| they had a great experience in the past and that is there go to time for taking a vacation in search for a big buck. Using that method can pay off but can be quite inconsistent for success on big bucks. Now we all want to know/discover that magical secret for consistently predicting mature buck movement. Yes there are calendars, phone apps, etc. that can help assist with pointing you in the right direct for the best times to be in the woods or on vacation. But the problems with calendars and phone apps is that they are created to be sold to everyone world wide and are not designed to be area specific or aka "not just for you". So if you are interested in discovering a method using your trail cameras, that can help you specifically predict/target day time "mature buck" movement in advance and specifically to your area? Then keep reading. Now in order to first understand how those hunting phone app's and hunting calendars even work. You just simply need to understand there is actually only one ingredient which is "The Moon". Now allot of people bank on the phases of the moon to predict increases/peaks in deer movements. But I think we can all agree that we are all after a nice mature trophy for the wall and "not just ANY deer". So what else is there that we can do with the moon to help take our trophy hunting to the next level? One just has to simply spend allot of evenings in the field paying close attention to the moons position each night and then matching up the rise and falls in deer activity with the different positions of the moon each evening. Put in an honest effort doing that and I promise you will join the few that have already taken the extra time to get familiar with how it is actually "the moons position" that has the biggest factor on deer movement. But if you don't stop there and are willing to apply a 110% effort into narrowing down the best moon position for mature buck movement. Then you will be well on your way to consistently filling your buck tags with bigger bucks. If anyone needs a little more assistance with understanding the mechanics of the moon method. Visit this page of our website http://www.backwoodswhitetails.com/biggamemoonhunting.html So now with having a better knowledge & understanding of how to "use the moon to make it happen". What is the next thing one can do to help increase their success on mature bucks even more? Well for those that haven't already caught on. There is a way hunters can use their trail cams to get more that just some cool deer pic's or for searching out that one buck you hope to have hanging on your wall this fall. By simply understanding the mechanics to moon combined with utilizing several trail cams, keeping a disciplined record of all day time mature buck movements and by comparing notes on mature buck with others. You will soon be able diagnose your trail cam pic's as for what days mature bucks will be on their feet "during daylight hours" in the future. Now just taking a quick moment to go back to information given from moon calendars and lunar hunting app's. If one takes notice, they will find that peak movement times are being shown to increase and decrease every couple of weeks. That is due to it takes the moon 27 1/2 days to return to the exact same spot in the sky at a set time. Divide that number in half and you got yourself 13 3/4 days, thus every couple of weeks. Now again the moon calendars focus just on the rising & falling peak deer activity. But we are going to get more technical by focusing on just how the moons gravitational pull is forcing the mature bucks to move during the daylight in your specific area. To get started, each hunter is going to need to gather up a good arsenal of trail cams. Whether it be just yourself utilizing a good handful of cams or if it is yourself and a few friends using allot more cams on different farms. Just know that one or two trail cams more that likely isn't going to cut offer allot of info. To quickly explain why it is going to take knowing what the mature bucks are doing in other areas as well as yours. If you happen to only be able to hunt one farm. Then that is where your buddies trail cam info is going to come in to play. You will all be comparing notes for the days that each of you had captured pic's of mature bucks on their feet during daylight shooting hours. Heck, you can even compare notes with friends living in other states where you will soon discover that your day time pic's of mature bucks will be within a day of (if not the same day as) their daytime mature buck pics. Now If you still are not seeing where we are going with this. Let me try to help simplify things a bit. Each year we personally utilize 70+ trail cams to monitor the whitetails on several different farms that are literally spread out over a 60 mile radius. So when the same things are happening (with mature bucks) all on the same days on all of our farms, it is no coincidence. It is actually the gravitational pull of moon position that is causing an increased level in "Mature Buck Feeding Activity". Also I'm sure that everyone has at some point experienced lulls in their trail cam activity. Meaning you put your cams out, get a burst of trail cam pic's. Then the next time you run your cams, it is like the deer all fell off the face of the earth. The you go back to run them again to get another burst of deer pic's. Well don't feel like the Lone Ranger as this happens to all of us. Again, it is no more than a lull in deer activity caused by an off moon position. So instead of hunters becoming frustrated, one should actually be getting excited as you are gaining the needed info to pin down future mature buck movement in daylight hours. Not to mention that at least now you can rest assured that it isn't a faulty trail cam, lol. Now the next experience I want to draw your attention too is how many times have you, 1.) Had several nice bucks on trail cam. But the pic's of the mature shooter bucks were always at night time with the exception of about once or twice a month? 2.) Not had any nice bucks on cam except every now & then? If you can relate to those two things. Then you are one step closer to predicting buck movements with your trail cams. Step one is to simply keep a file of every daytime picture you get for just the mature bucks. After a couple of months of gathering cam pictures you should begin to see that those daytime movements are showing to be 12 - 14 days apart. Thus, every two weeks apart, thus half of the 27 1/2 days that it take the moon to return to the exact same spot in the sky. Are ya starting to get the picture? Through our years of running an overload of trail cameras on several farms over a 60 mile radius. We have been able to learn not only how the moons position can have a big effect on mature bucks leaving the safety of cover during daylight hours. But we have also come to realize we can better predict in advance up to within a day or two for when mature bucks will be on their during daylight shooting hours. We personally use this scouting method each & every year to help hunters with choosing best dates for planning a trip. Remember that nothing in hunting is 100%. Although this method will prove to be a success for predicting big buck movement. Remember you are still hunting a very educated animal with years of experience with humans. Therefore hunters will need to keep a detailed daily log of wind direction and weather conditions so as to become familiar with each individual animal in effort to see how he is using the winds to travel, how he is using the wind to enter/leave a bedding area, on what winds he travels a specific ridge, how he enters a field or food plot based on wind direct, etc. Hunters still need to have an invisible approach and exit to the best of your ability. Hunters still need to prepare their trail cam and stand sites months in advance to prevent any new smells from last minute trimming and most important hunters still have to make every effort to be as scent free as possible. Feel free to call or email us at anytime for assistance on understanding how to use this method. We are always here to help and we wish everyone a safe & successful season this fall. |
| Turning your Trail Camera Pictures into Bucks on the Wall |