How Many Cameras for a Herd Survey?
Filed under: Ask Grant, Trail Cameras
I truly enjoy your program and look forward to the video each week and the Ask Grant section.
I own 180 acres west of Moberly, Missouri and I want to execute the camera survey. How many cameras should I put out? Your video mentioned one camera for each 60 to 100 acres. Should I focus on three different locations, one for every 60 acres on my property? My major focus has been quail habitat and with the aid of my MDC PLC my quail populations are increasing. I have been utilizing Trophy Rock and currently have cameras on these locations plus some overlooking food plots. Based on what I am seeing on the cameras it appears that I need to thin out the does, but I want to do it right. I look forward to your response.
Steve
Steve,
Yes, if I had 3 cameras I would put all three out in different parts of the property. The goal is to capture as many different deer as possible at each camera site, so place the cameras where the deer want to go. Since deer love mineral licks this time of year they are great places to add a bag of whole kernel corn to make the deer come in on a consistent basis. Identifying individual bucks can be difficult without adequate pictures of each buck to study, so put the cameras on 3-shot mode if possible. Other great camera site locations are near food plots or water sources. Just remember to pre-bait, have plenty of memory card space, corn, batteries, etc., and allow the survey to run 14 days and you should be set. Check out more detailed camera survey instructions I recently posted.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
