To the person...............

[dustin85]

I thought of many of you unfortunate ones last week as I found a trail camera and a portable stand on a WMA that I hunt regularily. I left everything as it was, and kept on walking. Hopefully, for the owner, someone else less honest does not find the items.

[archerystud]

sorry for the loss trigger. I'm hoping to check (and hopefully find my trail cams) this weekend.

[lcornice]

I'm buying locks for my tree stands this weekend. If they took the camera, they saw the stand, and they could possibly come back for it.

Didn't help me. Yup, I just checked a stand on the back of my whopping 12 acres yesterday and it was gone. I had it secured with a kryptonite lock so I have no idea how they got it. Nice ... and I'm the guy who gets to defend deer hunters ...

[harvey lee]

Those type people are not deer hunters, although they may hunt them.

That stinks Lou. I have lost 2 stands in the past 5 years.

[james_walleye]

Gol darnit trigger sorry to hear about that. Are you telling me i have to worry now as well? Is that usually a problem in that area, stuff getting stolen?

[paceman]

I had a strange deal a few years back. My buddy and I were hunting private land. We were the only ones that had permission. My buddy went hunting one day but his stand was gone. So I went and checked mine and it was gone however we found my buddies in a diferent location. They must have liked mine so much they took it home.....

[Double D]

I have always wanted to invest in a good trail camera and ditch the old 35mm, but honestly this is the reason I will use the old one. If someone is going to steal it anyhow, why spend extra money for someone else to get a better picture.

DD

[96trigger]

Quote:

Gol darnit trigger sorry to hear about that. Are you telling me i have to worry now as well? Is that usually a problem in that area, stuff getting stolen?

Jamie, I'd buy a lock. I have no idea why anyone would be in this field on private farm land but the camera is gone. Had another guy hunting a similar location have his climbing sticks stolen last year. Getting tougher.

Lou, that sucks about the stand. Honestly, at least I could still sit and hunt and stew about the camera in my stand. I would have been really upset if the stands were gone.

[benhaag]

You outta put a note in your cameras that reads somthing along the lines of... If you take this camera you better find the one that is watching this one. Or if its a spot where its likly they could only access from one point, a note that might mislead them into thinking there car or truck or themselfs is on camera...

[lcornice]

A lock doesn't seem to work anymore, especially for a little one that's required for a trail camera. I had a big kryptonite bike lock on mine so they had to come back with bolt cutters. The silly thing is it's a $60 ladder stand. Hardly worth stealing. The sad thing is I don't even care if someone wants to hunt out of it (I border a WMA) but darn, you don't need to steal it.

Ethics might be a good topic of conversation next time I'm on KFAN!

[96trigger]

Yeah, that would be awesome, let me know when you are going to be on again, and If I'm not hunting, maybe I'll call in. I understand that a lock will not stop a determined thief, but my camera was just WAY too easy to take. I should have made it a little bit harder. When I told the land owner he was not happy. We are talking about doing a better job of posting. The thing was, he only owns about 20 yards in the woods in most areas. He never had a major problem with people walking across the top or on his land, but now, two things have gotten stolen in a year, so we might post all of it now. Really too bad for those that did walk across and abide by the laws.

[FishingWebGuy]

In Texas you can shoot people for stealing. I wonder if that would be a deterrent here?

[buddha]

Got my trail cameras ripped off this last week too. It was in a lock box and they worked hard to get it off the tree. They also got another camera that was not mine but the owner of the land. There are some really gutsy idiots in this world. The area we hunt is an area that has one way in and one way out so they were lucky! The really sad part is that I think I got them on camera but didn't save the pix last week when I looked, but I know what they drive and its a nice burnt orange/red chevy pickup so we will be looking!

[minnesotahusker]

I had mine stolen in late August as well. It was in a lock box. Whoever stole it took the time to unscrew the screws that were holding the lock box into the tree. It's no wonder land owners don't allow anybody on their land when you have people like these walking the woods looking to steal things.

[ARROW 1]

I put a two big white stickers on mine that say.PASSWORD PROTECTED. If they see this I hope they are smart enough to know if they steal the camera it wont work.

