IADNR bans cell cam "scouting" during hunting season

Man yall would really get upset if you knew about all of the corn I put out each year. 🤣

Between my cell cams, minerals, feed, and corn, I guess I'm basically a poacher now. .
 
Those saying it’s “for the resource”, show us ONE shred of evidence that it is hurting deer numbers or herd in any way AT ALL……it will never happen because that is a lie. Wildlife numbers are up everywhere and at historic highs in many areas.

A lot of yalls arguments are only about you, yourself and your own personal beliefs about fair chase. That is all.

Don’t pretend that there is any other motivation or argument. You hunt how you want and let others do the same if it does not affect you personally, doesn’t not negatively affect the “Resourse”, etc.

Yall act like a photo of a live animal equals a kill automatically. There a billions of other factors that have to happen perfectly to actually make that kill happen.

Public land is run by the gov and they can set all the camera/drone/feed rules they want. I have zero argument there.

This is an ethics and morals argument. Do what you want and believe what you want. Yall want to talk fair chase?? Saddle the horse or take off on foot to your wildness areas where there is nothing but natural food and water and cover and make it happen with your atlatl and other handmade equipment. Don’t even think about wearing your camo or technical clothing. Make it 100% FAIR CHASE the way God put us on this earth.

Yall come back after and let us know how it went.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I love my cell cams. If you don't like them, don't use them. Kind of like using a rifle instead of a stick bow. If they ban cell cams, I want to start lobbying to ban optics and centerfire rifles.
I agree.

People are jealous of those who use technology and use it well. So they ban cams and now folks are gonna be forced to move around more to find more deer to be able to hunt them.

So the increased hunter movement is gonna get people whining and moaning that others are "messing them up". Uh, no - they are "hunting" and just cause YOU voted to ban cell cams, they no longer have any intel, they gotta go find it themselves.

When it the best time to find intel? When you are hunting. Hot sign 2 weeks ago means exactly SQUAT right now. So, before i relied on cell and trail cams, now I need to use my boots.

Some folks disagree and that's fine.

If I travel across the country to hunt, I want to be in the best spot and maybe last year I used cams to help me determine that. This year I need to find smoking fresh tracks. That I walk by your stand 2-3 times while covering this piece of land, too bad, so sad. You took away my quiet scouting tools, so here i am scouting for my hunt. Good luck btw.
 
If you don’t like using cameras, then don’t use them. We need another hunting regulation like we need an annual colonoscopy.

There are lots of things that are legal, that I won’t use. Bait. Trail cameras. Inline Muzzleloaders with or without optics. Running with dogs.

Some of those things are legal in some jurisdictions. Some are illegal in some jurisdictions. The justification is invariably “fair chase.” But if the application of “fair chase” varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, then it is not based on ethics.

I agree that cameras should not be allowed on public land, or should be “fair game” if left on public land. Same goes for anything else that anyone leaves on public land.

But I don’t really care to try to draw the line on this one because I don’t care if Bob uses a trail camera, bait, and a laser-guided missile to kill a deer. If Bob feels like a great hunter for that, then who am I to judge? In my mind, Bob has nothing to brag about, but I can’t say that what he has done is wrong.

Nothing that Bob does will change how I will hunt. And I prefer as few hunting regulations as possible. I want the hunting regulations to actually reflect ethics. Universal things like “you must make all reasonable efforts to recover potentially wounded game.”

If it was up to me there would be one deer hunting season from October 1 to December 31. No special archery season. No muzzleloader season. Just a deer hunting season. Game wardens could spend their time enforcing regulations based on ethics and bag limits. And if Bob wants to use all the technology at his disposal to kill a deer, then he can. And if Jim wants to use a spear to kill a deer, then he can. And if Joe wants to use something more “normal” in the middle, then he can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Two observations:

1) “the resource” in question is more than deer herd health. The whole framework of the north american model is to use sustainable hunting opportunity as a funding source for conservation. Amount of opportunity and quality of opportunity are critical to achieving that. A significant rationale used in the camera bans Im aware of last few years (NH and AZ mainly) have been put in place NOT due to herd health, but because the quality of hunting opportunity was suffering. This was the specific complaint I heard from several people talking about Iowa in particular. You guys are fighting tooth and nail about biological reason versus no biological reason, and I think you’re missing the actual rationale in question. You can and should fight over whether this is a valid rationale, but I think if you’re only focused on the biological necessity for herd health, you are ignoring one of the actual major reasons these bans have been put in place.

2) there are MASSIVE differences in biology, how and where people hunt, available public land, and the reasons used for regulations, between different states. If you are thinking about Arizona and extrapolating to New Hampshire, or vice versa, you might as well be talking about different planets. To at least a degree I see that happening in this thread.
 
Last edited:
So, are you saying no rules apply to you regarding tech used to see, track, spot game?
I'm saying I'm not giving up my cell cams. They are still legal in my state anyway so I won't have a problem for now.
 
I’ve gone above and beyond attempting to make this about the deer, not people or feelings. I’m not getting through to some folks and that’s fine.

If the only way some folks can enjoy hunting is by “knocking over giants” by whatever advantage necessary, for the sake of their reputation, or for likes on social media than go for it.

