Brad Harvey: Time to break out those trail cameras

As I was hanging out and chewing the fat in my buddy Jay Young’s office yesterday, I noticed he had one of his trail cameras sitting on a shelf.

“That thing isn’t gonna do ya much good in here,” I told him.

“Yeah, it’s about that time. I need to be gettin’ that thing out there,” he replied.

With August upon us, that means the start of a new deer season is only about six weeks away. Trail cameras are, without a doubt, the best way to find out what’s roaming our hunting land. .

There are several considerations when you head to the woods to put that camera out and, if you’ll keep these in mind as you place it, you’re sure to be pleased with the images you’ll find after retrieving the memory card.

Take a compass. You always want to place your trail camera with it pointing north or south. If it faces east or west, the rising or setting sun will ruin any chance of seeing what came by it during those times. Let’s not forget that both of these periods of the day are prime time for deer movement, no matter the time of year.

Clear the area in front of the camera of any tall, young foliage. These can easily trigger your unit hundreds of times during a single day as they move around in the breeze.

Triggering the camera this many times will quickly kill the batteries and give you thousands of pictures of nothing.

Think logically. Want to see what’s passing through a particular deer trail? Be smart about it.

Putting the camera parallel to the trail, so that the view is from the direct side, will just frustrate you when you go to view the many images that are bound to be on the memory card. You’ll usually find tons of pics showing nothing. It’s not that there wasn’t a deer there. It’s just that your camera location caused the unit to miss it.

In these situations, aim the camera so that it’s looking either up or down the trail. This will keep the deer in front of the camera for the longest time, giving you numerous images of the animal entering or exiting the location.

Found some rubs or scrapes? If you want to see what’s tending them, the best vantage point is from up high. Take your climbing stand with you and put the camera about 15 feet up a tree. You can easily aim the camera down toward your target area by using sticks or twigs to shim it from the top.

Watching scrapes is also a great way to pinpoint when the rutting period starts during the season. As long as you’re seeing bucks hitting those scrapes, it hasn’t turned on yet. You can bet, however, that as soon as you’re no longer getting pictures that the rut has officially begun.

Is there a perfect tree for a camera? Actually, there is. Any tree that measures between 10 and 15 inches wide at the point where you’ll mount your camera will work best. If you’re putting yours at ground level, a height of anywhere from 30 to 40 inches is ideal.

Remember, it’s still hunting. Just because the season isn’t in and you’re not toting a firearm or bow doesn’t mean that what you’re doing isn’t hunting. Every time you enter the woods to either place a camera or retrieve a memory card and swap batteries, treat it as if it were November. Keep a low profile and find the most direct route into and out of the area you’ll be working. Go in scent free and try not to touch anything.

Carry a small bottle of one of the many scent killers on the market and spray down the outside of the camera once it’s positioned, activated and you’re ready to leave. Have a few tissues in your pockets so that you can wipe down the camera lens after you’ve sprayed it.

Resist the urge. Hunters are always anxious to see what kind of activity their scouting cameras have recorded. It’s completely understandable to be excited about seeing the results but why spend the money and go to all of the trouble of using cameras if you’re not going to give yourself the best chance of seeing what’s rambling around your hunting grounds?

As long as your trail cam has fresh batteries and an empty memory card on the day that you first strap it to a tree, it should be good to go for several weeks. This means that you should give it a minimum of a week before each return trip to swap the card and add new batteries when they’re drained. There are a handful of units that have hit the market lately that, despite being fairly inexpensive, are said to operate a full year on a single set of batteries.

Hopefully, I’ve given you a few things that will spark you to put a little more thought into how you use your trail camera this year. I’m pretty confident that if you’ll just take the time to incorporate them, you’ll get far better results than you have in years past.

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 11:27 AM with the headline "Brad Harvey: Time to break out those trail cameras."