PREDICTIONS!

PREDICTIONS!

I don’t know about you but with each passing hunting season I collect a ton of photos from my game cameras.  Many of us out there have folders upon folders of pictures of deer, coyotes, rabbits, bear, ourselves or whatever triggers our game camera when we are not around.  It is easy to have photo overload and to improperly use those photos to determine quality hunt times.   I will attempt to help you learn how to break down some of the information and even provide a spreadsheet you can use to assemble filterable data to make some sense of what you see. Use the results for determining good hunting days and locations. 

We need these cameras as part of a tool in our arsenal of knowledge and not just as a gadget we use to skip the real work of woodmanship, which is more enjoyable in my mind.  Used responsibly I think they can be used to boost your ability to read the forest and further understand what is happening in the woods.  I also think that by using game cameras as a learning tool and not simply as a “deer timer” you may become less dependent on them and find more pride in using an informed trial and error approach through reading the environment and simply use the cameras to confirm what you already know. 

LET’S TALK DATA

As I get into data processing I can already see some of you starting to fade away, which is expected, but hang in there, it’s worth it. I like to use my woodsmanship for placing my cameras and then use those photos to justify the efforts to sit a morning, afternoon or all day at a location within bow or rifle range.  If you are lucky and read the sign right, you got photos to process.

There are a number of things that can be taken away from the photos you gather from your cameras.  I want to lightly cover what they are, how they can be used and what we can add if you don’t do it already.  I will try not to get to deep into interpreting deer behaviors but try to explain why and how we are entering the data needed to fine tune predictions. 

The items I enter are: 

• Date
• The Hour in the Day
• Classification of Time
• Animal Type
• Sex of the Animal
• Direction of Travel
• Weather, Temperature
• Wind Class
• Time in the Season
• Moon

Before you even start in on me about the moon, I don’t put too much weight on it but because most cameras give it to you, I enter it.  Further down the line, after you enter a bunch of data from your camera, you can make the call on continuing to enter it.  Below I will describe each item.

Date

The date helps us keep track of where we are in relation to the season.  If you are running more than one camera, you may notice patterns change from one area to another. This information should prompt you to ask why and seek out answers you will find in the field related to daylight, nutrition and temperature that change as the days progress in the calendar year.

Time

When predicting likely hunt times a logical break down of occurrences in time should be established. In your photos, you may have 10 pictures or more in a matter of 10 minutes from a small group of does.  From a data and percentage aspect, does this count as one or does this count as ten? My argument is that it counts as 1 for that hour.  Anyone lucky enough watch deer without the deer being aware of your presence knows that they take their time and can meander back and forth or just walk in a big circle.  This can cause multiple photos to be taken within a few minutes to an hour or more.  If you are on a travel corridor, this is easier because a few photos will be taken in a few minutes but if you set up on a feeding area, they can trigger the camera for hours.  The idea is to not inadvertently stack the data against yourself by logging to many or too little from one location.

Usually I will count multiple photos taken within a 15 minute window as a single “sighting”.  

Examples of a multiple sighting in one hour would be a doe and two fawns at 8: 05AM and a lone buck or group of larger does at 8:50. This would be counted as 2 for the hour of “8am to 9am”. Enter photo data by the hour at your own risk!

Classification of Time

As the hunting season progresses, sunrise and sunset changes and therefore, photos at 6:35AM early in the season may be in in enough shooting light but later on in the season, it may be dark until 7:00AM.  By classifying photo time as Predawn, Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Dusk and Evening we can further narrow down the photos used for photo percentages. 

• Predawn – Before Shooting light after 12AM
• Dawn – Just as shooting light begins.
• Morning – When the sun is above the horizon and before 12PM
• Afternoon – After 12PM until Dusk
• Dusk – The period of light after the sun goes down below the horizon
• Evening – From the end of shooting time to 12AM

Animal

This one is obvious but if you are curious about rabbits, squirrels, whitetail, bear go ahead and enter them in.  By classifying the animal type we can filter them in and out.

Sex

Logging a photo as male or female will add another level of prediction.  If you don’t know what it was, I have placed “Unknown” as a category to filter in and out but do your best to determine sex.

Direction of Travel

Enter the estimated direction of travel that you can determine. (unknown is also available) The reason for this entry is to aid you in placing a blind or tree stand in a better vantage point based on a higher percentage entry point for your prey.

Weather

Choose the weather that closely matches the time the photo was taken.  If you are unsure of the weather, find an online weather almanac for your area to get accurate weather information.  If you need help, www.wunderground.com/history/ is a thorough place to get that information.

With this information entered, you can filter your past photo to match upcoming weather you plan to hunt.

Temperature

Choose the temperature range your photo was taken. Again, if you don’t know, use an online resource like the website above.

Wind

I am only classifying wind as still, breezy or windy.  I am not entering wind direction because this might add a level of complexity that wouldn’t be helpful in filtration of data.  True wind direction and stand or blind set up is an in-field decision based on current wind direction at that location. 

Below are how I use the speeds to classify wind.  You can make your own choices for which speed each one stands for.

