It was 4:30 a.m. once I texted my looking buddy that we had been switching to plan B. I’d simply obtained a notification on my telephone from the Moultrie Cellular app. It revealed large teams of wigeon had moved in to feed on inexperienced grass close to the sting of a pond. I put the Edge Professional path cam there 4 days prior and it paid off. We shot our restrict in beneath half-hour.
4 years in the past, I began working non-cellular path cams for geese. And whereas it was useful for understanding duck conduct and migration patterns, I used to be at all times one step behind the birds. Final season, I switched to utilizing Moultrie Cellular mobile cameras, and the whole lot modified. Now, I get real-time updates when geese transfer into any of my spots. However don’t be fooled: Setting path cams for geese isn’t as straightforward as getting a notification in your telephone after which strolling out again to shoot them. It takes preparation, scouting, self-discipline, and, most significantly, the flexibility to be cell.
Final yr, throughout my 100-plus-day Pacific Flyway duck season, I discovered just a few issues about working path cams for waterfowl. Some ways are based mostly on conventional duck scouting methods, and others go hand in hand with working path cameras for different species. Both manner, every approach led to profitable hunts and heavier straps. So get a mobile path digicam and use these ten ways to kill extra birds subsequent season.
1. Run Mobile Cameras Over Conventional SD Cams
Checking conventional SD path cameras is time-consuming, and in case you aren’t pulling playing cards day by day throughout duck season, you would possibly miss a push of birds. Cell cams take away the necessity to examine your digicam day by day. They relay data instantaneously. Set the notifications in your smartphone, and also you’ll obtain up-to-the-minute motion because it unfolds with the mobile fashions. That is particularly useful throughout peak migration, when large flocks of birds migrate by an space shortly. Generally, geese solely cease for a day or two to refuel earlier than persevering with south. The place authorized, a dependable cell cam, just like the Edge Professional, will notify you when the birds are in so you’ll be able to hunt them earlier than they’re gone.
2. The Extra Cameras the Higher
Come waterfowl season, I set no less than two dozen cams to observe the motion of geese and geese. Most hunters don’t must run that many, however the concept is easy: The extra cameras you might have out, the extra space you cowl to search out birds. I’ll enhance the variety of cams I’ve set relying on water ranges, time of season, and migration peaks. The later within the season it will get, the extra cameras I take advantage of. I’ll set them on non-public and public land, rivers, creeks, sloughs, ponds, and fields. Anyplace you will get a digicam out will aid you higher sample birds.
3. Use a 4×4 Fence Put up to Anchor Your Cameras
The best and most safe strategy to set a path cam for geese is by attaching it to a 4×4 wood fence submit. I screw in a Moultrie Cellular Edge Sequence Flex Mount into the submit, drive it into the bottom, and fix the digicam. This mount is safe and will be moved for exact positioning. Make sure you screw the submit right into a spike so if the water rises, it gained’t float away. In case you are setting cameras in areas the place water ranges might rise—like in creeks, riverbanks, and ponds—use an extended wood fence submit to maintain the digicam dry. Additionally, make certain the submit is anchored effectively sufficient that winds and currents gained’t carry it away.
4. Monitor Potential Meals Sources All Season
Whereas path cameras are wonderful scouting instruments, it’s important to do some pre-season scouting earlier than setting them. Within the low season, I’m trying to meals sources to set my cams on. I’m additionally noting the place completely different meals are positioned based mostly on future water ranges. Some meals are simply accessible to geese with little rain. Others don’t grow to be accessible to birds till late within the season, following a excessive water occasion or perhaps a freeze. Sure meals sources require flooding to permit geese entry to it. Preserve observe of agricultural exercise close to your looking space, which can even influence duck motion in the course of the season.
5. Use Video Mode
A 15 second video clip captures sights and sounds a nonetheless picture by no means will. Each season, I uncover excessive numbers of geese utilizing an space based mostly on the sound alone. One or two geese is likely to be swimming in entrance of the digicam, however 1000’s extra will be heard off-camera. Use video mode to get probably the most data you’ll be able to out of your cams.
6. Let Hen Numbers Construct on Loafing Areas
100 wigeon grazing on new grass may appear inviting, however nothing attracts birds higher to an space than dwell birds. So in case you’re monitoring a long-term meals supply or roosting websites, let the variety of geese construct in your cams earlier than looking them. For these areas, I normally wait till numbers hit just a few thousand to hunt them. That gained’t be the case for each space, so wait till you suppose there are sufficient birds to get a number of hunts out of it. When you hit a huntable quantity, go in early, shoot quick, and exit shortly. Doing so will enable you extra hunts on this identical spot. Should you hunt a spot too quickly, earlier than numbers construct, you would possibly solely get one shoot from it.
7. Instantly Hunt Quick-Time period Meals Sources
On the flip aspect, short-term meals sources needs to be hunted instantly. With these, there’s no must let fowl numbers construct for worry the meals is likely to be shortly depleted. Quick-term meals sources are dictated by fluctuating water ranges, wind depth, and fowl numbers. A rising creek, a bit of a river, or perhaps a flooded subject might solely supply geese entry to meals for a short while. This will final anyplace from a day or two to 12 hours or much less. How briskly water ranges rise and fall determines how lengthy geese can attain the meals.
Determine these areas within the low season and monitor them day by day in your cams. As soon as the cameras are exhibiting water and geese, hunt them instantly. Excessive winds and rising water can transfer meals round ponds, congregating it on the leeward aspect. Set a digicam in these spots and hunt it as quickly as the primary birds arrive. That is additionally true for skinny creeks that run excessive and supply geese entry to meals they in any other case couldn’t attain. In flooded fields and sloughs that expose meals, both by entry or by bodily knocking meals from stalks, get on ‘em. Meals that may’t assist the arrival of 1000’s of geese needs to be hunted quick earlier than geese eat it and go away.
8. Preserve Your Gear Mild
Mobile path cameras are set to attain one aim: To hunt the X. For that reason, you’ll be able to pack mild. You’re already the place birds wish to be, so don’t go overboard. A easy blind (generally you don’t even want one) and a handful of decoys will do the trick. A half dozen floaters with a pair dozen silhouettes are additionally straightforward to hold in for one journey. I normally set three to 5 dozen Large Al’s silhouette decoys alongside shorelines and in shallow water. Small spreads are additionally straightforward to choose up and relocate ought to the X shift for no matter purpose. Looking strain, wind path, and storms could cause the X to shift in a single day, and even in the course of the course of a hunt. Successfully inserting path cams lets you keep on the X—and being the place the geese wish to be is extra vital than the variety of decoys you set.
9. Mimic What You See on Digital camera
Match the hatch, or, in different phrases, hold your unfold as practical as attainable. If a path digicam reveals small flocks of geese slowing transferring into an space, set out a small unfold. If there’s a mixture of species coming in without delay, mimic that in your unfold. If birds pack carefully collectively whereas feeding, organize your decoys the identical manner. This is among the largest benefits of utilizing a path cam for geese—you’ll be able to see precisely how the birds behave. Replicating it will aid you end extra geese over the decoys.
10. Be Cellular
Mobile path cameras reveal the place geese wish to be at that second. Use your cams to trace fowl motion day by day all through the season. Don’t hunt an space simply because the birds had been there the previous few days. Use your cams to substantiate if spots are holding birds, after which be able to make changes. Which means having all of the gear you want able to go at a second’s discover. Because the X shifts, transfer with it.
