provided by John E. Phillips
I love bowhunting and gun hunting for deer, but bowhunting allows me to spend more time in the woods than I will if I only gun hunt. The woods is where I want to be. In New York where I live, we get an extra month and a half to bowhunt before gun season arrives. I probably use more game cameras than most hunters do to see the deer on the property and the trails deer are using coming from bedding and going to feeding areas and then moving from feeding sites back to their bedding places. From that information, I can choose a better tree stand site.
Another advantage that game cameras give me is oftentimes I’ll see a bigger buck, maybe 50-100 yards away from my trail camera. If I don’t have the opportunity to take that older-age-class buck during bow season, I’ll know where he’s traveling. I’ll have a better opportunity to move my tree stand and get closer to him when gun season begins. Or, I may choose to leave my stand where it is and take that rifle shot at 100 yards that I can’t take with my bow. With a bow, I don't like to take a shot more than 30 yards. However, with my rifle, I’m really comfortable taking a shot at 100-150 yards.
Besides having a chance to hunt a month and a half earlier when I bowhunt than I do when I gun hunt, I also may have the opportunity to spot bucks I want to take during gun season that are out of range during bow season. I like the Stealth camera NGX because of its trigger speed, the quality of pictures it produces, and its dependability. Also, when I’m going to and from my tree stand, I’ll have the ability to see other places I may want to hunt during gun season that I can’t hunt during bow season.
