dczys

i was sitting in my stand this morning as a spike buck was heading down the trail coming my way. i have a trail camera set on the trail not far from my stand. the spike starred at the camera and went off the trail and made a big loop around the camera and back on the trail always looking back at the camera. the camera has been in that spot for 2 weeks.... also an infrared camera - no flash.. Something to think about...

TheMiz54

Did you go check the camera when you got to your stand maybe you left some scent there and he smelled you and was walking around it.

ManofTheFall

I have infrared cameras and have never seen a deer spooked by one. I have been very careful when I check them. I use gloves and cover scent when I'm changing out the memory cards. All of my camera's are by my stands and I have never seen any spook when I have been sitting in the stands. Everything I do out in the deer woods I do as if I was hunting. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL!!!!!

bowhuntnsteve

yup, been there done that with all the tests I have done. The mature bucks avoided the areas but the younger bucks & does paid no attention. I have pix with my IR & flash cams in areas that show them getting caught once not knowing the camera was there then the 3 pix of it being coming in, turning, and bounding away. Then I didn't get a pic again the rest of the season. I saw them while sitting in the stand but they would take a different route to avoid the pic. Majority came with my I-40 IR, my homebrews weren't avoided as much. But I have 19 cameras and been doing studies the past several years. This year I didn't put any in where I hunt, I put them where I wasn't hunting & the trails they were making. So now they are re-directing up and towards me and away from the cameras.

mfd1027

Interesting. How close to the trail was this camera? It kind of sounds like you had it sitting directly on the trail.

Dan

bowhuntnsteve

Many were set on mineral blocks which the trails lead to them. The cameras were up off the ground about 7' aiming towards the mineral blocks.

Others are stationed off a trail 8-9yds angling towards a trail to use obviously the cone to the cameras advantage to get powered up & ready.

Hunt4Life23

Very interesting. I always thought that might happen but wasnt sure. This summer i had been getting a few big bucks on camera early in the growing process but after june i started only getting one of them. I thought the others might of left the area but i still kept seeing the biggest one in the area until september so he must of been avoiding my camera.

Rob/PA Bowyer

Not the first time I've heard that. A friend of mine here got a picture of a big buck, then never again. They placed a Wildlife Eye out and pointed it at the camera. The big buck walked toward the camera and then looped around it avoiding the flash, noise, whatever and continued on his business. Had they not set the Wildlife Eye out, they'd not known the buck was still doing what it was doing. Interesting.

I also have a set of two pictures, the first pic and 8 point was calm, the second he was reared up on his back legs like he was turning inside out. Some spook, some don't.

pigiron

Sorry to take up so much space on your thread but this was a lesson learned to me.

The camera is a RECONX silent image (the older style) with infra- red.

That buck will never come back.

dczys

scent was not an issue, cam has been in the woods all year, and have had a number of does walk right passed it, at a couple yards, it just looked at it and went around it... the wind was blowing in the opposite direction anyway if there was any scent on the cam.. must have just looked odd do see a black box on a small cedar tree i guess.. i have had much bigger bucks 140 inchers on same cam in a different spot early in the year and they did not care, about cam as they fed many times in front of it