Deer Cameras The Science of Scouting – Book Review

The book is published by the QDMA, Quality Deer Management Association. If you haven’t heard of them, then they’re main goal is to manage and preserve the whitetail deer population within North America. 

They have a very good website here, go check them out.

The science of scouting

As the title of the book suggests, it’s mostly aimed at people who have an interest in using trail cameras, (as they are more popularly known as these days) to scout for deer and in particular white-tailed deer.

The book does offer far more than that in my opinion. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in trail cameras, whether they are a beginner or a seasoned expert.

I learned a lot from this book when I was starting out with trail cameras, and there’s not a great deal of published books out there that cover the subject as far as I’m aware.

If you know of any other books, drop me a comment as I’d love to know of the title and author of the book.

My only slight reservation is that it was published a while ago, so some of the trail cam technology doesn’t include the very latest innovations when they refer to them.

However the techniques still remain the same today and it does talk about the use of wifi trail cameras being the future. So it’s quite a forward thinking book in this regard.

What the book covers

The book is made of 3 parts, each with 4 chapters, so a total of 12 chapter in all.

Each chapter is written by a different expert in each field, so it’s very detailed.

Deer Scouting Experts

People like Dr Mickey Hellickson writes about “Targeting Mature Bucks” in chapter 9. Dr Hellickson is a former chief wildlife biologist at the 825 thousand acre Kings Ranch in Texas.

Grant Woods Ph.D is a wildlife biologist and has written articles on wildlife habitat management and hunting since 1990.

So these these guys really know their stuff and spend time in the book sharing their knowledge and expertise in each field. There’s too many to list here, but it’s safe to say it’s an impressive line up of experts.

Here’s a list of the chapters in the book.

1. Understanding trail camera technology
2. Choosing the right trail camera
3. Out of the box basic use of a trail cam
4. Quality deer photography
5. Intro to trail camera surveys
6. Setting up a trail camera survey
7. Survey results: sorting and ageing
8. Survey results: Calculating & interpreting
9. Targeting mature bucks
10. Tracking seasonal buck movement
11. Monitoring other wildlife
12. Property surveillance and security

The book in detail

So you can see the book really does cover a lot of ground, and at over 230 pages goes into quite some detail on each subject.

The only chapter that I would say is not 100% relevant today is chapter 2. But having said that it’s still an interesting read as it shows how these guys perceive what makes a great trail camera.

There’s very useful information on how to age deer based on physical characteristics, all supported with very detailed colour images.

DIY Trail Cameras

I particularly liked the short section on “homebrew” cameras as they call them, these guys were very inventive back then and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few still use this way of recording deer pictures. They are that into the art of trail cameras.

There’s a chapter on how to bait trail cameras and what’s the best type of bait to use. It’s all covered in this book if your interested in the art of scouting deer.

The basic layout of the book in my view it top quality too, the subjects are supported with quality colour pictures, diagrams and charts, all printed on a glossy paper finish.

Final thoughts

So there you have it. Just a very brief overview of the book.

If you have a passion for trail cameras or even just starting out then I would recommend at least taking a look at the book.

The real meat and bones though is the scouting and deer management. In this area in my view it leaves almost no stone unturned. A must read for anyone looking to improve their deer scouting ability.