Utilizing Trail Cameras in March

 By Alex Comstock

Do you use trail cameras during the month of March? If your answer to that is no, you might want to re-consider that. Trail cameras can be a great benefit to you, not just during the season or right after it, but also into the spring, and during the month of March. There are a number of reasons you should always have some trail cameras in the woods and today we’re going to talk about the advantage of having them in the field right now.

Are Bucks Still Holding?

A majority of bucks have dropped their antlers by now. But, there’s always a small percentage that hold on to their antlers into March and sometimes even April. By having trail cameras out right now, you might be able to see if any bucks have kept their antlers late and into spring. This camera info can be particularly useful if you are looking for a certain buck’s sheds and haven’t been able to find them. It might not be that you aren’t looking in the right area, rather that buck may still be holding on to his antlers. Instead of wondering, get those trail cameras up in areas you think that buck may be living and see if you can’t find out for yourself.

Checking In on Your Deer Herd

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Once the snow starts to melt, this can be a great time of the year to start establishing your mineral sites. Often times, I see people starting their mineral sites in August/September, which is really too late. If you want it to actually benefit the deer in your area, as soon as the snow melts and the ground starts thawing is the time to get these established. After you do so, trail cameras are a great tool to put over these mineral sites and can give you a good idea on how the deer are doing in your area. Getting pictures of deer this time of year can prove to be really interesting as you could get photos of deer that have recovered from injury, deer that seem to have struggled through winter, etc. These trail camera pictures can give you some insight to how the deer have made out through the winter and can either confirm or deny conclusions you might have come to about the winter.

Spring Food Plots

I don’t own or lease any land and therefore am not able to employ this tactic, but if you have food plots, using a trail camera to monitor them in the spring can be a big asset to you. A popular method this time of year is to frost seed clover plots, that way you should have a green clover plot later this spring. This can be a great spot for deer to start feeding on the first available green food source and can be used in tandem with your mineral sites. If you have a spring food plot and don’t use a trail camera to monitor the activity going on, it’s something you definitely should think about.  

Turkey Time

Adding to the topic of spring food plots, these can be great areas to reveal strut zones for spring gobblers. If you don’t have food plots, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use trail cameras to help you locate birds for the upcoming turkey season. Using trail cameras on field edges, small openings in the timber, or pastures can be great areas to find gobblers. Depending on what state you hunt in, turkey season is right around the corner and using those trail cameras can most definitely help you in determining where you should be spending your time this spring.

 Conclusion

 When it comes to trail cameras, spring is often an overlooked time of the year to be using them. A word of advice – if you do employ any of these tactics, make sure you know your trail camera well. Has it been sitting out all year? Make sure you give it a good look over, double check that the battery level is good, and the camera dates and times are correct. It’s the little things that will end up making the big differences and trail cameras can be a big help in many ways during the month of March.