Video: Do Trail Cams Spook Deer?

[redburndad]

I do think in this case the sound of the camera and the flash at point blank in the deers eye did spook this deer. but I have several multiple pictures of both bucks and does taken with a flash and they do not seem to react much at all or I would not have gotten multiple shots.I also watched a 21/2 year old buck the other day stop at a scrape by one of my cameras. there was not a flash but his head did jerk up and look right at the camera when it would click but he stayed for several minutes and multiple shots

[Stickman]

I use a Leaf River infared trail cam, for 3 years now and with the infared flash I have had no deer even look at the camera.

[Everyday Hunter]

That's an interesting video, and the comments are interesting.

My take is a little different. I don't think the video proves anything. If I get surprised by a flash directly in my eyes at close range, I'd react similarly.

I don't see how this is any different than if an air hose was hooked up in a place that aroused the deer's curiosity, and it gave a blast of compressed air to the deer's face.

Steve

[brentru]

I've got dozens of pics of deer staring straight into my flash camera, some a point blank range, day and night.  Most of the time they are still in subsequent pictures of the three picture series.  You may get a couple of deer that will spook, but my vote is that the flash doesn't affect the majority of deer. 
 
Depending on the camera model, it could have been the red LED that flashes when the camera is triggered that spooked the deer.  I have a number of non-flash photos where a deer is staring straight at the camera and moving his head around in subsequent photos as though he has seen something that he is unsure of and is trying to figure out what it is.  I'm sure it was the LED that caught his attention.
 
This may be a stretch, but I think that in the deer mentality the white flash is the same as lightning.  It is something that flashes bright white periodically, sometimes close, sometimes at more of a distance.  It is something that they grow up with and are trained by their mothers that there is nothing to fear from it.  Then again.....I could be completely wrong.[8|]

[Brute750i]

I had been seeing large scrapes in a area that deer had previously not traveled so I decided to put up my trail cam in these woods and the first night I got this picture attached of a giant ten point. but he has never returned and the scapes have grown old.

[GTOHunter]

I used to use an older Moultrie D-40 digital flash camera and it would scare the Deer at night with the flash,after a while they got use to it or if it took day time pictures it didn't flash and wouldn't scare them.In the beginning of 2009 I bought a Moultrie I-60 InfaRed Trail Camera I have gotten several nice night time pictures of a big 10-Point Buck,several of the pictures he stayed around 30-45 minutes even leaving and coming back 5-10 minutes later with one setting of over 40 different pictures and with him so close all I got was his shoulder and back in the photo.I have a few pictures of him leaning out towards the camera because it does lightly click then the red flash goes off but he didn't leave and it never did scare him off.I had several Buck pictures and all them were at night except a few of them with another 6-Point Buck with a Doe & Fawn. 
 
 
I would love to set up my camera up high like Wandering Woodsman has in his trail camera picture...how do you get that baby hung up like that?

[extroverted]

I don't know if they spoke them but I can tell you that they can hear them, and for that matter it can really piss them off!!!
I have a couple of pictures of ones that heard my camera, tell me what you think!!!

John

[fasteddie]

ORIGINAL: extroverted

I don't know if they spoke them but I can tell you that they can hear them, and for that matter it can really piss them off!!!
I have a couple of pictures of ones that heard my camera, tell me what you think!!!John

John -- I have gotten pics like that at night and the next one , the deer would be so close that the flash would reflect off the deer . I have also had the same deer come back to where the camera was placed .

[charlie 01]

To begin with, the wanderer is wright. That camera should have been taking pictures long before that, unless it did and the owner had a longer delay between pictures. I keep mine set for every 30 seconds. Thats one more reason I like my cuddeback.
 
The deer in my neck of the woods seem to get used to the camera. I get so many of the same deer that I think they are camera hogs.
 

[jrnemn1]

we've (me and my girkfriend) have 1 ir cam recording 15 sec videos and a cheap tasco and a bushnell taking pics with xenon flashes at night and we have the vid cam across (20feet apart aproximate looking aimed at each other and the other on the side and we're having 2 really nice bucks coming in to them about everynight amogst other bucks and does .seems that the does get spooked more sometimes. but they usually return another day some in a few minutes. but these big bucks are like hams,,,, the one buck will stand in front of them and eat or look right at them its cool at them we've got more pics of the big bucks than the other deer or at lest of the 1 i call the ham.now i wonder if we don't scare them because we,re not hunting them, i know it sounds stupid but i hunted for years when i was younger then i just got away from hunting and now i just like watching them and getting photos of them my girlfreind really like getting the pics more than i do.i like finding the deer and where they are so she can get pics and vids or i should say where she can set the cams now shes wanting to get a 2 man ladderstand but she's to hyper to sit in it.i'd go to sleep lol.but i wonder if the deer don't feel threatened by us plus we have our deer clothes that we leave outside and use scent blockers and such, so we might as well hunt lol.i'll get some of our pics on this site when my gfriend gets home and we can figure out how to add them.but thats my take on spookin the deer