FLASH OR NO FLASH?
Posted By
Cole Sandstrom
at
10/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
FLASH OR NO FLASH SCOUTING CAMERAS?
Today I am going to discuss some thoughts as to where to set your trail cameras and present my opinion regarding which is better, a flash camera or an IR camera.
The approaching rut brings along with it one of the best times to get quality pictures of the bucks in your core area. This is mainly achieved by placing your camera so that it is overlooking a freshly made scrape. This is better than putting your cameras on random trails that the buck may not use. With the rut approaching we can bank on a couple of things. Bucks love does and they will make scrapes to help them find ones that are in estrous. This is one of the best placements for your camera and you can feel confident when you check it next that you will have some buck pictures. This is also a nice time to set your camera on multiple shots. The bucks tend to spend some time on the scrapes as they urinate over their tarsal glands and rub their pre-orbital glands on over hanging branches. Another reason to set the camera on multiple shots when placed over a scrape is that you can capture many different views of the buck.
This brings me to the real question of which camera to use, one that delivers a white flash or one that is in-fared. Opinions vary greatly on this topic. So today I will only share my opinion from my own experience. I use cameras all year except from April to May. I will begin with the Flash camera. I have had many pictures of mature bucks that have visited the same spot time after time, and day after day. It is obvious that in no way were they affected by the flash. However, I have had some mature bucks appear startled and only had one picture of them. Now, is the startled response from the noise or the flash? I truly do not have that answer. It is my opinion from the experiences that I have had, each deer is different in what they will tolerate. Some deer just don’t mind the flash while others do.
My findings then leave me thinking as follows: I spend endless hours scouting, putting in food plots, placing stands in the correct areas, etc. So if there is something else I can control- why not. I think that some deer may spook from the flash so I eliminated that from my scouting and use strictly IR cameras. I hope some of my thoughts and experiences are helpful to you, get out there and get some photos and good luck hunting.
Cole Sandstrom
