Over the past two or three years I've realized the critical role trail cameras can play in one's overall hunting game plan. The amount of information that can be gleaned from just a few images from one of today's hi-tech trail cameras can be a crucial factor to a successful hunting season.

Using one or more trail cameras can reduce the amount of time spent scouring the woods for big buck sign significantly, this by no means should be misinterpreted as an excuse not to do your traditional scouting homework. Instead use the trail cameras to compliment your field scouting; having 24 hour surveillance on a heavy trail or the edge of thicket where you think you may have uncovered a big buck, may well confirm your suspicions the first night your camera is in place. This may allow you to pick your ambush site, set up a stand and get out of the area well before the start of the season so you don't spook that big buck from the area.

If you use bait it tends to make your camera placement decision a little easier. Find a suitable tree close to your bait, face the camera in the direction you think the deer may be coming in from and turn it on. If you do not use bait you will want to set your camera up along travel corridors, or in a funnel. Later in the season you can set one up over a community scrape, on a scrape line, or on a mock scrape you have created yourself. Try to place the camera to get a shot of the deer coming up or going down the trail as opposed to directly broadside to the trail or you may find you only get an image of half a deer, usually the back half which will obviously not help in determining what kind of rack the deer might be carrying.

I always do my best to try to conceal the camera from plain sight; the group I hunt with has had several cameras stolen over the past few years. There are a few security measures you can take, Tom Jackson one of our Pro-Staff members constructed a small steel box to enclose his camera; the box would then be secured and locked to the tree. Some cameras come with a steel rod that passes through the housing of the camera itself and then can be locked to the tree. These minor precautions will most likely deter the incidental thief or trespasser whose image the camera has just captured. The true thief however will not be deterred and will most likely return with bolt cutters and take what he wants. Our group just experienced a theft from one of these hard core scumbags. Just before the onset of the six-day firearm season we had a 55 gal. drum feeder with an "on-time" timer stolen from on of our spots on private property, the feeder was full and locked to a tree with thick steel cable but that did not stop the thieves from knocking it over cutting the lock and taking the feeder, but that's a story for another day.

Getting back onto our topic of trail cameras, today's hi-tech digital cameras provide high resolution, quality images that may be viewed directly in the field, sent by the camera itself to your home computer, or taken home on the SD disk and downloaded to your PC. Though not what I would call inexpensive, today's trail cameras, like many other electronic products, continue to fall in price and are probably in the affordability range for the average hunter. While a modest amount of computer know how is required for processing the images you obtain the cameras themselves are fairly user friendly and simple to operate.

Trail camera images can give you detailed information about the deer in your hunting areas. You will be able to see what types of deer are coming in, whether they are does, young bucks, or a mature rack buck. Most all cameras today will also give you the date and time the picture was taken and some will also give you other information such as the temperature and barometric pressure. You will also be able to determine what direction the deer are coming from and how often they are visiting your hunting locations.

To put a slight spin on the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" a trail camera image can be worth thousands of minutes scouring the woods. This is especially true if you have very limited time to hunt, the information you collect from your trail camera images can help you determine what the most effective times to hunt your stand locations in the hopes of being on stand when deer are moving in your hunting areas. You can also use trail cameras to help you put a hunting game plan together, a prime example of this happened just this past early fall bow season. Trail camera images allowed me to pick a stand location early in the morning of opening day fulfilling my earn-a-buck requirement and then other trail camera pictures allowed me to be on stand that evening and harvest a nice eight pointer. For the rest of that story you may check out the article "Opening Day Double".

If you have yet to add one of these invaluable gadgets to your hunting arsenal I highly recommend you do so at your earliest convenience, I'm sure you'll find it well worth the investment.

Joe Mills
President NJ-Hunter.com