Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

200 inchers?

Buckscrape said:
Given enough cover and the right genetics I think it's possible for a very special deer to make it to 200. It happened here. The critical ages are between 3 and 5. If a buck can make it through those yrs ...
Here's an example: yrs start at two and a half, ends at seven and a half.
Click to expand...
That’s amazing. Look how many years he had a “frame” or “rack” where he may have been targeted. Im guessing he got passed some of those years or maybe he just got lucky. Amazing what that last year did!!! Wow!!!!

Side note: off all the 200’s shot, I’d GUESS that those bucks have been passed multiple times, multiple years by multiple hunters. It’s those hunters that have given those bucks that “lucky edge” to survive to that full potential age. Clearly it’s rare but hunters likely/usually play a large part in those bucks who make it to maturity
 
I’ve owned my farm in Western Iowa for 5 years now and I can only think of one big buck that we have seen that was not previously on a camera.

My neighbor (Hillrunner) and I generally get multiple pics of the same bucks . I’ve never felt they avoid the cameras ?

So far the cell cams are not causing issues.
 
We started with a couple Spartan cell cams and noticed right away the were a problem. We put them on scrape trees on plots that we ran standard Reconyx cams for years and the bucks quit using the trees. Deer don’t“linger” in front of Spartans. One sequence and they’re gone.

Last year we bought a couple Reconyx cells. I haven’t noticed any issues with mature bucks. Deer and old bucks hang out in front of them just like regular Reconyx cams.

The Spartans are now on security duty around the shack.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sligh1 said:
That’s amazing. Look how many years he had a “frame” or “rack” where he may have been targeted. Im guessing he got passed some of those years or maybe he just got lucky. Amazing what that last year did!!! Wow!!!!

Side note: off all the 200’s shot, I’d GUESS that those bucks have been passed multiple times, multiple years by multiple hunters. It’s those hunters that have given those bucks that “lucky edge” to survive to that full potential age. Clearly it’s rare but hunters likely/usually play a large part in those bucks who make it to maturity
Click to expand...
I agree. ^^ The biggest we ever harvested on our farm was 188" in a terrible drought year, I feel like he could/should have been 5"-10" bigger in the antler category had it not been so dry that summer, given how he had progressed in the previous three years. My son shot him the first day we declared him fair game that fall, he was stupid as big bucks go and we knew him well, so the hunt for him was a short one. Between the two of us...I would conservatively say that we could have shot him a dozen times, with archery gear, in the years leading up to him being 5.

I passed him at 4 yards when he was a 175"ish 4 year old, still the biggest antlered buck I have passed up. Now then, looking back...if we had let him go one more year to 6 years old...I do think he would have been a strong contender to get to 200", especially if there wasn't another summer time drought.
 
interesting talk for sure. my area in Illinois had a 200 on it nearly every year up until about 2006. my neighbors 80-acre farm had one shot on it and one wounded on it in 2004. my farm produced one in 2003 and my lease which was a half mile away produced one in 2002. last known one in this area was in 2012. we now have over 50% of the bowhunters armed with crossbows, all archery season. in my county. they kill more than the firearm season. the pressure in Illinois is off the charts. as for the camera's, we have zero pictures of any the 200 inchers, even though we had multiple camera's out. if my little area had one or two per year, then the county must have had a couple dozen. that gradually faded to the point where I had no confidence to ever see one again. I'm hoping Iowa has some left
 
Sligh1 said:
That’s amazing. Look how many years he had a “frame” or “rack” where he may have been targeted. Im guessing he got passed some of those years or maybe he just got lucky. Amazing what that last year did!!! Wow!!!!

Side note: off all the 200’s shot, I’d GUESS that those bucks have been passed multiple times, multiple years by multiple hunters. It’s those hunters that have given those bucks that “lucky edge” to survive to that full potential age. Clearly it’s rare but hunters likely/usually play a large part in those bucks who make it to maturity
Click to expand...
Here there's really only hunting season pressure. Meaning not too many run cams starting in June like I do and unless they see the buck during hunting season they don't even know it exists. Hardly anybody here keeps track of deer yr to yr. Heck, one of the most common questions I get is "how do you know it's the same buck?". That's probably also why you hear on coffee row about the 180 that someone saw that morning, 95% of the time (if they actually got it) they'd be posing behind a 160. Just my observation.
 
1boonr said:
interesting talk for sure. my area in Illinois had a 200 on it nearly every year up until about 2006. my neighbors 80-acre farm had one shot on it and one wounded on it in 2004. my farm produced one in 2003 and my lease which was a half mile away produced one in 2002. last known one in this area was in 2012. we now have over 50% of the bowhunters armed with crossbows, all archery season. in my county. they kill more than the firearm season. the pressure in Illinois is off the charts. as for the camera's, we have zero pictures of any the 200 inchers, even though we had multiple camera's out. if my little area had one or two per year, then the county must have had a couple dozen. that gradually faded to the point where I had no confidence to ever see one again. I'm hoping Iowa has some left
Click to expand...
Same thing plays out every year now. Hunters come from all over the USA to hunt Illinois with their new crossbows. They arrive with high hopes of a booner and scout the small farm the first day spooking all the deer. After a couple of days of pounding a 100 acre farm with multiple hunters they stop seeing deer. Those high hopes of a booner turn to..."I'm shooting something since I paid $490 for my tag". They end up shooting a couple of 2-3 year olds with the new crossbows.
 
