Trail Cameras

To say I have an obsession with trail cams is putting it lightly.  It all started one summer 4-5 years ago when I purchased my first trail camera...a Moultrie Digital Game Spy Camera.  I didn't hardly have a clue what I was doing at the time, but I know that a 50 lb bag of corn can't just disappear on its own in a week.  I think I got 3 pictures of deer that first time out.  I did some testing around the house and found the camera only triggered a small percentage of the time I walked in front of it...back to Cabela's it went.

My quest for a good camera for a reasonable price began and that's when I stumbled on hagshouse.com...an internet forum that had all of the information you needed to learn how to build your own trail camera, homebrews as they were called.  After lots of reading I built my first camera without a hitch...a Sony p32 powered by a yeti board.  It quickly became an addiction, and before I knew it I had built close to 20 trail cameras for myself and friends over the course of a few years.  Homebrews are known for their unmatched picture quality and reliability.  Those things never skipped a beat.  The only downside I started to have with them is battery life...they would last for a good month or so, but I wanted something that would last longer especially during the summer months. I built several cameras with external batteries that pushed the battery life to a few months, but the time it would take to add external batteries to all the others just wasn't feasible at times.  So, with a heavy heart, I sold my homebrews and made the switch to commercialized cameras.

I was used to using the best of the best, so I didn't want to settle for anything less.  After countless hours of research, I ended up buying a few of the new Reconyx Hyperfire cameras, and complimented them with a couple of Scoutguards.  The Scoutguards have performed well, although I had to return them both to get a properly working camera...but the Reconyx's, one word....WOW!  These things are workhorses and shear picture taking machines.  Add black flash to the mix and they stand alone at the top of the industry.  I miss the poster worthy pictures I got from my homebrews, but the Reconyx's make up for it with their amazing picture taking capabilities and battery life...I've gotten 9,500 pictures over the course of 4 months with rechargeable batteries, and it still had battery life to spare.

I've learned more about deer hunting from running trail cameras than anything else.  Not so much from the pictures I get, but from time spent walking through the woods observing deer sign in an effort to find the best spots for cameras.  I admit I got a little carried away in the beginning, running up to 10 cameras on <150 acres and checking them every few weeks.  I probably did more harm the good at times by walking through the woods too frequently, but that year or two of running cameras hardcore is when I learned the most about the deer patterns on our property.  Now that I have their travel patterns down, I can be much less invasive and do more hunting than scouting.

Here's a select few of the pictures I have gotten over the years.  Our property tends to be primarily a doe family area during the summer and early archery season...as the bucks start to trickle in when October rolls around.  I've yet to get that picture of a buck that makes your jaw drop when you first look through the memory card, but have gotten a number of decent bucks.  No doubt, myself and friends have seen bigger bucks on the property when duck hunting than I have gotten on trail camera or seen from the stand.  One of these days it will all come together though...