Trail Cam addiiction

[Lefty]

I discovered a place where I use to hunt 4 years ago that I thought was a good travel way. Good enough I spent about 20 hours in a blind waiting for a traveling elk. tracks on the trail indicated daytime use. It took me seeing elk 3 of the first 25 times diving past the area there was something good about it
Im really hoping to place a trail cam way out their just so I can feel guilty about choosing to no longer hunt the area.

Im just curious who has or keeps a trail cam out just for entertainment sake?

[wawhitey]

Ive got 28 of them. Only 8 up right now but ill be hanging the rest over the next few months. Id say i have an addiction, yes. Heres a good pic from one of the few cams i left up over the winter. Cam is pointed just a TAD higher than it should be but i adjusted it after i swapped cards.

[Elkonthebrain]

How close do you place your cams to each other?

[wawhitey]

That particular pic i have two aimed at the same spot (about 10 yards apart) incase a bear screws with one, because i consider it one of my most important spots. But i have them spread out to the point that it takes me days to check them all.
Im probably going to go do some exploring in my unit and hang a couple more this weekend, looking for wallows in a new spot, youre welcome to come with

[Elkonthebrain]

Would love to. Finally got the wife to take hunters safety. She does the field test Saturday so I have the kid.

[CurlyTail]

I have one trail camera, and one Plotwatcher. Hoping to add another Plotwatcher this summer. I use them to try and get a realistic idea of the frequency of use of a particular area. I put them up on public National Forest land, with a security box and cable, and nobody has bothered them to date. They are time and labor intensive but give me information that is valuable and enjoyment in the off season. I put a trail camera on a large wallow in a prime valley last August/Sept. and discovered that its use was not nearly as frequent or predictable as I thought it was. Would be a waste of time to sit that wallow for any length of time. I put the Plotwatcher on a saddle between two nice valleys and discovered a few interesting tidbits - not a single human the entire month, more elk than deer, and elk at least every other day on average passed through the saddle. That is a good place to spend time during the season. I put it on another high saddle where I predicted good traffic and found very little traffic - just too high on the mountain I guess - too far from the water and the feed to be heavily used. I have several more spots that I would like to monitor this season. Plotwatchers cover much more area, but are very tedious to review, and gives poor detail as to rack size and points, but no problem telling and elk from a deer. Plotwatcher only takes daytime pics. I set mine for one picture every 10sec. My Plotwatcher gives overall more useable intel for hunting success, but the Trail Camera probably provides more recreation.

I actually shot my elk this past season in the exact spot I had a trail camera set the entire summer. Only 1/3rd of a mile from a 2 lane paved highway. No way you would hunt that spot without some prior intel.

[wawhitey]

Curly, you know most cameras now have programmable time lapse mode, so they can do the same thing as the plotwatchers.

[foxvalley]

Always been a huge trail cam fan,or addict,had the very first ones where you had to take the film out and get it developed.I never brought any cams out west, but I do bring the little $12.00 trail timers just to see what time critters are comming in,then just check tracks to see what it was.
I do have, however 10 "buckeye cams" set up on my farm. If you are not familiar with this system,they work off radio frequency,and have about a 1.5 mile range depending on obstacles in the way. After a pic is taken, it sends it back to my pc in about 1-2min. depending on signal strength. I can change all the settings on the cam,take a pic,and check battery/signal strength from my pc.for each cam.Also has a large solar panel on each cam that keeps the battery charged.

[Lefty]

,....the little $12.00 trail timers just to see what time critters are comming in,then just check tracks to see what it was.


I do have, however 10 "buckeye cams" set up on my farm. If you are not familiar with this system,they work off radio frequency,and have about a 1.5 mile range depending on obstacles in the way. After a pic is taken, it sends it back to my pc in about 1-2min. depending on signal strength. I can change all the settings on the cam,take a pic,and check battery/signal strength from my pc.for each cam.Also has a large solar panel on each cam that keeps the battery charged.

I gotta know. tell me more about the $12.00 timers

[elk.addict]

Curly, you know most cameras now have programmable time lapse mode, so they can do the same thing as the plotwatchers.

I just figured that out last year so tried it during the spring snow melt. I've posted this before, but anyway it's 1 frame per day - except when the elk wandered through, I added a few more frames

[Elkonthebrain]

What is your monthly bill on the buckeye system?

[foxvalley]

,....the little $12.00 trail timers just to see what time critters are comming in,then just check tracks to see what it was.


I do have, however 10 "buckeye cams" set up on my farm. If you are not familiar with this system,they work off radio frequency,and have about a 1.5 mile range depending on obstacles in the way. After a pic is taken, it sends it back to my pc in about 1-2min. depending on signal strength. I can change all the settings on the cam,take a pic,and check battery/signal strength from my pc.for each cam.Also has a large solar panel on each cam that keeps the battery charged.

