October 9, 2019
August and September are important months for Missouri game camera photos. We use the images to try to dial in on the numbers and quality of the deer on property. Even more important than the photos themselves, I like to also use the opportunity while retrieving SD cards to physically scout the property for deer and wildlife. It is these moments, actually walking the property and taking it all in that I learn the most and find the most joy. I can probably tell a story from each time I retrieved the cards. In addition, the actual scouting relieves the sting a bit that comes when the camera, batteries, or SD card malfunctions and no images were recovered.
Camera problems, but that’s ok
This was exactly the case at the end of September when I went to pull cards from the two most active cameras. As soon as I began walking in on the road, a bobcat walked in front of me, stopped to check me out, then ran into the brush. Great looks at a neat animal. I continued on, pausing at the creek to watch a school of shad work shallows. A great blue heron and belted kingfisher also joined me creekside, and the day slowed down a bit while I soaked in the scene.
Eventually I made it to the first camera. Excited to see how many images it recorded in the past few weeks, I was greeted with an error message instead. Nothing, not a single photo could be recovered from the SD card. The camera appeared to be working but something was wrong with the card itself. Any other camera I would have been disappointed, but this is the main artery of travel for all wildlife on the property so this was a big hit. Frustrated, I moved on toward the next camera.
Almost immediately I stumbled across a few small trees that had fresh rubs all over them. A new deer trail blazed through the underbrush towards one of the old bedding spots. Fresh tracks were everywhere, and the excitement built up as I slowly worked my way towards the back corner of the property. I continued to find plenty of deer sign, and enjoyed the flocks of robins gorging on honeysuckle berries. The second camera appeared to be functioning well.
Mixed results
While the cameras did record decent numbers of deer, including the very large buck in the cover photo, there wasn’t much recent activity. There seemed to be fewer fawns on property this year as well as fewer deer in general. The real bummer is that no turkeys have been recorded for several months. Perhaps they were affected by the two floods on the property. Non-game animals and predators also seemed to be fewer the past few months. There has been a tremendous amount of activity on the adjoining property and it appears to finally be affecting the animal traffic.
The nice bucks
Here are some of the better deer recorded in the past few months on property:
Does and fawns
While definitely not the numbers to match years past, we still had regular doe and fawn activity on the cameras.
Predators and odds and ends
While the cameras recorded several images of coyotes and bobcats, most were at night and most were moving quickly producing poor image quality. The constant raccoons still hung around, but really did not have very good variety this month. Really wish we could have had better luck with the main camera on this front.
So there it is, another few months of Missouri game camera photos. Some good ones for sure, but I’m hoping for some better images taken in October. I guess we will have to wait and see..
