It really depends. Your camera may be getting pics from 12-4, but he may be very close by at dusk or dawn. Depending on the area he may be moving miles to feed or check his area. In NW Ohio..I've seen the same 10pt 2 miles apart in July, then again in Sept. Cover their is sparse...mostly wide open farm land with little pockets (1-5 acres of cover) sporadic throughout the area. Where I hunt in Southern Michigan there is much more cover...We have pictures of an 11pt only at dark in the middle of the night, although I know one of his favorite bedding spots in right behind an abondoned farm house. One trail cameral location will tell you very little of the puzzle other than he likes your area. A few more would help.
The majority of the mature bucks right now will be doing most of their movement in pressured areas after dark. That's just the way it is. Not that you couldn't still get a shot. If you're determined to hunt "that" buck...I would scout, scout, scout...Drive at dusk by neighboring fields, shine after dark if legal. Look for sign of big mature bucks..tracks, huge rubs. Make mock scrapes in your area and put cameras on them. If he's close buy he'll start hitting them very soon right after dark. If I was after one buck and one buck only I'd scout, scout, scout, scout then hunt. You want your impact to be low until he starts moving more, then you move in while the area is hot. If your property is a main bedding area for does...keep it fresh until prime breeding time. If it's a main food source hunt funnels to and from it where you can get in undetected, but close to where you think he might bed. It's time consuming but you have to go the extra mile than the average hunter who hunts every evening or mornings for 3-4 hours. Keep the does comfortable on your property and he'll be nosing around eventually. Like I said you try to find small pieces of a big puzzle and then just use good judgement on entrance/exits, and stand locations. Unfortunately I don't have one buck that I'm after this year. I have several good bucks I've located, but no absolute monsters, so I'm hunting several high percentage areas on several different properties hoping a monster shows up during the pre rut, rut. Next year I may have a booner on one of the properties, and if I do I would devote all of my time trying to scout/hunt him. Most of my properties are very small so it's tough for me to bounce around hunting down a particular buck, but if you have the property size you can do it!
