Post-Season Trail Cam Tactics

As I sat in my stand, absorbing another beautiful winter sunset, I was taking in the final moments of my deer hunting season. While reflecting on the highs and lows of the preceding year, the air grew colder and what little light remained faded over the horizon.

With a smile and a sigh, realization had hit. Another hunting season had come and gone.

What now?

With turkey hunting several months away and archery deer season further yet, the post season depression hits hard this time of year. However, just because the final bell has rung on the deer season doesn’t mean that the fight is over.

In fact, it has just begun…for the next season! One tool that many hunters fail to utilize during the post season is their trail cameras.

By this point of the year, with batteries drained and SD cards filled, most are taken out of the field and tossed in the storage room corner until summer nights and velvet giants reappear. What they fail to realize are the benefits of post season trail camera tactics.

So why should you use trail cameras during the post season and what could you learn from them?

Buck Inventory

Trail camera inventory is crucial during this time of year for many different reasons. Not only does it give you an insight into what deer survived the year but can also help guide your management decisions moving forward for the future hunting season to come.

After months of hard hunting pressure, it is such a relief to find out which bucks have made it through the hunting season. Though there are many months to go before chasing them again, a post season trail camera inventory of the survivors will give you a sneak peek of the season to come and what to expect.

Trail cameras reveal numerous things such as what bucks are healthy, which ones are injured, bucks that appear/disappear, when bucks are shedding their antlers and what ones have already cast their sheds.

Knowing what bucks have survived and are healthy will give you a jump start on the moves you may need to take by the time fall arrives. Likewise, keeping tabs on those bucks that sport injuries and appear unwell may direct you to shift strategy come fall to avoid chasing after a ghost.

When it comes to monitoring shedding bucks in your area, trail cameras can be used to see when the bulk of your herd has shed their antlers and can guide you in finding them. Each of these inventory items are pieces to a puzzle that will help shape the way you prepare for the hunting season ahead.

Turkey Inventory

An added perk of running your trail cameras post deer season; you will start to key in on the patterns of the gobblers you will be chasing this upcoming spring.

As winter melts away and spring begins to bloom, your deer inventory will quickly become overrun with fanned out long beards instead of big antlered bucks. If you are a turkey fanatic like me, then running your trail cameras in the spring will light a fire under you for the season ahead.

Strutting show downs, feeding flocks, fierce fighting, and vast vocalizations. My favorite trail camera clips come from the weeks leading up to the turkey season.

There is something magical about the woods in the spring! Not only is this trail camera intel entertaining but also highly beneficial.

Utilizing cameras on hardwood ridges, field edges and old logging road trails can help you close in on a gobbler come spring.

Habitat Management Inventory

One season ends and another begins. Winter is a fantastic time to analyze your hunting ground and start making a positive impact on the herd and habitat.

Post season trail camera inventory can help determine important management implementations. This data allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your property’s overall health.

Data such as deer density, age structure, and buck-to-doe ratio during the late season will have a direct impact on the management decisions for the upcoming year.

You may discover that your high deer density limits the amount of available forage for your herd, meaning that adding another late season food source is necessary to boost herd health throughout the harsh winter months.

Or perhaps harvesting a few more does next fall to reduce over abundance will achieve your goal of a healthier herd. Trail cameras will also show you what habitat types your herd prefers during the winter months.

Early successional habitat with high stem counts provides incredible cover as well as an abundance of browsing for a wintering herd.

These upcoming months are a great time to get out on some south facing slopes with a chainsaw to promote high stem count, bedding areas for your deer. They are also great places to pick up sheds too!

Predator Inventory

Inventory of predators on trail cameras are often overlooked. Admittedly, I have a tendency to skim over any photo that doesn’t have an antlered deer on it throughout the fall.

However, once the season ends, I pay close attention to the predator population in the areas I hunt. The abundance of predators such as coyotes, raccoons, opossum, and skunks can be eye opening.

Taking note of the excess predators is important for the health of the herds and flocks that call your farm home.

An overabundance of these predators can have a direct impact on the recruitment of young fawns and poults on the landscape and, if left unchecked, can be detrimental to local game and non-game populations.

With fur prices at all time lows, trapping is losing its popularity. Therefore, it is up to us hunters and land managers to gather intel and analyze the data our trail cameras give us throughout the season to implement a trapping regime that achieves our management objectives.

Post Season Camera Placement

Now that you have read the benefits of running your cameras after the season, you are likely left wondering where to set your cameras up to optimize your post season surveying efforts.

Thankfully, they aren’t much different from spots often used throughout the fall.

Here are 3 of my favorite areas to run trail cameras after deer season comes to a close.

Food Sources

Food is king during the winter months. If you are looking to quickly survey the herd or flock, then locate the primary food sources in your area. Agricultural fields, food plots, acorns, locust pods, etc.

Any food sources with high carbohydrates and proteins will be the popular pick by the local deer and turkeys. Hang a camera up on a field edge or a hardwoods ridge and you are bound to get an SD card filled with activity.

Bedding Areas

Bedding areas are another great spot to run cameras to collect your post season data. Let the herd tell you what areas they prefer to spend their time during the winter months.

Take note of the cover surrounding these locations as well as the topography and aspect as well.

Odds are your deer will prefer high stem count habitat that offers dense cover and browse on a southernly facing slope for warmth provided by the sun during this time of the season.

Travel Corridors

These travel corridors may differ from those that we monitor throughout the fall. However, locating the heavily used trails leading from food to cover is a great place to hang a camera in the winter months.

Not only are they great for taking inventory of the deer and turkeys heading to and from the food sources but are also great locations for predators as well.

Gate openings leading out to food sources, logging road trails and bottle necks work great to gather this information. They are also great locations to set a few traps as well.

Conclusion

So before you pack away those trail cameras for good this season, stock up on lithium batteries, clear those SD cards, place them in the right locations and enjoy the benefits of post season trail camera use.

Take note of your herd and flock health, make management decisions to help improve your chances of filling a tag this upcoming season.

Enjoy some time outdoors in the fresh air while checking cameras, find a few sheds and most importantly combat those post season blues!

Lord willing, we will be hunting again soon enough!

Kurt Thorsen