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Hard to square increased efficiency with a significant reduction in overall harvest though. I can see what you are saying when it comes to the biggest/oldest bucks but when it comes to the overall herd it doesn’t make sense that the harvest is down and not steady or up with the increased...

Appreciate it. Thats what I’m doing so not sure. Don’t get great sunlight where I have them so guessing that’s probably the deal

Can u describe your process from opening the solar panel out of the box to how you mount them for me possibly? I’m just not getting anything close to that with mine

Few guys on here talking about how long their cuddebacks are lasting w the solar panel…..I have not had that kind of luck. Wonder what I’m doing wrong? Do you guys do anything to the solar panel when u take it out of the box or do u just hook it up to the camera and roll? I’ve put new D...

So I’ve tried 3 cuddelinks as kind of a test to see if I want to go all in on them and I must be doing something wrong bc I have the D batteries in them and the 3600 solar panel and I’m getting about 4-5 months before everything is dead. Maybe I just don’t have a couple of them in a full sun spot?

Ok gotcha. Thought you were recommending the Spartans? Is that just for when you’re not running multiple on a farm or something?

Out of curiosity for those that have 6-15 cams on one property, is the cuddle link system the way to go? Seems like it would be based on monthly plan cost. I have an assortment of probably 12 cameras (not all cell) on my home farm and I’m considering whether I should just switch to cuddle link...

Iowas harvest in 23 was around 48/52 for comparison and as we all know they have a fraction of the NR hunters that IL does.

No question the age structure is way worse, primarily bc of way less deer coupled with more efficient ways of killing them (I.e. crossbows) but I am definitely not experiencing the doe ratio being out of whack like you are saying. The harvest was around 45% does and 55% bucks last year in IL...

There are 40-50,000! less deer being killed in IL than there used to be (because there are far fewer deer) so that’s the main reason you’re not seeing them hanging everywhere. The 2000’s had outfitters everywhere which means there were NR hunters everywhere and yet the harvest was 50,000 more...

“The problem” is referenced a few times there Skip but I’m a little confused as to what you/we’re defining as the problem? Is it just the rare areas of high density/crop damage that is being discussed? If so, makes sense. But I still feel like as hunters we need to be on the offensive about deer...

Good stuff, interesting! If you did a flyover in a balloon or whatever back in the mid 2000’s though of any random county in the Midwest what % of the farms had a legit 2 acre or more food plot on them would u guess? Think my 10% number is low?

Curious to hear when most of you started seriously doing food plots. Also if you had to make an educated guess, what % of farms/hunters had legit food plots on them in the 2005-2009 range in your opinion and what % you think that # is today. I didn’t own my own farm until 2013 and that was when...

They’ve been incredibly effective for us on our farm in IL. Primarily use them in evening hunts on field edges, especially when hunting really large ag fields where there aren’t great funnels/pinches. Have had bucks come out in to field 100 or more yards away and get their attn with a grunt call...

Good question and topic and there’s been great answers so far. I actually have a drone survey scheduled on my farm this January so I’ll know for sure then (at least for that time of year). As many have said already, lots of variables! I suspect on my 270ac farm in January when I have the survey...

Rank your top 3 favorites Skip

Agree w you. Cell cams don’t equal a guarentee but I know of a lot of big deer just in the last few years that were killed as a direct result of having real time info. Would they have eventually been killed at some point by a gun or muzzleloader….certainly possible but cell cams are huge game...

Crossguns are huge factor no doubt about it. Hate them in the archery season. But would say that the quality figures in IL dropped off a cliff from 2012-2018 or whenever that was prior to them becoming legal too. The huge reduction in deer numbers was first death blow, then crossguns coming in...

Don’t think so. The xgun references are to other states like IL

Yea my main discussion via YouTube message back n forth with Winke is that we had 2000-2011 with really high deer #’s and now we’ve had 2012-2024 with significantly less deer. So 10 plus year “experiments” to glean from and compare. I don’t see how the results are even debatable (for the guys...