Trail Camera: Ever use one?

[Skip Sackett]

Okay, I know this has NOTHING to do with reloading BUT, we don't have a hunting section on this forum so.....I mean.......what ELSE would you use your handloads for other than hunting and self defense? DUH!


At any rate, the little woman got me a trail camera for Christmas. I put it out last night and I can hardly wait to see what I have missed so far this year!

Lots of tracks in the snow, lots of them. There are no wild hogs here in Northern Indiana but I could have sworn that one of the tracks I saw yesterday when putting that thing up was one! Much more rounded than a normal deer track. Maybe it is a calf that got away. Dairy farm right down the road so.....who knows?

So, have any of y'all used one or have any pointers for me?

I'm all ears, well, other than belly, I'm all ears!

 

[charlies]

My sons use them ...they love them...put it in your back yard you will be amazed at what you will see

 

[cjw3]

The one I have has needed a little tinkering. I could have spent more and gotten more utility, but didn't want to spring for a lot until I learned them a little.

I bought a 8gb SD card from the approved list in the manual; it worked for a while but soon wasn't being recognized by the camera...got a NO DISC display. That took a couple of calls to the factory and a few hard resets to sort out. Went back to the 32 mb that came with it for the time being until I get another larger one.

If set up facing east or west, direct sunlight can cause false triggers. They also (mine anyway) need to be set up not over 5 or 6 feet high. Putting it up high and aiming it downward didn't seem to work.

The daytime pics are pretty high quality; the infrared are the usual greyish tint but are pretty clear as well. I found that there was no need to set the burst mode interval short....it takes the camera 4 or 5 seconds to detect and record one frame so setting the burst mode to take 3 shots in 3 second intervals, for example, is meaningless. Again, more money would have enabled that but it is what it is.

They are a pretty commonly stolen item around us and, I expect, everywhere. Lockable enclosures are available for some models, so might be worth a look if used away from the house.

 

[tappedandtagged]

I run three cameras. I found waist high seems to work best for me. I have two Stealth Cams and one Primos time lapse camera. If you put it on a stand, you'll soon hate yourself. Let me explain in the form of a story.

I have two stands on a particular piece of property that can't be seen from each other. I run a camera on each. I wake up and think, "I'll go hunt stand A today. I don't see anything. Pull off stand and swap the sd cards from each camera, go back to the house and see that I had a world class deer at stand B that very morning(a doe in my case, but I was hungry and wanted meat). Begin kicking yourself now.

Same thing for those days where you decide to sit a day out of hunting and later check the pics only to find deer visiting your stand on the day you decided to sit out. Kick yourself again here.

 

[Skip Sackett]

Well, I'm gonna call it a success. I couldn't wait until Thursday to go get the disk so, I went today. I found some stuff that was pretty unbelievable!

Like, what is this? (My wife and I as we left! )

But then, about 2230 there was some activity:

Just have no idea what it was!

Then, just a bit later:

This group stuck around for a bit then, had another one come in around 0400:

All in all, I am amazed at how soon they came into this corn and Trophy Rock.
Pretty pleased with the selection of placement too. We had EHD really bad up here this year and on one park, the ranger said that there were 60 deer dead from it.

I may have to set this thing up for video. Will go out later in the week and swap cards again.

 

[tappedandtagged]

EHD?? Had to google that one. Man those were some disturbing pictures. Arkansas has been blessed with a mostly healthy deer population.

 

[Seaburry]

Addictive battery eaters! They are a lot of fun.

Wallace

 

[photobiker]

I have one and I have more fun with it. I not a hunter. I just use it in my back yard. Mostly deer, rabbits, raccoons, possum and the neighbors cat once and while. I have a Primos Camera and I use a 6 volt sealed battery instead of D batteries. Once a week I bring it in and hook it up to my 6 volt/12 volt car battery charger. Mine is about the size of a box of Pop Tarts and is maybe 6 amp hours. Cost $18 to the front door which is about 3 or 4 weeks worth of D batteries and I going on 2 years with more to go. A rechargeable battery is the way to go.

 

[Davwingman]

Here is a pic from a buds trail cam in his backyard. He lives near Durant, Ok.

 

[Skip Sackett]

EHD?? Had to google that one. Man those were some disturbing pictures. Arkansas has been blessed with a mostly healthy deer population.

Yeah, it is bad around here this year. I was glad to see so many does out there. We never harvested one but we were only going to take one this year because of it.

If each one of them have 2 fawns, next year may be different!

 

[Skip Sackett]

Here is a pic from a buds trail cam in his backyard. He lives near Durant, Ok.

Cool! They are protected here. I sure hope to see coyotes or some antlers on the next batch. What I NEED is a WIFI camera out there!

 

[dickttx]

If you have some water near, set it up there. We have a small pond in front of our house that we had built kind of as an afterthought when we bought the land about 17 years ago. I am still amazed at the wildlife activity around it, in the daytime. We keep a nice set of binoculars right by the window all the time. Last thing we saw (didn't have a camera there) was a flock of tom turkeys a few weeks ago. Actually saw them two different times. I counted at least 25.
We have seen lots of deer, all kinds of ducks, Canadas, turkey, hogs.

 

[PDL]

I'd say this actually belongs in the lounge. I know you know it doesent belong here. So that's my guess as to the best forum for it.
Seems to me I've seen plenty of posts about trail camers there.

 

[glowe]

Addictive battery eaters! They are a lot of fun.
Wallace

Almost all trail cameras are equipped with a 12 volt battery port. Go buy the cheapest 12 volt motorcycle battery you can find and hook it up. You can leave your camera in the woods for a month without needing to charge the battery. D batteries will cost you much more in the long run than occasionally recharging a small 12 volt battery.

 

[tappedandtagged]

Almost all trail cameras are equipped with a 12 volt battery port. Go buy the cheapest 12 volt motorcycle battery you can find and hook it up. You can leave your camera in the woods for a month without needing to charge the battery. D batteries will cost you much more in the long run than occasionally recharging a small 12 volt battery.

I run external batteries on all 3 of mine.

 

[410bore]

I really enjoy running trail cams

 

[410bore]

Here are a few more....the first one is the buck I shot this year, taken a month or so before I killed him.. the other pictures are (I believe) of him last year.

 

[Skip Sackett]

I'd say this actually belongs in the lounge. I know you know it doesent belong here. So that's my guess as to the best forum for it.
Seems to me I've seen plenty of posts about trail camers there.

Pete, I don't think I have posted 10 posts in the lounge on this forum.
I doubt I would have posted this there either. This location makes a lot more sense than the "beer drinking, smutty joke telling, garbage" area of the forum. At least THIS is talking about using a gun!

 

[410bore]

Pete, I don't think I have posted 10 posts in the lounge on this forum.
I doubt I would have posted this there either. This location makes a lot more sense than the "beer drinking, smutty joke telling, garbage" area of the forum. At least THIS is talking about using a gun!

you havent visiting OUR lounge have you? couldnt be further from what you expect

 

[Skip Sackett]

Then it has changed a LOT since the last time I was there. But, hey, I'm good with being here.....

First antlers!

I am going to call this guy, Trips!

 

[Seaburry]

One of my co-worker caught this on his game cam. Look what the has in its mouth.

Wallace