[Musky Buck]

Incredible. Makes me wonder a bit is if they realized they were trespassing or whatever and are pretty sure the camera took a shot of them is this why they steal them because they figure leaving it will bust them eventually anyway ? I had like a muskie net bag/seat in my ladder stand and someone shredded it with a knife on private ground with 1 family having access into the area, obvious which group did it. Then it's we don't walk your land well apparently you did or my stand would be in 1 piece. I'd never stoop to that level of destroying property or walking someone's land without permission. Man there's a lot of people out there that have zilch for a conscience.

[mrklean]

really sorry to hear that

[SSSTaxidermy]

You outta put a note in your cameras that reads somthing along the lines of... If you take this camera you better find the one that is watching this one. Or if its a spot where its likly they could only access from one point, a note that might mislead them into thinking there car or truck or themselfs is on camera...

Sorry to hear about your loss...

Here is something you might want to do?

I had a buddy having some problems of getting his hunting shack broken into, and trail camera's stolen. So what he did was: He pained all his trail camera boxes bright RED...so whomever was roaming on his land, could clearly see his trail camera box..Along with the brightly painted box, he labeled it, Camera #2 or Camera #3. Even though you may only have 1 camera around. This will get them thinking, that they are being watched by more than 1 camera. And are caught with their hands in the cookie jar. This fixed all this issues.

[pikerliker]

Sometimes another strategically placed camera can catch the knuckle heads that do this. A guy I work with got some nice clear pictures of a teenager who cut the chain off of his deer stand and walked away with it. He knew the kid (and his dad) and took care of it in short order. Maybe you need to get a camera to watch your camera.....

~piker

[96trigger]

I thought about that, but having cameras to watch cameras gets expensive. I don't want to catch them, i just want them to leave the camera alone. I am going to work on getting a box to lock things up better next year, after I replace the trail camera. I won't put one up there unless I can at least make them come back for it if they want to steal it. I also think that maybe I should be moving them more often or pull them out all together before the small game season opens up there. Too bad becasue the big guys will start making scrapes soon and its fun to have a camera out there. I will definitely have something in place next year.

On a side note, we had a whitetail club meeting this morning. I told the kids that my camera got ripped off. They were quite angry,but I told them that even though stealing it wasn't the right thing to do, getting all worked up and angry over it wasn't going to get my camera back, it was definitely a teaching moment. I hope none of their cameras ever get taken. Its a crappy feeling.

[fishuhalik]

Trigger, not to make light of what happened, that really stinks, but your post had me rolling on the floor. Thanks for a laugh!

BTW, I hope they get what they got coming.....

[fishuhalik]

How bout one of those cameras that sends the pics to an email account? You'd have 'em on camera every time!!!

[bigbucks]

My guess is that most of them get stolen by people who realize they got caught on camera & don't want that. I heard of a friend having his memory card taken out & erased. Hmm, wonder why they did that...

[vister]

definetly a possitive outlook on a crappy situation! great way to bring some humor out of it! i agree, i dont think there are that many thieves out there. but there are that many trespassers out there, and thats what they do to avoid getting busted for trespassing. hopefully, someone out there has a camera sending pics to the internet or their phone ripped off, and because of the setup, the perp gets busted!! maybe this would make people think about stealing any camera knowing there are cameras sending the pics wirelessly!

If i had a wireless setup, and it got ripped off, if there were pics of the perp sent to my account, i bet i'd be able to "negotiate" with the [PoorWordUsage](s) responsible, or to a CO i go

[TrophyEyes]

I too thought the story was great. One of the guys in our group had a camera overlooking a slough we duck hunt in Oct and deer hunt in Nov. Ironically we have pictures of a couple knuckleheads trying to steal our boat. First mistake, they tresspassed. Second, they tried to steal the boat. Third, they left the camera that caught them on tape. they actually parked the truck in the camera's view so we got the make, model, and license plates. The Sheriff was laughing so hard because if you are going to get nailed for the first two, you might as well steal the evidence.