How To Set Up A Deer Camera

Trail cameras are hidden optics in the field that assistance y'all plan a successful hunting flavour. Properly used, a trail camera will tell you what game moved through the area, when they are active and the direction they travel. Here nosotros have gathered the top tactics to help you gear up up and maintain a hunting trail camera that perfectly captures your next shooter whitetail buck.

How To Prepare a Trail Camera

Setting upwardly trail cameras for whitetail deer or other game is not difficult. Whether you lot are hanging i trail camera or 10, both orientation and peak have to be just right. Every bit a hunter, we're used to seeing everything at our own eye level, but that's not where we desire our trail camera pictures taken.

"When placing a photographic camera on a tree I adopt a good sturdy tree with the camera existence about iii-four' in a higher place the basis. I want the photographic camera to be middle level with the deer when taking photos. I make sure all debris is cleared to avoid any faux triggers. If a camera has the video selection I almost always prefer it as I get a better idea of a deer'due south travel patterns."-Heartland Bowhunter's Shawn Luchtel

As Shawn Luchtel suggests, setting upwardly a trail camera three to iv anxiety off the footing works best. However, at this height there is a risk of making it accessible to would-be thieves. If you lot're non hanging the trail camera on loftier-traffic, publicly attainable trails, y'all might be safety locking information technology to a tree at this superlative, but the all-time culling is to employ a climbing stick to hang your trail camera 10 feet off the footing and angle information technology down toward the game trail or food plot.

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" Trail photographic camera height depends if I run them on individual or public country. Our private country cameras are all chest high, but our public country cameras we either hide amend or drag a good bit and face them down to keep them out of others' hands and line of sight. Every camera I set, I go where I'thousand expecting to catch animals and look at the camera to brand certain information technology is aimed well and catches my move." -Identical Depict's Nathan Krick

Once you have your trail camera location and decided on the right pinnacle, you'll want to make sure y'all're getting the best trail photographic camera pictures possible. This means fugitive lens flare because of interference from the sun. Never point a trail camera due east or west considering the sunrise and sunset will frequently accident out an image. South-facing can as well crusade problems because information technology'south in the dominicus all day. The best tactic is to face up your trail cameras north whenever possible.

Become up close and personal with your trail camera photos. Fifty-fifty with the best trail cameras that shoot loftier megapixel images, your goal should exist to have your targets pass within ten yards of the camera.

"My favorite location for trail cameras is on natural travel routes–areas where the deer movement through freely and regularly where y'all know their motility is not influenced by anything. Also, when the bucks begin to lay down scrapes is one of the most heady times to run cameras." -Heartland Bowhunter's Mike Hunsucker

Trail Camera Settings

Too many mistakes are fabricated when it comes to understanding and using the right trail camera settings. Make sure you spend a 24-hour interval with whatever new trail camera so you know all its capabilities earlier leaving it in the woods.

Guide for the All-time Trail Camera Settings:

1. Know your capture mode. Are you lot later photos or videos? Video files are, of class, much bigger and volition use more than retention, but sometimes that's what y'all're after.

"I e'er run my cameras on Movie Mode. Only if I take a consistent cadet I desire video of will I alter the camera to video. Helps save storage and bombardment. I also ordinarily set a 30-second moving-picture show interval." -Identical Depict's Nathan Krick

1. Set the correct fourth dimension and date. Second to the image itself, knowing exactly when that big buck walked by is why we put up trail cameras. Factors similar daylight savings and time zones need to exist double-checked in your camera settings.
2. How many photos should I fix my camera for, per trigger, and how long should my delay be? If y'all are setting your trail camera over a allurement or mineral lick, turn your photo frequency downwardly to one to 2 photos per capture, and then you won't get hundreds of pictures of a deer that is hanging out and feeding. Turning your delay upwards to 2 to five minutes will also help conserve memory bill of fare space. If you're setting up over a game trail, turn upwardly the frequency to two to three photos and delay down to null so you're sure you won't miss that big buck following a whitetail doe.

"Video mode can be very beneficial when setting upwardly a camera on a food plot where deer in the groundwork may be too far away to trigger the camera but when a closer deer triggers the camera, you lot can scrub the video to identify potential target bucks in the background." -Heartland Bowhunter's Mike Hunsucker

