Trail Cams..

[The Yeti]

I recently purchased my first trail cam. Once I find an area to scout and start getting pics, how high up on the tree should the camera be?

[woody1975]

I put ours about three feet off the ground to try and keep every small creature that wonders by from setting it off. Depending on the camera you've bought, I've had the best luck with the 800 speed cameras.

Good Luck

[fishermn]

As high as the deer! Sorry, I just had to say that... Anyway, I put mine at about 3.5 ft up, and it seems to work great. You will be amazed at the number of deer you will find in your area that you had no idea were there

[PerchJerker]

I have a Stealth Cam and the instructions for that had me putting it about 5-6 feet off the ground, and angled downward a little. Now I have 2 digital cameras and I put them about waist high and pointing horizontally. Experiment and see what works the best.

Couple more tips - make sure you're on a tree that's big enough that it won't sway in the wind. And don't have your camera aimed to the east or west unless you want a lot of photos of the sun. Also, I have found that if you can get the camera about 10 feet away from the subject you'll get the best photos. Good luck.

[MN Mike]

PJ is right on the height thing, I set mine higher and tilt it, got sick and tired of see just glowing eye's in my nite pics. It would pick them up 30 feet away or more.

I had a oak tree bust off and tip over this sept. and the deer were traveling in and out of it picking acorns. So I found a branch tied it so I was pretty much taking a picture of thier back ( looking straight down ) and it picked up some pretty good pics, no big bucks but I was happy with the pics I got.

I also used a mineral bar, without it I would get 15 hits or so a week, when I put the bar out I was pulling 80 hits a week, quite an eye opener. I also used old sweet corn and leftover apples.

Mike

[Dan Wood]

just don't point it down too much or you'll pick up too many squirrels.. I put mine about 3' high with very little downward angle. Keep it either pointing N or S as well or you'll get false pics from the sunrise or sunset.

[Rywheat]

I use the cuddiebacks and the say about 16-24inches off the ground there nice because you don't get to many squiral pics because they also use a heat sensor so the smallest thing I haVE had on them is a racoon. I also have a ezcam and I'm tired of developing squiral pics to get a few deer and or bear pics the cuddy's will be much better this season

[18 inch Crappie]

Dan, I picked up a MC2-GRT for $50 at Gander, and after I got home found it needed 8aa batteries. I here you guys talk about how long the batteries last, does it only last 2 weeks and should I maybe look at another trail cam, I looked ant builing my own digital from the pix control site, where you could use a rechargeable battery. My deal is I live in the metro but hunt in Wadena MN so I would have to make a trip up to set it up and go back up to get the roll of film could be a lot of time and money for batteries. Your thoughts on this? Thanks, Brian

[Mark Christianson]

They last longer than 2 weeks. 3 to 4 weeks is safe to assume. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.

I have never seen mine eat up batteries in 2 weeks. Mine sit out all summer and fall at my Dads farm, and I dont get to them to check for a few weeks at a time.

Its a good starter camera, or a good camera if you want to own several of them to cover some turf.

I have 3 of them, and they work good.

PS - I have recently gone to rechargeble batteries. They seem to be close to equivalent in life span between charges when compared to standard AA batteries. But then again, its a lot colder out right now, compared to having them out in the summer/fall, so its kind of an apples to oranges comparison.

[fishermn]

Mine was going through a set a betteries every 2 weeks this fall when I had a lot of action. I was leaving the cam 1 week at a time, and would have 99 hits every week. The 24/36 exposures were usually gone by the 2nd nite. Not sure if that made a difference but 2 weeks seemed to be the max I was getting for reliable operation of the camera. The first symptom I saw when the batteries started getting low was that the film would not auto rewind. I would have to change batteries and start a manual rewind. Personally I think its a great camera for the price, but next year I will likely upgrade to the digital and use this one for placement in more public areas.

[Mark Christianson]

Wow, fishermn.

Where the heck did you place a camera that you had that kind of activity? Did you have it set to take multiple pictures on each trigger?

I guess I could see some battery drain, if you had that much activity. I would say that is no where near the norm to have a 36 exposure used up in 2 days. But, I can't say its impossible either.

Even at my feeder at home, it takes a few days to break a 24 exposure roll, but I do set the delay to 5 or 10 minutes between pics. I would say you have a unique situation.

[fishermn]

Well, this was basically just behind my dads back yard up near pengilly, and I had the camera set up for two shots each time, with a 5 minute delay. The first time I had this happen, my wife had been baking apple pies for a fund raiser, so I took the old peels and apples and dumped em in a pile for the deer (I figured it was at least a month til hunting opened, so this shouldnt be considered baiting, as no one bowhunts in this area), then hung the camera just over the pile. I just figured I'd see a few of the does and fawns we had seen over the summer coming into the yard and the garden. That was in early october. By the looks of it, they had finished off the peels/apples in about 2 days, I had a full roll of film that lasted only about 36 - 40 hours. After I found that I had that many hits I thought it musta been a fluke, or maybe just lotsa hits on the deer that were there feeding, so I took the camera a bit further back to a trail coming out of a 400 acre pine plantation, where there wasnt anything in particular to entice them. This spot was a pretty heavily travelled trail, so I figured it would be a decent spot. Same thing again. A 36 exposure roll, gone in about 1 -2 days, this time the counter was somewhere arount 80, but not pegged out at 99. Lots of pictures of deer moving in/out of the pines near dusk/dawn. Kinda what you would expect. Most of the bucks seemed to be moving between 10 pm and 2 am.

