Nomercy448

I never said, in any terms, that I don't value woodsmanship. I do, however, stand by my experience that it's not that hard to develop woodsmanship skills sufficient to be supremely successful in the field, because if I can do it, it surely can't be that hard... I get tired of the "elitism" that has become so rampant these days.

When I read threads like this, it reminds me of the TV show joke when the "indian tracker" bends over and smells a leaf, then tells his army captain "8 men on painted horses, heavily armed, rode by here 3hrs ago in single file, wearing red sashes on their belts." The army captain, amazed, asks the tracker "how in the world did you read all of that from just a single leaf?" To which the tracker replies, "I didn't, I was sitting on that ridge 3hrs ago when they rode by."

My point was that hunting isn't voodoo. It doesn't take 50yrs of living in a tree to know how to recognize deer sign and movement patterns without any 'modern aides'.

I've done a lot of experimenting over the years. Rather than having NEVER tried something, then turning my nose up at it, I put my money where my mouth is and try many of these things before building my own opinion. I hunted for about 15yrs on a bare bones "weapon and boots" mentality before I had the disposable income to try other things.

I use cameras for herd management of 100% free chase, private property herds. While I have hunted, and continue to hunt public lands on a regular basis, the reality is that I don't need to, and would rather let folks that DON'T have access to private property have the public lands to themselves. I won't have a debate about the merits of hunting private property - and by private property, I am NOT, in any way talking about fenced hunting ranches, I'm talking about working farms and livestock ranches that happen to be privately owned. 98% of my state is privately owned, and again, 17,000acres of that are owned by my family, with less than 1.5% of public land in Kansas being huntable. Where would you prefer that I hunt? I HAVE, indeed taken deer from public grounds in different regions of the state, and have done a bit of public big game hunting in other states where I don't have access to private property. For what it's worth, I have not seen a difference in the experience, other than I know on private property I won't have a pair of high school kids that don't know a d@mn thing about the woods come walking under my stand at 7:30am.

Before I started taking my wife, or younger kids along with me, I hunted a very minimalist style. Considering that I spend much more of my time taking my cousin's kids hunting than I do hunting alone these days, I've found that feeders do help improve their odds, IF THEY'RE PLACED PROPERLY.

So while I use cameras, I typically hunt over food plots less than 10% of my time, and feeders less than 10%. My family might hang 30-40 stands in a season, so forgive me if we have a varied experience in the methods that we use.

Ultimately, I meant to convey two points: 1) hunting isn't as hard as many of us try to make it sound, and 2) I think a lot of folks claim certain technology is a "shortcut," that my experience with them really just doesn't support - specifically in this case, HAVING ACTUALLY HUNTED BOTH WAYS, I cannot say that I believe that game cameras make your odds of taking deer significantly higher than hunting without, and I do not agree that a game camera can successfully displace, even at a marginal level, any form of scouting or woodsmanship.