Peace out and good luck this fall.
I don't have social media. I don't post on the gram and I don't kill piles of giant bucks. I've never killed a buck by getting a picture notification. Unless you hunt with a stick bow, you are using an advantage to kill deer. Tree stands, saddles, optics, range finders, rifles, guides are all advantages that reduce fair chase.
 
People have been using technology to make hunting easier since people started hunting. This isn’t about leveling the field vis-a-vis the animal. That went bye-bye about 800,000 years ago. The list of animals our ancestors hunted into extinction with spears is pretty insane. The only reason most game animals still exist is because we have decided to manage them responsibly as a community.

This is all about competition between hunters. Some hunters want to limit the tools other hunters can use to kill animals. It’s that simple.

I’ll keep hunting my way and not worry about how others hunt as long as it doesn’t inflict pointless suffering and loss of life on an animal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Questions (I don't have a dog in this fight): are folks upset that someone used a camera to kill  a deer, or  the deer? Seems the latter to me. If a hunter knew Big Pappa was available, would they be more inclined to eat tag soup?
 
This is an ethics and morals argument. Do what you want and believe what you want. Yall want to talk fair chase?? Saddle the horse or take off on foot to your wildness areas where there is nothing but natural food and water and cover and make it happen with your atlatl and other handmade equipment. Don’t even think about wearing your camo or technical clothing. Make it 100% FAIR CHASE the way God put us on this earth.
This here is a great example of the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy. It argues that there is only two options, ALL tech legal, or NO tech legal, which isn't the case.

It fits in great with the previous straw man's being thrown around.
 
Seems those that use cell cameras are adamant they’re not crossing any ethical line and those that don’t are certain those that do are in-fact crossing the line.

I’ve given some of my buddies a ton of grief about cell cameras over the years. I’ve hunted with traditional cameras for a long time, took a few years off, and came back the traditional cameras again. I killed a really good buck the first year I went back to using them. Had a bit of dry patch through the years without them as far as killing 5.5+ year old bucks.

Just a few weeks ago I purchased 4 cell cams. Doing a bit of an experiment this year. There’s a couple bucks that I’m not going to hunt until I get daylight pictures, which will probably be between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Want to see how it shakes out. If I kill any of them after getting those pictures without ever stepping foot on the place to even check the cameras, I’ll be able to more strongly tell my friends that use them that they’re a crutch.

I can certainly say that I kill bigger deer when running traditional cameras than not. I’m guessing cell cams will only further tilt the tables in my favor. Will report back in December.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Seems those that use cell cameras are adamant they’re not crossing any ethical line and those that don’t are certain those that do are in-fact crossing the line.

I’ve given some of my buddies a ton of grief about cell cameras over the years. I’ve hunted with traditional cameras for a long time, took a few years off, and came back the traditional cameras again. I killed a really good buck the first year I went back to using them. Had a bit of dry patch through the years without them as far as killing 5.5+ year old bucks.

Just a few weeks ago I purchased 4 cell cams. Doing a bit of an experiment this year. There’s a couple bucks that I’m not going to hunt until I get daylight pictures, which will probably be between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Want to see how it shakes out. If I kill any of them after getting those pictures without ever stepping foot on the place to even check the cameras, I’ll be able to more strongly tell my friends that use them that they’re a crutch.

I can certainly say that I kill bigger deer when running traditional cameras than not. I’m guessing cell cams will only further tilt the tables in my favor. Will report back in December.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What I've found is a mature buck will daylight one day.. so by the time you get a Pic you will be a day late. Last year's buck daylighted once the 1st week of November and then once in the end of November..


Good luck !
 
What I've found is a mature buck will daylight one day.. so by the time you get a Pic you will be a day late. Last year's buck daylighted once the 1st week of November and then once in the end of November..


Good luck !

Cameras are so hit or miss.

I’ve hunted one specific buck for 3 years. Haven’t gotten a single daylight picture of him. I saw him in the daylight 3 separate times last year.

I have traditionally hung cameras in areas that are low impact, easy to access without disturbing deer. The greatest advantage to a cell camera I see is hanging them places you don’t ever want to go except when you’re hunting. You get to be there without ever being there.

Time will tell.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
We use cell cams primarily for inventory on our place. We only take mature bucks and does for management purposes. Cell cams have saved the lives of a lot of "decent" bucks on our place. When you know that there are bigger bucks coming through, it makes it a lot easier to let the "decent" bucks walk away and grow up. We only transmit field cameras once a day and if you think the same deer is going to be in the same place, at the same time the next day, you're probably not punching a tag. The only camera that transmits immediately is at the gate for security purposes. Caught a tresspasser/poacher last fall while I was muzzle loading and also caught a state representative poaching turkey this spring.
 
When I asked an outfitter I met at the range what should I do to learn about the animals I hunt, he said, run cameras. I live in a western state and nowI’m running cameras, some cell, some not.

Honestly I’m torn about whether I’ll use them in hunting season. But I’ve learned a ton about movement. Shortening the learning curve.
 
I had a cell cam pic of a buck in a spot. Set up a quarter mile away the next morning and cut him off. It didn’t sit right with me, though he easily could’ve not come through there.
I love to get the pics, but understand that they might cut into fair chase.
 
How ironic, what in the world do you think rokslide is?
It's not Instagram or Facebook where people market themselves like prostitutes for likes. I'm not building a brand or creating some fake life online with pictures of my greatest moments like they happen every day. Hardly anyone here even uses their own name.
 
Back
Top