Does it make sense to put out food if deer are already coming to an area?
QUESTION: I been hunting a 100-acre lease for several years. Last December, I turned my game camera on, filled my 6-gallon feeder up and hunted it for the last time that year. A couple days ago, my wife and I revisited the treestand and pulled the camera I had left behind to make preparations for this year's bow hunting season. To our surprise, the camera was still operational and still snapping pictures. It had more than 1,700 pictures of deer and bears. I know the feeder only lasts 9 days on a fill and has been out of feed for over nine months. My question is, should I continue to feed or should we just hunt it as it is. I am worried that if I start feeding I might mess up a good thing.
ANSWER: You obviously put your feeder in a good area since it’s a location deer and bears already go. That makes it much easier to attract them to your camera. Honestly, I can’t see any harm to re-activating the feeder; it should only help an already good situation.
However, I don’t know all the specific circumstances of the area you hunt. On a side note, I had a somewhat similar experience with a Moultrie camera my son accidentally left out last fall. It continued taking pictures for a year before we re-located it.
— Recent Ask the Biologist Question:You Can’t Get There from Here: If you want to know how many does to harvest, you have to know how many deer you have.
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