Even with all those exposures, I am not having a lot of pictures triggered by squirels (at least that I know of) I have had one shot of a racoon, but most of the rest of the pics actually captured deer. After scouting this area a bit more, I found one small area where ther was a huge concentration of rubs, maybe 40 or 50 within a 1 - 2 acre area. There were several trails converging on that spot, so I hung the camera on what looked to be the most heavily used trail. Again, I had a repeat of this same performance. Full roll of film, and the counter was pegged at 99.

Over this three week period, I had spotted between 9 - 10 bucks (a couple were hard to distinguish, and there was one pair of smaller twin bucks, that had kind of scraggly forked horns.) The number of does was tough to tell, but there were at least 8 or 9 different does (as best I could tell). They seemed to be REALLY active in the time from about the beginning of october until maybe the third weekend. After that, I had moved the camera to a different location, and didnt have nearly the number of hits I had at my dad's place. The night before firearms season opened, I put the camera back in the area with the high concentration of rubs behind my dads place. I didnt get nearly the number of hits after that, and pulled the camera out on the second weekend. I had planned to get the camera back out in that same area since then, just to kinda survey whats left after Deer season. Overall it was really cool to see all those deer that I had no idea were there. I knew there were at least a couple bucks since there were so many rubs and scrapes, but I had no idea theat there were probably more like 8 - 10 bucks roaming the area. They sure got sneaky when season rolled around though, we only saw two of the smaller bucks, and the camera only had six hits from the night before opening of season, until sunday nite of the second weekend.

Next year I am definitely moving up to the digital. Do you guys have any recommendations? I have heard that the leaf river digitals area really nice, but I havent done too much reseach on them yet.

[Dan Wood]

fishermn,

wow, sounds like a great area... Let me know if you need help removing deer sometime

I'm convinced digital is the way to go. I don't use my 35mm anymore. I have my digital set to take pictures every minute. I capture sometimes as many as 100 pics a day. With the digital you aren't limited on pics. I would never be able to do that with a 35 mm. One 256 Mb card can capture about 500 medium quality pics. That generally will last a week, even over a pretty active feeder. They seem to learn to feed without triggering the motion sensor a lot - at least that is what it seems, so you don't get photos every minute of the same deer. With digital it really doesn't matter - just download them to your computer and delete the ones you don't want...

[fishermn]

Dan, I must say I was surprised by the number of deer I saw, and was definitely expecting to see more during the season. I have hunted that area for the last 25 years, and I would say that in a typical season we see an average number of deer, we definitely arent overrun by any means. The thing that really got me interested after seeing the activity on the camera was how much movement I saw in the first 3 weeks of october as compared to the first couple weeks of firearms season. Not sure if the rut chaged their habits that much, or if the hunting pressure caused em to lay low in the pines. Either way, I was hoping to see more bucks than we did, but I cant complain. We posted my son on that trail where we had been seeing the deer moving in/out of the pines, and he bagged his first two deer, so overall it was a good season for us! With all that activity in October it sure is makin me think more about buying a bow...

[wallter]

Guys, what is a guy going to pay for an adequate digital and where? Thanks.

[wallter]

I just looked at Cabela's and I may have answered my own question. I figured $100, looks like I'll be going 35mm. Any tips on what to get vs. what to avoid?

[fishermn]

The one I have is the MC2-GRT stealth cam. I think it was about $65 at Gander, altho they did have them on sale for $50 at christmas, not sure what current price is. Its a very decent camera for the money. If you read all of the other posts, you will get a sense on some of the pro's/con's of the 35 mm vs digital. As for myself, I will be switching to digital this spring for my main scouting on private land, and using my 35mm only on public land or in laces where I think it could get stolen/damaged.

[BigWormin]

I have 2 of these http://www.trailtimer.com/photohunter.htm#top on some land in Evelyth right now, they've been out there on the same batteries since 3 weeks before gun season. I've developed 4 roles of film on each and it could've been more, but i've only made it up there once a month since hunting has been over. I was up 2 weeks ago and checked them and replaced the film, and they still took pictures with flash! I'm using lithium batteries and am very suprised how long they've lasted, especially being outside in the cold all winter. No complaints here, the pics are awesome!

[Mark Christianson]

I have one too, and I like it a lot. Battery life is very good.

BUT some food for thought for those looking to buy,,,,,paying $250 for a 35mm now just doesnt make a lot of sense when digitals are nearing that price range.

You can get a Leaf River digital for $300.

[bobbersgone]

leaf river is the way to go. i have one and love it. you can get the digitals for under 300. i would put the link up, but we all know what would happen to the link.also the stealth digital is alright also, if you put an external battery to it.or else they eat the batteries. i'd also put up a link on how to do that also,so you dont have to buy stealths hook ups but we all know what would happen to that also.the stealth digital can also be made into infra-red sensor also .so that the flash wont flash and you still get a picture at night. its black and white but its still a picture. i have 5 new stealth digitals that im going to do that to for having over bear bait this fall. sorry for such a long post.

[BLACKJACK]

I've got to get a trail camera! Everytime I see pictures like this, I get the lust! I WILL have one before the summer is over. Been holding out for a digital and now the price is coming down. Leaning toward one of those Leaf Rivers, I've heard lots of good reports on them.