1. What is camera sensitivity and how should I set it? The PIR sensor in a trail camera is responsible for telling the camera when to take a picture, and it is based on motion detection and the temperature difference via infrared rut. When it'south hot outside, there is less of a deviation betwixt the ambient temperature and the body temperature of an animate being, so you need to set the sensitivity college. In colder temperatures, y'all can plough the sensitivity to depression, because there is a greater divergence in temperature betwixt the animal and the ambience environment. If yous are getting a lot of "air current pictures," where the camera's motion sensor is picking upward on grass bravado in front of the camera, or leaves blowing beyond a food plot, plough the sensitivity down. When setting up on a field edge or expanse where the deer might be further away, turn the sensitivity up so you lot're able to capture a deer on the edge of the detection zone.
2. Reformat your SD carte du jour for your trail photographic camera. Have you ever pulled a card from your favorite trail photographic camera and popped information technology into a digital camera or trail camera viewer because you couldn't await to encounter what walked through? Digital cameras and trail cameras read and write data differently. Before yous leave your trail camera to exercise its chore, format the SD card.
3. Always use the all-time batteries for trail cameras. An estimated 95% of all trail cameras apply AA batteries, and 1 trail photographic camera manufacturer has estimated that hunters burn down through 50 one thousand thousand AA batteries every year. With those numbers, information technology's tempting to cut costs and utilise inexpensive, or rechargeable, batteries. Don't requite in. A non-working camera in the field is worthless. Lithium batteries have been proven to last longer in colder climates than alkaline ones. Alkaline metal batteries incorporate water-based electrodes, and as temperatures approach freezing, chemical reactions inside an alkaline battery starting time slowing downward, affecting its operation. Lithium batteries, on the other hand, have been shown to piece of work in temperatures every bit low as -40F, and they terminal up to three times as long equally their alkaline counterparts. In terms of efficacy, 1 set of lithium batteries can collect 20,000+ images as opposed to 7,000 images from a fix of alkalines.

Checking on Your Trail Camera

It's hard to wait, simply if you desire to become the most out of your trail cameras you demand to accept patience and a plan earlier checking on them. In fact, over-checking cameras is one of the most common mistakes hunters make when using this engineering.

"Determining how often and when to bank check trail cameras tin depend on a number of different variables, but typically the near important variable is the location of the camera. Trail cameras that are placed in more intrusive spots such as in the timber on a scrape, or modest hidden food plots surrounded past bedding should be checked less often." -Heartland Bowhunter'southward Mike Hunsucker

How and When to Bank check Trail Cameras:

• If you know it's going to pelting, and then go. Watching weather forecasts and waiting for a good rainstorm is a slap-up tactic because the pelting will wash away your odour afterwards you've gone in to collect your SD cards.
• If y'all can't wait for it to pelting, get in the oestrus of the day. Nearly deer are agile at dawn and sunset. It might be convenient to check on a photographic camera before or after work, that'due south loftier take chances for scaring abroad animals for good. Make it and go out while information technology's hot.

" When checking my trail cameras I always tend to check them in the middle of the twenty-four hour period when deer activity is at a minimum. I about ever access them just like I would a tree stand making sure I have the air current to my advantage. If the current of air is bravado towards where I believe the deer are bedded I simply won't check that trail camera that day." -Heartland Bowhunter'southward Shawn Luchtel

• Cover your scent. Take every precaution with your human olfactory property as you lot would checking on your trail cameras as y'all would when you lot're going to hunt.
• Think weeks not days. If you tin wait at least two weeks betwixt photographic camera checks, the amend.

"There are a few cameras we exercise non cheque during the flavour and leave running the whole time, July through December, if information technology stays alive. I put cellular cameras in hard to access locations or bedding areas where I could potentially bump deer, and the not-cellular cameras I put in easy to access places or by my tree stands so I tin can but grab the card when I go in to hunt. January through July I'll check cameras whenever, but every bit shortly as August hits, I am thinking about wind direction, scent control, and precipitation if I have to go check cameras." -Identical Describe'due south Nathan Krick

Using onX With Trail Cameras

With these top tactics, your trail cameras volition give you the reward you lot're looking for in the field, just pair them with the onX Hunt App and these key features and you'll be chasing whitetails simply like the pros.

Waypoints

Colored waypoints accept been a game-changer for onX Hunt users. One onX team member uses different waypoint colors to marker a.m. and p.m. tree stands. Similarly, marking trail camera positions with unique colors could represent cameras on bedding areas, nutrient plots, natural trails, or scrapes.

Photo waypoints can be synced between actual trail photographic camera pictures and camera locations. This helps you keep rail of which animals were sighted on each trail photographic camera.

Waypoint sharing keeps you continued to your hunting partners. Can't become to your photographic camera to pull an SD carte earlier it rains? Share your trail camera waypoint with your companions and take ane of them grab it.

Tracking

Stay off the game trails and create your own rail to each camera and save them with the Tracking feature in the onX Hunt App.

Wind & Weather

Know when to check on your cameras by monitoring the weather and air current direction while you're in the field checking on your trail cameras. The Wind & Atmospheric condition characteristic reports the weather condition at the closest NOAA weather station to your electric current location.

Now you accept the tools and tactics to place trail cameras in the best spots for capturing whitetails wherever they roam.

Source: https://www.onxmaps.com/hunt/blog/top-tactics-for-setting-up-a-trail-camera

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