I have a 2 TB external hard drive and keep every picture that comes off off a card. I cannot find any evidence to the philosophy that deer have a daily pattern. I sometimes see evidence that they have a weekly pattern. I.e. this buck only visits this salt block Thursday or Friday around midnight. Never more than once a week usually on Thursdays but sometimes on Friday. But more importantly I have found out they have a yearly pattern. They will spend a month and this one spot, a month in another spot, then two weeks here, Then disappear for two weeks. Then show back up over there. Now where I hunt
these different spots could be up to a mile away. Now obviously the pattern may shift by a week or two every year. But I find that they typically do the same thing every year.
The reason that I keep all of those pictures is because I want to see what all of the dear are doing. Typically when I do a camera check I have the folders broken down by location, then broken down by date. If I go check a camera after a one or two weeks soak. I will also go back and look at the same weeks for the years prior. If you started doing this you would be a amazed at how consistent year after year the deer move. And sometimes it's not even a old deer. I find that new deer that move into the area typically pick up the same pattern. I can also see when new bucks start snooping around trying to locate does. After two full seasons of running cameras on the same property In the same spots I think I may have figured something out. This year I'm going to be very cautious and not put my cameras out until August. Hopefully the patterns that I have seen the past two years old true again. And hopefully these four or five slobs that I have seen are still around.
