I think it has a lot more to do with up bringing than it does trail cameras.

What I call actual good old fashion hands on skill is on the decline across the board IMO not just hunting.

GREAT point! I agree whole heartily!

I have used trail cams on two local private properties I hunt. Every other place I just go hunting, sometimes with little scouting and lay of the land. Success for me equals time put afield and I haven't seen a better strategy for killing deer besides being experienced and knowing the land.

It is nice to see pictures of deer but they could not dictate where I set up or take away from the many long hours I will patiently sit waiting for a deer to come along.

Might as well call out feeders, mineral blocks and food plots as well. Those are the real crutches.

I ask this every time someone says baiting is cheating or a crossbow is cheating and so on. I tell them game cams have done more to allow us to "cheat" than anything in history. It allows you to hunt or not hunt a spot. It tells you when and what is coming by that spot. It allows you to spy on them 24/7.

With that said I'm not against them no more than I am baiting. Its a tactic that is legal and its up to each person to decide if they want to use it. Just don't bash the other guy when you may not be as perfect as you think.

Trail cameras
 

Trail cameras are not legal to use for hunting in Montana.

We use our hunting skills to find our animals, unless you are on a guided hunt, then you use your guide's skills to find your animals. :devil:

I have hunted now for 42yrs and I got into trail cams a few Yrs. ago. they are a lot of fun to have you never know what you will get on them. they are not a sure thing for harvesting a deer. you may see deer even bucks at the same location and same time for weeks at a time but when Oct. comes along and the different crops come in you still have to go back to finding out where they are feeding now and, more pressure from humans alter there daily habits and you start to get less and less pic's on your cameras. now you have to resort back to hunting skills your game camera can't teach you.

Actually, they already have these. A high-fence area has guns mounted within their property and one can point and shoot using their computer mouse. Not that fun IMO.

To the thread, I don't see using cameras as "less sporting". When I hang a camera, it's location is based on all of the "woodmanship" skills mentioned above, tracks, droppings, etc. I don't just stumble to the woods and put up a camera on the first available tree. Catching a good buck on camera is something that helps motivate me to get out there on a cold, windy day, However, as most good pics happen at night, knowing where he might be during the day, placing a stand to intercept him etc, is still "woodsmanship". Also, what I see on camera is often two weeks or more old. Who knows where a certain buck might be by the time I get my pics?

I do believe there are some people that really have an advantage using cameras, if they use LOTS of them and check them very often, or use them over bait (where legal). I believe that this type of use is limited to a few hunters and not nearly the norm. I would guess most average hunters that used cameras have fewer than 5 cameras and aren't able to check them more than once a week or so. Unfortunately the TV shows make it seem like to keep up you must buy, buy, buy.

Completely illegal in Colorado. It should be in all states.

Can you provide a link to this?

So now you have me really back and forth on the idea of cams. This is my 4th year deer hunting and have had varying degrees of success/luck. I didn't have anyone to teach me I just started shooting a bow and decided this was the next step. I did grow up hunting waterfowl but no one in my family deer hunted. Last year for Christmas I got a cam. Put it up in june. I have learned so much from looking at those pictures. Did it help me with stand placement? Abbasalutely. But I feel like I have more insight and knowledge than I did a year ago. Now on the flip side. nothing will ever replace the insight from being in the woods. having a mentor to teach the signs of deer placement. A tool a hope I can pass to my son, and I have a good friend who asked if I would take his son deer hunting as well. Am I cheating? When you say like some of you have I am. But I feel like I'm using all the tools in my tool box to someday have that insight to pass on.