Is it just me??

[Bowguy67]

Anyone else sick of seeing trail cam pics especially those with animals standing by bait? It seems so contrary. We’re doing things old school yet using modern technology and marketing.
It’s easy to avoid em by not clicking, and guys are entitled to do as they wish. To me it’s just not scouting and never will be.
I like to be involved in my sport. Making arrows, strings, sharpening knives and broadheads. Watching deer come into a hayfield at night from long range behind a bale.
Scouting means actually figuring where the best spot to intercept our lives w deer or any animal under fair chase rules. Planning for the hunt by using our brain, woodsmanship and relying on determination, not what time a camera says the deer are coming to the corn pile.
I’m not cursing no one so don’t get bent if I’m describing you. Guess I’m wondering if any old style hunters exist?
I will say this morning my buddy who is def about the dead animal said something warmed me up.
Couple years ago he shot a turkey roosting on a roof w his bow. Each morning it’d gobble, come down, pass the swing set and pass the same tree. He went there and killed it and was excited it was by bow. Happy for him but I’d not do it.
Same year his friend had a giant yard. Birds come into every day in the exact spot. He sat there killed another. Dif mentality than me.
Today he said they were doing the same thing but he wasn’t going there. It was like shooting em in a turkey farm. Seemed accomplishment is starting to mean something to him!!
This was the same guy when I had brain surgery and struggled to shoot said if he was me he’d be using a crossbow.  I let him know he wasn’t me.
I got a light bow n worked my way up. He comments positively about that too now 
No dis to anyone, I’d just think on a trad forum there’d be more old school mentality guys.
This is not a modern technology bash so don’t mistake me. Not an anti anything bash

[The Savage Rabbit]

I understand what you mean.  But, hunting Africa was not my thing due to the high fences until I did it.  I just wanted the experience.  It was not the same visceral experience as still hunting deer on public land, but it was a totally different type of experience and fun.  It was just a different type of hunting.  I would not make it my main method, but, MAN, was it fun. 

I'd assume throwing in a baited tree stand archery hunt every year would be similar. 

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Well... at the end of the day, hunting and fishing should be about a few things. Food for the freezer, good stewardship/conservation, and enjoyment of nature. I can see how a lot of fellas get great satisfaction from trail cameras. I think our weapon choices have a much bigger bearing on how sporting the hunt is than on whether we have pictures of the animals beforehand. But even then, I really just want to know a hunter's true motives. Are they looking for their moment of fame? Bragging rights? A record book buck? Or are they doing their best to enjoy what's been put before them? Maybe those trail cameras help understand the herd dynamics in their area.

Put it another way... I'm a fly fisherman. Dedicated, hardcore, good at it, and most would call me a purist. Heck I don't even know how to use a baitcaster. Lately I've been thinking about how enjoyable it would be to dunk some worms and put a bunch of Crappie in the freezer. and then I realized, I don't even know how to do that! I have been so proud of the fact that I'm a FLYFISHERMAN!!! that I let it get in the way of relaxing and enjoying the process of catching fish. If it's fun, it doesn't matter whether it's fly fishing or spin fishing. I'm still trying to catch fish either way.

Back to your original question, I think trail cameras are absolutely effective scouting tools. Doesn't mean I have to agree with the use of them. Generally speaking I don't have much use for them. But I wouldn't consider them to be nontraditional, necessarily. Eventually it comes down to where you draw the line. Arrows, and bows are made of fiberglass. Binoculars have really only been good enough to be useful in the last hundred years. Boots with goretex certainly aren't what the native americans used. We drive cars to our hunting grounds. We wear synthetic clothes.

Trad is a relative term. There are a few non negotiables, namely single stick, single string, no wheels. But beyond that, I think everyone gets to decide if their equipment satisfies the intention behind their choice of weapon. If you can honestly say a rangefinder, and lighted nocks and vanes still meet the intention behind why you hunt with a recurve or longbow, then use them!

[black velvet]

Amen to that BowGuy. It seems like woodsmanship is becoming a lost art.