I gotta know. tell me more about the $12.00 timers

Hey Lefty, the trail timers are smaller than a pack of smokes,and when you open it up it has a clock simular to a cheap watch,with a small plastic tab that gets inserted into the clock,and a small spool of string that gets attached to the tab.You tie the timer to a tree,and run the string across a trail, and tie the free end onto another tree.When an animal crosses the path, they pull the string out of the watch via the tab, and it stops the clock. Super simple,light, and very effective.We used them mostly on our bear baits back home, but found they are very effective on elk trails, and wallows.
Looks like bass pro carries them, or google "trail timer"to see a pic.

[foxvalley]

What is your monthly bill on the buckeye system?

The system has two different "modems" that you can get, the one that I have is the pc base modem.Basically the system is off the grid, or doesnt use cell service,no monthly fee, or per pic charge. Once you have the pc base modem, and the cams,there is no fees.Works just like a radio controlled plane. Your cams have to be within 1.5 miles of the modem to get reception.
The other modem,or cell based modem works off of cell service using cell towers.You have to have a cell phone carrier,and you do have a monthly fee, just like your phone,but no per pic charge etc. The advantage with the cell based modem, is you can have your cams anywhere there is cell service,so you could have your cams in ID.and the cell based modem, and recieve pics in WI.

buckeyecam.com

[CurlyTail]

The reason I like my Plotwatchers is that one set of batteries will last the entire summer. I live in Nebraska, and hunt in Colorado, so it takes a whole weekend to check the game cams, and I only get out there a couple of times per summer. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think any of the trail cameras has anywhere near the battery life in time lapse mode.

[wawhitey]

I think that just due to the software for the plotwatcher to scan through all the pics that its probably the way to go for what youre doing. That and ghe fact that it can take a 64gig card is huge. Id be curious now to put one of my bushnell x8s in timelapse mode with a 32gig card and see how long the batts last in comparison. I just changed the batteries out of one that has been running since early april. It was still taking pics and showing full battery life but i figured after 11 months id change them anyway. I see you set yours to 10seconds. I may set one of my bushnells to every 20 seconds to be fair, since it will work at night too, and still take the standard movement triggered pics.

[wawhitey]

I just did the math. 20second delay would put me at 4320 pics in 24 hours. At 6mp setting i think my 32 gig cards would be full in just a couple days. Having a hard time figuring how your cards last more than a week even using a 64gig

[elkaholic]

I have two cams and just picked up a Browning Strike Force. I will get them out in mid Aug to see what is around. In the area I hunt about 85% of my pics have been at night so it's nice to see what's else is around. Last year I only saw during the daylight a small handful of the bulls I had on the camera.

28 wawhitey! Now that is an addiction!!

[Lefty]

I just did the math. 20second delay would put me at 4320 pics in 24 hours. At 6mp setting i think my 32 gig cards would be full in just a couple days. Having a hard time figuring how your cards last more than a week even using a 64gig

years ago I had a d size battery eating camera. I set it out at 10AM by 4;30 It had 3700 pics and dead batteries.
I set on a water tank. I had a parade of critters walking by that whole day all day long. One of the neatest pics was a sage grouse in front of the camera, a bunch of sage grouse an Hungarian partridge 5-20 feet , a coyote 40 yards out and a rancher driving by in a white chevy 200 yards

I learned to get the camera up and aim high

[wawhitey]

I just did the math. 20second delay would put me at 4320 pics in 24 hours. At 6mp setting i think my 32 gig cards would be full in just a couple days. Having a hard time figuring how your cards last more than a week even using a 64gig

years ago I had a d size battery eating camera. I set it out at 10AM by 4;30 It had 3700 pics and dead batteries.
I set on a water tank. I had a parade of critters walking by that whole day all day long. One of the neatest pics was a sage grouse in front of the camera, a bunch of sage grouse an Hungarian partridge 5-20 feet , a coyote 40 yards out and a rancher driving by in a white chevy 200 yards

I learned to get the camera up and aim high

i get grouse on my cams too, usually ruffed, but i did just get a blue grouse in full strut on my last cam check. Pretty neat and unexpected

[CurlyTail]

I think the Plotwatcher is 3megapixels. Cannot enlarge much at all before becoming pixellated. Their software is excellent for stitching together and viewing all these time lapse photos. Still very tedious to review - takes a bout 5 minutes per day minimum and pretty boring if not action for a couple of days. The plotwatcher also has a wide angle lens, similar to a GoPro, which gives you a very wide field of view, but makes things at a distance look very tiny. It is great for watching an entire open meadow or wide open pass. I use a 32G card, and it lasts over a month for sure. Once it is full, it begins to write over the oldest pictures again.