• Still – No wind to 4 MPH
• Breezy – 5MPH to 10MPH
• Windy – 10MPH and up

Season

I classify the time in season as Preseason, Early Season, PreRut, Rut, Post Rut, Late Season and After Season.  If you enter photos from an entire season, you can change your prediction percentage for next season by filtering out all other classifications of the season except the one you are hunting.

Moon

Yes, a moon entry is available.  It is usually saved on most game camera photos and if you don’t have it, http://www.wunderground.com/history/ has the moon information on the same page you are displayed when you choose a date and location for the weather.  I am not here to debate the use of moon phases, just give you the option to use them.

ENRTY OF DATA

Before you start entering photo information, it is good to do a little preparation and truthfully, work with a hunting partner for speed.  Get all the photos you want to enter information on in a location that you can easily scroll through.  I would suggest copying and pasting them in a temporary folder and sorting them chronologically by when the photo was taken so you can use a photo viewer program to go from one photo to the next.  If you are using a Windows computer, the default photo viewer program works great.

I have saved a file for you to download.  It is an excel file compatible with Excel 2007 and above that you will need to have some basic skills to operate but we will go over them here.  Remember, if you mess the file up, go download it again.  I also recommend saving different files for different camera locations just to make it simpler.  If you have a camera near a fence line you suspect to be a feeding corridor from woods to field, do a “SAVE AS” for the file and call it Fenceline(for example).  Then save another version as “Bedding Area”.  This will give you two spreadsheets you can filter data in specific to those locations.

Go Download the file here and let’s get started by following the instructions below.

Save the file called TrackerExcel.xlsx in a folder.  Then Open it and do a “Save As” and name the file to represent the camera’s location for the photo data you will enter into the spreadsheet.  You may even want to do save it as “test” for a file name and enter some data that you can play around with at first for practice.

Other file name examples names would be: Feeder, CornFieldNorthSide or SouthWestCorner, anything you wish.

Now that you have the file, when you open it up you will see this welcome page with tabs below:

Choose the “Photo Information” Tab at the bottom to begin entering photo data.

As you enter the data, you will see that drop down menus are already placed in the cells for you to select from.  This will help us filter data more effectively.  Date is the only field you will manually type information into.  The easiest way to enter the date is the DD/MM/YY format which is 01/01/18 for January 1, 2018.

Enter data for about 10 photos.  If this is your test file, enter fake data that is similar what I show below.  This will help you learn how to use the excel file.

Now that data has been entered, you can view this data prediction in a chart on the tab “Photo by Hours” at the bottom of the excel window as shown below.

You will see a blank chart and will need to “right-click” on the upper right side of the chart and refresh the data, as I show here.

Now you will see an updated graph with all of the photos counted and sorted by the hours for when they were taken.  With this graph, you can see that 6AM-7AM is the highest percentage for doe sightings and that 7AM-8AM has the highest number for Buck sights.   This graph is directly related to the information entered on the “Photo Information” spreadsheet.

Please note that due to the limitations of this excel spreadsheet that 1AM-2AM is followed by 1PM-2PM in the graph and so on throughout hours of the day.

Now that you can see the graph, you can filter the data.  By using the buttons on the top of the graph shown in the image below, you can choose to filter by all the data you entered.

In this example, I will filter by temperature.  To do this, I click the temperature button and a displayed a drop down with choices shown below.

I will choose to just see result for the “20-32” temperature range by clicking “20-32” and then clicking the [OK] button.  The graph will update and display new results for which photos match that temperature entry.  In this case, the graph shows 2 Bucks at 1AM-2AM, 2 Does at 6AM-7AM, 1 Buck at 7AM-8AM and 1 Doe and 8PM-9PM.

Return to the previous chart result by going back to the “Temperature” button and Selecting “(All)” and then Clicking [OK].

You can choose to filter multiple categories to fit your needs for predicting hunting times depending on upcoming weather, temperature, winds, etc. 

HAPPY DATA ENTRY

Once you have decided on a name for your file, and have your photos selected for data entry, start entering their information on the Photo Information Spreadsheet.  Have fun with it once your data is entered.  Remember that if a small “funnel” is beside a category button that a filter is being applied.

NOT FOOLPROOF

This file is not fool proof and has not had a team of engineers and quality assurance teams review it for use by the masses, but like I said, if you mess it up, go download it again.  As long as you know how to cut and paste your data from your old file to the new one, you won’t have to re-enter your data.  I have set the spreadsheet up for 250 entries to use the drop-down menus for entering your data.  Let me know if you need help extending the formatting to extend past the 250 mark.

DISCLAIMER

This is also a prediction tool for what is entered and that deer do not have to be anywhere at anytime and may alter their pattern because of your presence.  One thing I do know is that they will always challenge the results!

I hope that you can generate some useful information from the graph and spreadsheet.  Beyond that, I hope you use what you discover to become a better hunter that learn to read the real weather, temps, wind, available light, etc. to understand why your prey may or may not be moving about.

Post any helpful information or request for additions to the file below!  

DOWNLOAD THE FILE HERE

I will also do additional posts on other incites that can be determined from this file in the future.