[Bowguy67]

I understand the sentiments. This is not to prove or disprove anyone’s techniques as being whatever they want. 
Imagine you were sharing land w a group? I myself have. I’m finding it increasingly tough. Everywhere you look there’s trail cams, bait piles, etc. Getting tougher and tougher to avoid. Thank God for mountains to climb.
That land though if shared by guys just like myself is where I’d like to be.
Idk if that makes sense. Look if it doesn’t it’s because you don’t think that way. Less n less do, was hoping more guys were hiding in here that did.
Black Velvet Id hunt with

[YosemiteSam]

To each their own.  I'd like to be a purist but the hunting is tough out here as it is.  Granted, we can't use bait here anyway.  Trailcams?  Sure.  I've found one or two and placed one or two.  But since I have a 1-3 hour drive to hunting grounds, it's more of a tool to see if I'm wasting time in a spot.  I put one out in a couple places I had been hunting a few years.  Doe, doe, doe, doe, coyote, doe & fawn, doe, doe...  Can't shoot does out here so it's time for a new spot.  I figure it's a cheap way to see if I'm wasting a season or if it has some potential.

Here, a fella can put in a hard, honest effort for a few years and still fail to SEE a legal buck during the season, let along shoot one with a rifle (bow, including compounds, is really low odds).  Our regs are set to accommodate several thousand hunters in the space of a single county, meaning that success rates are such that only a few % will take home anything.  Tags are more like lottery tickets -- low-odds gambles.  Last year, I hunted about 12 full days and got one opportunity for a stalk on a bear (didn't yet have a tag on me) and saw no legal deer.  None.  Zippo.  I've seen 2 legal deer in about 5 years.  Both went to the freezer.  If people out here decide to take a few extra legal advantages, I can hardly blame them.  Yes, I could rack up some preference points and hunt more productive areas 5-7 hours away in a short 2-week season.  But I want to hunt places I know, places I can learn & in a more flexible time frame.

That's just my view on things here.  We don't chase whitetails on farm land.

[BAK]

If my purpose for putting out trail cams was to pin point deer to hunt I might tend to agree with you.  It's not.   

I hunt land that I've been hunting on since 1957.  Roughly 230 acres give or take.  I know where the deer feed, bed, and travel,  so cameras help me with none of that.  My wife and I just enjoy browsing the pictures for all that's there.  Yes, we see deer, and turkey, but squirrels, rabbits, coyote, and last year a pair of otters.  I also use them to make sure we don't have anyone trespassing, at least not more than once if we can help it.

I think you're using too broad a brush.

[Mark R]

I'm totally with you bow guy, hunting with a Trad Bow is more a spiritual thing with me, I will not spend thousands of dollars just to kill something like some do, I can always go to the Grocery store but to each his own as long as it's legal and they enjoy it. I am not fortunate to live in a good hunting area and have to travel 2 hours one way to get to any public hunting grounds witch can be pretty pressured at times yet I use no cameras or electronic gps, I have no trouble finding sign and my way around the woods but then again I've learned how to triangulate with or without a compase  over 40 years ago and I like to hunt my way, and if I had to hunt to survive I know many ways to do so and few are legal. I know some can go out into there backyard and pretty easily harvest game legally and I have no problem with that, I would do it to if I could but I would not brag about it, just be thankful to fill the freezer with fresh game that I harvested myself.   It's funny cause across the street from me there's close to 5 sections of forest preserve full of Deer but no hunting allowed, the powers to be go out and bait and slaughter them every couple years to stop them from over grazing and it has to be done but I don't consider that hunting.

[Bisch]

I say: you do what makes your boat float, and let the next guy do whatever makes his boat float, and every one is happy doing things the way they want to. No reason to worry or complain about the way someone else chooses to do any particular thing, as long as it’s legal and ethical.

JMHO!

Bisch

[Crittergetter]

I personally don’t care what the next guy does as long as he is within the limits of the law...
Most people are to lazy to hunt/scout as hard as I do so I’m not concerned with how they do what they do. It simply doesn’t affect me.

[woodchucker]

I am!
As time goes on, I focus on the days of my youth. More and more, I do things the way I did as a kid.
Recurves and wood arrows, open sighted rifles, wool clothing, walk more and sit less...
I don't know? Makes me feel young again...

