Disappointing Looking at My Trail Camera Photos

This will be my second summer hanging trail cameras on my property and over the weekend I finally took a look at six weeks of footage.

After doing some fishing last Saturday morning, I decided to get the ATV out and do a trail camera run around my property where I had put out six trail cameras to monitor the wildlife... mainly deer.

For the second year in a row, it was highly disappointing after sifting through thousands of photos to only see what looks like a daycare center for deer.

Granted, I passed on all the deer I saw last year because none of them were big enough so about half of the deer I had on camera last year made it through to this season.

One neighbor shot a small buck, while another neighbor and his hunting buddy shot two small bucks and a doe and my new Amish neighbors shot nine little does and one decent seven point buck. So yes, there were some deer taken from my area for sure. Not to mention the federal land that is down the road from me. I'm sure that as many people were hunting that land that some of them had to get a deer or two.

A few of the more decent bucks that I saw last year were caught on camera after the season ended, so unless coyotes or a bear got them, technically they should be around.

When I went through my camera photos I didn't have one photo of a deer older that 2 1/2 years old. That is not very promising at all. At least last year I had a couple of 2 1/2 year old does on camera.

I'm trying to be patient but the cameras don't lie, it doesn't look very promising once again to deer hunt on my property this year.

Now I will admit that once the rut kicked in and the bucks were chasing does around, I did get more buck activity on my cameras but it wasn't anything spectacular.

My land wasn't planted last year and with the high water from all of the rain there was no real purpose for deer to cross my land. This year I have corn planted but just a small number of deer visiting who are either yearlings, 1 1/2 year olds and one 2 1/2 year old deer.

Hopefully as the corn comes in better more deer will decide to drop in the area. Until then I will keep checking my cameras and keep working to make this property more desirable for deer to hang around. But from the looks of things after two summers of trail camera photos... it's not very promising.