing Corn – standing or freshly cut or mowed over corn can be a major attraction during the late season.
Standing Beans – standing beans, just like standing corn, can be a great late season food source, but it offers summer protein, something that corn cannot. This makes beans a better option if you have enough acreage to have standing beans throughout the season and into early spring.
The Occasional Hot Doe
Now before I dive straight into trail camera strategies and setups based on the information below ,I do need to talk about the occasional hot doe. Some people refer to it as the second rut, but the more correct term would be the fawn rut. Now, Midwest and Northern states can see an upwards of 75% of all breeding occur during the peak rut week. Some does do come in if they are not bred in the first round, especially if sex ratios are skewed towards more does than bucks. However what I am talking about here is what I commonly see on well managed properties. When doe fawns have great habitat, great food, and as a result great nutrition, they can reach the magical weight of 60-70 lbs. What happens then? If 6-7 month fawns reach this weight they can become sexually active and come into estrous. This is why you might have seen a small doe fawn being chased by 2 or 3 bucks in a late season food source or cut corn field. The one difference here of course is that these bucks are chasing an uneducated fawn, not a smart mature doe!
This is not something to rely on, just a word of caution that the mature buck you are hunting is not completely safe with a late season pattern on your property. There is still a chance that he could cross the property line.
Late Season Trail Camera Setups
Obviously the most successful trail camera strategies will be based around the most important aspect of the late season… food! This means creating camera setups that will either inventory the food source location. Or will catch deer movement and behavior around or in route to the food source. Now I have tried multiple setups, on multiple properties, and over the course of the years have ended up with a few videos to help viewers setup trail cameras for the late season.
Trail Camera Tips | patterning Deer with Late Season Cameras –this video was a couple years back, but the principles of the advice are solid. It discusses some of the information I have reviewed above.
Last year I ran a series called “Trail Cameras Weekly” on Muddy TV. During each week of the rut, I published a different video on what to do with your trail cameras for that week. Of course, I covered this time period in that series, and last year I gave some extremely helpful tips for late season trail camera setups.
The “Trail Cameras Weekly video reveals two very useful trail camera setups. One is a trail camera over a food source on time-lapse mode, and the other is on a late season funnel.
By setting up a trail camera over a late season food source over time-lapse mode, you can inventory what deer are utilizing the food source. You can also see where they frequent and even where they are filtering out of. You will want a camera with very high resolution photos (>10-12 MP). Set the camera to take pictures during the last 1-2 hours of daylight, with a photo every minute. Also make sure you have a big memory card (>16gb).
Late Season Funnels
If you can identify the main areas of a late season bedding area, essentially anywhere with thick cover and sunshine, you can gather intel by hanging a trail camera over a late season funnel. For this setup, identify a heavily used run and set the trail camera up at a 45 degree angle from that run. You will want a camera with a quick trigger speed that can capture 3+ photos in a photo burst mode.
When to Make a Move
Stay out of these food sources except to check trail cameras. Keep the pressure off your food sources until one of the following happens:
Cold temperatures – when a cold front moves through or snow hits, deer will be forced to get up and feed earlier in the afternoon just to ensure they can keep up with the energy demands of staying warm.
Daylight movement – if you capture a buck utilizing the food source on a regular basis during legal shooting light don’t hesitate! Go in after him immediately.
These trail camera tips should help you target late season movement patterns of bucks to target. It can be your saving grace that arrives just when it seems like all other opportunities have faded away.
Have a nice buck on camera? Score him in minutes using the BuckScore® Software!
https://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/late-seasontrail-camera-tips_feature.jpg13652048BuckScorehttps://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/buckscore_logo_trans.pngBuckScore2017-12-08 16:49:472019-08-28 12:20:14Salvage Your Deer Season With These Late Season Camera Tips!
This is not your normal late season hunting tips blog, or late season strategy blog. If you are looking for that take a look at a blog we just posted. Instead, this is going to reveal some hidden late season intel that most hunters take the time to look at. Last year, I filmed a weekly video for “Trail Cameras Weekly”, a weekly trail camera tip based video series for Muddy TV that reviewed the deer gut analysis tactic.
Analyzing a Deer’s Gut
Normally, figuring out a deer’s diet is not going to be directly useful for hunting. However, this information is absolutely vital for the late season! I know most hunters are no stranger to taking a doe or two during the late or second gun season of their state (primitive or bonus antlerless season). If so, take advantage of this incredible opportunity!
What Do Deer Eat in The Late Season? | Trail Cameras Weekly “Week 10” – This process offers very valuable intel when it comes to hunting. Figuring out what a deer’s diet consists of regarding the late season food sources on your property, can help you determine where bucks might be patterned.
You are essentially trying to figure out what the “green mush” of the stomach contents are and assign percentages of each “type” of food. You will be looking for the following food sources:
Woody Browse – large high fiber stem and tree bud looking stomach contents. The majority of a deer’s diet will be woody browse which can be confirmed by a lot of fiber strands and broken down stems of plants.
Forbs– herbaceous plants that can be seen as large green matter. Generally, you will not see a lot of forbs in a deer’s diet in the winter.
Mast – broken and shattered acorn bits can be confused by corn often, but it will be a significant portion of a deer’s diet in areas with a lot of mast-bearing trees (oaks mostly).
Crops – this is the one you want to try and focus on. Do you see a lot of corn/beans? In the case of this video, a large portion of the doe’s diet was winter rye or the cover crop on the property.
Grass – slightly less fibrous plant material that will make up a small portion of a deer’s diet.
If you can accurately identify food sources in the deer’s stomach contents you can then assume where the deer is spending the majority of its time. Remember deer will be mainly feeding in the late afternoon and early into the night. If there is a lot of acorns still in the diet, than oak flats may be where you want to spend time hunting. If its corn or another late season food source that can be easily hunted, start putting some late season trail camera setups in and around that food source.
This tactic can turn you onto to an unknown food source on or close by your property. This can allow you to rethink your hunting strategy for the late season just in time to snatch success before the season ends.
Want to Find Out More about this Tactic? Visit the Original blog here!
https://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/what-do-deer-eat-late-season_FeatureBlog-Copy.jpg13922048BuckScorehttps://www.buckscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/buckscore_logo_trans.pngBuckScore2017-12-08 16:15:242019-08-28 12:20:14Hidden Late Season Intel You Should Pay Attention To
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