[Bowguy67]

Yosemite Sam there’s no intent at purity. Just the way I prefer to do things.
Bisch the bait and trail cams by me are rampant. You can’t do what you want or hunt as you wish.  I prefer not to be in the same woods as feeders. The guys often put them in oaks where I’d set so I gotta use somewhere else no matter I had hunted a farm or parts of it 30 years. I need to go and I will but it’s not like the way someone does things isn’t effecting others. Should I add consideration is an old school value too? . Maybe guys carrying all this stuff in ought to figure out if they’d be changing an area negatively for someone else?
Now I agree w the legal thing, the old school in me disagrees bait will ever be ethical.
Before guys get bent again this is not my intent, just my opinion.
Do not want this turning into a peeing match. I’m just wondering if anyone else is old school.

[twrecurve]

  Bowguy67, I hear ya and agree.  As you stated, it is a personal preference and I can live with the fact that others want to do it that way but I don't care to.  It loses a large amount  of the experience at least to me.  I thought Black Velvet had a great comment.

[monterey]

Lately I've been thinking about how enjoyable it would be to dunk some worms and put a bunch of Crappie in the freezer.

Go with minnows for those crappies. 

[Pine]

I know what your getting at but I'm going to give you some of my perspective.
I don't use my trail camera for "SCOUTING" , it's used in my case as a way to enjoy watching the little ones grow up as well as watching antler growth.
So for me it's a form of entertainment because I'm going to hunt in the same spot regardless of trail camera pictures.
I do feel the  need to explain that not all hunters are capable of negotiating the great outdoors due to limited mobility.
They hunt where they are able to get to and rely on others to assist with recovery.
So don't be too judgmental on this subject and realize that some just can't do it any more.
And also there's some traditional hunters that are trying to learn without a mentor to guide them. 

[Pine]

Case and point, I get some very amusing pictures.

[GCook]

 
I always enjoy these threads.  Mostly because I just finished a dinner of venison of a deer I shot at a feeder, from an elevated plastic shell blind that seals up and contains my scent and I chose to shoot her because she never had a fawn with her in all the pics I had of her all summer, knew her to be older and she had a big cyst on the front of her chest.  I shot her with a bow with fiberglass laminates in it and a shelf cut past center, a carbon arrow I cut and fletched as well as glued in the insert and used a lighted nock. I used a digital camera in my cell phone to take pics and I did brag a bit.  I used a replaceable blade knife to skin and quarter her and paid a processor to cut and grind her for me even though own all the equipment to do it myself.  However in the hours it takes to process a deer I can make about $600 in my business and since they only charge $85 to process a deer (and I know the people well) it's stupid not to spend money to make more.
Now I could try to justify camera use with the fact that my ranch is 175 miles from home but I really don't feel the need to.  The fact is that I'd bet my next paycheck you'd likely never kill a deer on my place still hunting with a bow.  Just isn't the kind of cover and terrain to facilitate it.  Not to mention you'd spook them off the property for the day and after a while, push them into nocturnal activity.
I enjoy sitting in a stand, taking photos of deer and sending them to my family and friends while hunting.  I enjoy seeing theirs as well and even though we may be hunting places hours or even thousands of miles from each other, it's almost like sharing a hunt or camp with them.
You know I've only been around a little over half a century but I understand that when I start a sentence with "no offense" I'm certain I'm going to offend someone and it's usually the person I'm trying to convince I'm right.
However, it's a long off season for many of y'all up north and with current restrictions and such I can see you getting a tad antsy.
Even though I could go on my A.D.D. is kicking in and I need to go check other threads.

[GCook]

Did I mention my wife is an excellent wild game cook?

[Mark R]

Hey Trumpkin you can catch Crappies with your fly rod, I've been catching them for the past few weeks with mine, maybe you should tie some Crappie fly's.

[achigan]

I'm a retired photojournalist, so i'm very image oriented. I'm also a meat hunter. I shoot first available legal deer. I enjoy the heck out of seeing what;;s walking thru my backyard at night as well as what is on the property I hunt about 5 miles south. The common sentiment "to each his own" seems to be the correct attitude for me to take.