Setting Up Trail Cams

[adamds22]

Last year I found a spot that I got a lot of bull activity on camera pre-season, I know now that I probably didn't have the camera set up in the best locations but it was set up on a feeding area with a bedding area all around it, had wallows on the outer edges of the feeding area and rubs above it. Needless to say I was pumped for the archery season to start and when it did I basically had nothing come by. I kept the cameras up and even the camera's only sporadically got elk on them.


I know finding bulls pre-season isn't exactly what you are looking but with all the rubs and wallows around I thought it would be great, there was one other hunting group (group of 2 I believe) that were hunting the area as well but never got them on my camera until the season started so I don't think they pressured them out.


Do you think that is still a good area to scout out this year or would my time be better spent trying to find the cows in the area? The area I am referencing is just around 10k feet.

 

[lang]

If bulls aren't there when it counts it does you no good.  Did you hunt the area much?  Sightings, sign, calling...?  Were the other hunters camped 100 yards form the camera?  Cameras are only one piece of the puzzle, not the whole big picture. 

 

[adamds22]

I've hunted there the last few years now. Two years ago we found the spot by glassing and seeing a few cows and a nice bull during archery season. We tried to get in on them but were too late in the day that year. We went back to the same area and found a lot of sign but never again saw elk.


The next year I set up a camera in the area and saw bulls all pre-season, not many cows, maybe one or two here or there. I'm just starting to get into calling more and tried some last year but didn't have any luck on response. The other hunters were camped probably around a mile from the camera but were definitely in the area (caught them on the camera a couple times once the season started). There was sign all over above the meadow on a north facing slope, rubs all over as well. I did see a couple cows above the meadow during the archery season last year but was not able to get a shot off


I think this year since I have been practicing calling a lot more, I'll be more comfortable calling a bit more and I think I wasn't really setup correctly with the camera last year to allow me to get the full picture of what was going on.


Anyway, still learning a lot, I'll definitely set one up in the area again but I have a couple more spots that I'll put some scouting time into as well this year.