1boonr said:
interesting talk for sure. my area in Illinois had a 200 on it nearly every year up until about 2006. my neighbors 80-acre farm had one shot on it and one wounded on it in 2004. my farm produced one in 2003 and my lease which was a half mile away produced one in 2002. last known one in this area was in 2012. we now have over 50% of the bowhunters armed with crossbows, all archery season. in my county. they kill more than the firearm season. the pressure in Illinois is off the charts. as for the camera's, we have zero pictures of any the 200 inchers, even though we had multiple camera's out. if my little area had one or two per year, then the county must have had a couple dozen. that gradually faded to the point where I had no confidence to ever see one again. I'm hoping Iowa has some left
Click to expand...
Spot-on, I hunted Illinois for 10 years straight from 2001 through 2010. Up until 2006 there were monsters every year, hardly seen any other hunters parked along farm fields then it exploded with hunters and outfitters. Went downhill fast, chances of at least seeing a 200" buck went from good to none. Luckily, I got one of them before things went downhill.
 
IowaBowHunter1983 said:
So one story of many. I've had a camera at one of my pinch points on my farm for 5 years. Camera is tucked into some brush. Not out in wide open in your face. I had a normal cuddeback there for multiple years. I have a deer that I am very familiar with walk by this camera almost daily without issue. Last year I swapped it out to a cell camera. I got ONE more picture of that deer. He was looking right at the camera and looked bug eyed. I NEVER got another picture of that deer at that location. The deer did not leave the farm, he just avoided walking down that trail... ever again.

One more real quick.... put a cell cam on a soybean plot that is set up for late season. I watched 20+ deer come down a deer trail, walk AROUND the camera, and get back on the trail. Not one, not two, about 20.

As such, I would not recommend putting a cell cam near a premium hunting location. I think they work fine for mineral stations, security, etc. Putting them higher up in tree does seem to help.
Click to expand...
I do believe there is some merit to that. I just bought my 1st cellular camera about a month ago after seeing some of the pics posted.

I'm a little leery of how mature deer will react also. I got a couple buck bachelor groups pics on 3 occasions about 3 weeks ago. They all looked suspicious of the cell cam and haven't had any buck or doe pics since!

I'm thinking of suspending my Tactacam account and just use it as a normal trail cam. I assume that may make a difference.
 
Are you guys attributing this to the looks of cell cams or something else?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I agree about the cell cams. I run a few and without question I noticed that some deer reacted to them in a negative way almost immediately while running them on the same trees and setups I have for years with regular cams. Its not a visual thing. They sense something for sure.

Fingers crossed, they'll adjust to it with time.
 
Just out of curiosity are you guys having cameras send pictures immediately or do you have it set for say every 6 hours. I only ask because I wouldn’t think it would be sending off a signal unless sending pictures. Just my opinion.
 
whitetailjunky said:
Just out of curiosity are you guys having cameras send pictures immediately or do you have it set for say every 6 hours. I only ask because I wouldn’t think it would be sending off a signal unless sending pictures. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...

That's a good question, I'm not seeing any reaction, but I don't have the cameras send them instantly. Mine upload at midnight and noon.
 
whitetailjunky said:
Just out of curiosity are you guys having cameras send pictures immediately or do you have it set for say every 6 hours. I only ask because I wouldn’t think it would be sending off a signal unless sending pictures. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...
I had mine set to send pics twice a day, as other have said i put cell cams where i have put cams for years and the deer absolutely avoided them like the plague. Coyotes would get within 25 feet and sprint off the other direction. I know about a dozen die hard deer hunters that have had the same experience some of those guys are in the industry to sell cell cams and they stopped using them. Use the cell cams to push the deer away from areas you dont want them to go. LOL
 
tall@wide said:
Same thing plays out every year now. Hunters come from all over the USA to hunt Illinois with their new crossbows. They arrive with high hopes of a booner and scout the small farm the first day spooking all the deer. After a couple of days of pounding a 100 acre farm with multiple hunters they stop seeing deer. Those high hopes of a booner turn to..."I'm shooting something since I paid $490 for my tag". They end up shooting a couple of 2-3 year olds with the new crossbows.
Click to expand...
it's not just the few non-residents but the residents themselves. there are 150,000 archery hunters in Illinois with way over half armed with the crossbow. they are decimating the buck age structure.
 
whitetailjunky said:
Just out of curiosity are you guys having cameras send pictures immediately or do you have it set for say every 6 hours. I only ask because I wouldn’t think it would be sending off a signal unless sending pictures. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Spartans Go Cams don't have the option to batch send. I agree, I think batch sending would take care of the issue of deer freaking on them.

Reconyx has the option but mine are set to send immediately since deer don't seem to alert on them.
 
Bucksnbears said:
This cam thing is interesting.
Click to expand...
It is the first I have heard of it. I realize some deer do spook from cams...I remember the old days of flash cams--I saw a few deer bee line the opposite direction after the flash went off.

I will have to monitor this a bit more on cell cams.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom