I had to work last weekend, so I get 2 days off during the week to make up for the weekend. Saw a couple dinks chasing does in the am, but no big boys on their feet, as you know on Monday it was hot as hell. Had pics of this buck during daylight consistently 4-5 days/week using the plot scan mode on the trail cam (takes a pic every minute last 2 hours of daylight), amazing how many more deer you see with this setting. Needed a west wind and finally got it, but didn't think I would see much due to the heat, but I figured what the hell. About 5 o-clock I look up and can see his face/antlers staring into the plot in a mowed trail leading to it, thought for sure I was busted, but he started slowly making his way to the food plot 100 yards away. With 1.5 hours of daylight left I knew I had all day. He was never alarmed, just slowly worked his way directly to my stand, I was worried he was going to end up right underneath me. He finally started to quarter at 25 yards, I drew, he still had no idea I was there. He quartered a bit more, I knew I had plenty of room to slip my arrow behind his front shoulder. I let the arrow fly and saw it buried behind the front shoulder exactly where I was aiming. As he ran I could see blood flying with every bound. He stopped another 50 yards looked around a bit, and down he went. Even my colorblind eyes can follow this bloodtrail. Not huge, but only one of two bucks I have on camera that I would even consider shooting right now, now to relax until rifle season. Technically a 10 pt, split brow on one side, 18.5 inch inside spread. Pics of him the last 2 years, thinking 3.5 year old
Naz MacBook's Link
I've got a PlotWatcher Pro (linked) but don't use it as much as I should because I don't have an exclusive use spot for it, and don't want to leave it alone for long periods on field edges where it's meant to be used.
It is for daytime movement (no night shots - had mixed feelings about that at first, but then decided I liked it … no flash/infrared to potentially spook, and shows you what's where in legal light). Can be set to take thousands of photos a day …. you then use software that comes with it (Game Finder) and it finds the "good" photos in minutes on your computer.
Regarding Field/Plot watch modes on cameras .... I tried it, but felt they were a waste of time. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures of an empty field, and then some with deer way too far away to even tell what they were.
I just prefer to find a trail leading into the field, and put the camera there.
I usually only use the plot watcher feature on my moultrie cameras during the spring turkey season as it allows me to cover the entire field from all angles for the entire day. I also use the hybrid mode, which does the plot feature during the daytime, however if anything triggers the regular camera during the day or night, it will take a normal picture. Which is a nice feature not normally included on the standard plot watcher type camera's.
I usually use the 15 sec frame and yes they are large videos, however they are easy to scan through at high speeds using the software or other video software.
I would advise that if you are using any camera for plot watching regardless if its like my camera or like the one naz is referring to, I would definitely invest in setting up an external battery. As they will eat up the batteries for the plot watchers.I have used an external 12v battery @ 7.5a and took pics every 15 for the entire day, not just at sunrise and sunset and i can go over two weeks without changing batteries. The SD cards fill up before the batteries die. I have extra batteries so I just switch them out when i grab the sd cards.
