Now is the time to be conducting trail camera surveys on your properties. This is more than just setting cameras out and taking inventory of bucks on your farm. As stated by The QDMA, “A trail-camera survey – put simply – is the most powerful herd monitoring tool you can use that doesn’t require the assistance of a professional wildlife biologist.” If performed correctly, you will gain insight into a ton of information about about your deer herd that can be used to make decisions this fall when deer hunting.

To be conducted correctly, it is vital to follow the prescribed method which includes placing 1 camera per 100 acres of habitat. With the grid system overlayed on the HUNTERRA map, we can easily approximate 100 acre blocks on the farm to plan our Moultrie camera locations for our survey. Where legal, pre-bait your camera locations to get deer coming to the spots before the actual survey begins. By running our cameras during this pre-baiting stage, we’ll easily know if we need to make adjustments to the cameras or bait sites before the survey beings after the pre-baiting period.

Be sure to stay tuned for our next episode as we conduct our survey and discuss the formula used to calculate the number of fawns, does, and bucks as well as the deer density on your farm.

See what to do with all your pictures and how to crunch the numbers: Trail Camera Survey Part 2