Trail cam

[emptymag]

What’s the best trail cam you guys have ran?

I bought a 2 pack of some off brand and one works awesome the other is junk.

Bought a muddy brand it also works awesome.

Lost my main bowhunting spot but picked up 3 other smaller spots.

So I’m I the market for some new stands, climbing sticks, and a camera or two. No interest in the cell cams.

[Fish Felon]

Why not cell phone? Don't want to pay the extra coin to your provider??

[emptymag]

I just don’t know enough about them I guess.

Plus I have T-Mobile and haven’t seen a camera advertised as working with T-Mobile.

Also wonder if they still work if not connected to a network. Can you put one out and go check it in a few weeks by pulling the memory card out?

[Mallard_maniac]

^^^for some this is the line we've drawn in the sand. I personally won't use them and have really limited my use of TC's all together anymore.

Anecdotal true story: a good friend was going to be bow hunting one evening late October a couple years ago. Had perfect wind for a stand he intended to sit. That morning at work his phone pinged and showed a buck going to bed/bedding near another stand the wind was acceptable for. He set up there that evening instead and killed the deer as it came out. He still has real mixed emotions on the ethics behind it despite being legal. I'm pretty sure a few states have made them illegal now, wouldn't be shocked if more jumped on the bandwagon. That's not a soapbox stand from me either, if the governing body says it's legal I have no judgement for those that do use them, it's just not something I want to do anymore.

There's so many new stand/stick makers out there now I can't reccomend one over the other. If I could do it ALL over again though I'd have a few deccent ladders for gun and one or two super nice lightweight mobile setups you see from Dan Infalt, Lone Wolf Custom, etc... I'm not a big fan of setting up bowstands anymore and leaving them up.

As far as cameras go there's reconyx and then there's everything else..... Life expectancy on anything that isn't reconyx all seem to be similar.

[lanyard]

I need to test mine yet. I got a cell cam for X-mas, I no longer have regular spots to hunt, but I have spots. Got the cell so I could set-up a location as a "second hunter" and to watch trail while I scout other spots. Hunting 1- farm, which added a 2nd guy last year which was helpful, 1- 80 acre wood lot, and 1- 40 surrounded by +100,000 acres up by Ely. My time is limited due to work and family, so I'm typically dropping in on a Friday afternoon/evening and out Sunday. It's been hard to get to know the land.

[Fish Felon]

I never thought of the ethical considerations of a cell cam. The ones we've had up are more or less the same thing as the DNR's eagle cam. The 80 acres my brother bought is straight woods that goes into more woods....you could see a big buck on it while pulling into park, or even if you had guys in place to hypothetically try and push it towards hunters.....not going to get the deer.....no way no how. It's just a fun thing that makes your day when dealing with bullshit and then get to look at a picture of some deer, turkeys, raccoons, birds, me dumping corn if you're my brother....shit like that. It has been really interesting to see how deer patterns change from before deer season to then changing overnight (deer were all hitting corn in daylight from sun up until noon the two weeks prior to deer gun opener....the day of opener they started hitting during the last fifteen minutes at dusk into dark, all does and fawns, bucks only hit the corn from 1am to 3am and became completely nocturnal).

All in all it has done zero to help our success since we shot two deer (doe & small six point on opening morning) between five guys.

So there has been no ethical concern for us as of yet.