drdi

I just got a trail cam this year and have been using it since late October. I've had it in several different locations (all on unbaited trails), but finally settled on a wide mowed path where it has been for a couple of weeks. The mowed path runs right through a bedding area and has corn fields on both sides of the bedding area.

I'm really surprised that I am not getting very many daytime pictures at all. Ok, I got some of me and some of the hunters on our farm during last week's gun season. I could understand the deer going nocturnal during gun season, but the camera was up several weeks before that. I only have 2 pictures in the daytime and the rest are at night or at dusk.

Since gun season is over and most of the corn has be harvested, I have just started baiting the camera area so that will probably help. Maybe I just need to find a new location. Hmmmmm?

Just curious as to what others are experiencing on unbaited or even baited locations as to the amount of daytime vs nighttime pictures?

mikemac10

For me I'd say at least 95% of the pics I get are at night or around the first/last 30 minutes of daylight. During the rut I get a lot of pictures during the day. Deer move mostly at night and during low light hours so its only fitting thats when you'll see a majority of your pics, at least on the properties I hunt thats usuallythe way it is.

npaden

Are you talking strictly about pictures of deer or the ratio on total pictures.

I don't keep track of it by the individual picture but by the appearances on the camera. I.E. if a deer shows up and hangs around for 30 mintues that only counts as 1 appearance.

For the month of November I had 60 appearances of deer and of those 31 were during the daylight and 29 were at night. Does were an even 50/50 with 22 appearances with 11 in the daylight and 11 at night. Bucks were pretty close to 50/50 with 38 appearances with 20 in the daylight and 18 at night.

I've only been keeping that detailed of records for 1 month so not sure what the pattern would be for the entire year yet.

On pigs I had21appearances and of those3 were during daylight and 18 were at night.

These pictures were taken at a feeder that goes off around a 1/2 hour after sunrise and1 hour before sunset. I haven't seen a pattern of deer coming right when the feeder goes off, but they do show up most frequently 1 1/2 hours after sunrise and 1 1/2 hours before sunset.

npaden

Here's a graph of the activity from my camera for November.



It groups them first by species then by sex if known and finally for the bucks I've tried to track them by estimated age as well.

redka

90% night, 10% day.

RackLuster

npaden - you keep track of how many 'male human' you get pictures of? I'm not even going there.

drdi

oooooooo, I like the graph. Pretty cool stuff.

And yes, I meant deer. Sorry about not clarifying that. I too count multiple pictures of the same deer in one time frame as one occurence.

I'll be checking my camera tomorrow so I'll see if anything has changed since gun season.

npaden

That's me when I go to check the camera. I go ahead and record them as an appearance so I can see if there is any correlation between the times I go and check the camera and if that affects how soon other critters show up on the camera. That graph showed every recorded appearance, so that included me.