Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

Learn How to Use a Game Camera to Scout 24x7

Save yourself a ton of scouting in the field this hunting season by buying as many digital game cameras as you can afford. You can either spend several weekends sitting from sun up to sun down and recording what you see on paper, or you can use a digital camera to sit there for you and record everything that walks by 24 hours a day. By positioning the game camera near a trail, a game feeder, a stand, or a stock tank, you will gain the advantage of knowing what precisely what number and value of the deer, elk or turkey that are visiting your favorite hunting areas. These game cameras capture the date and time of the event so you will know exactly when the activity is taking place. Why get up at 4:30 a.m., if the deer and elk aren't watering until 11:30 am in the morning?

When monitoring a trail, a pasture, or a watering area with a digital game camera, you can pattern the daily movements of deer, elk and turkeys. If you know that animals are feeding and watering at 4:00 am, then moving up a drainage to the north side of a mountain to bed down for the day at 7:30 am. If so, then you can find the perfect choke points along this route to set up a ground blind or tree stand. The same goes for mid-day travel to graze a nearby pasture, or learning the time of day and staging area where the deer and elk like to gather just before dark to get a drink of water.

Will digital game cameras really improve my deer and elk hunting? Heck yes it will. Once you start using game cameras you will become a digital photography junkie. Instead of working during the day, you will be trying to figure out a way to use a satellite uplink so that you can upload your photos in real time.

Digital Game Camera Uses:

• Discover the number of deer, elk and turkey in your hunt unit
• Record the time/date of deer, elk and turkey movement on game trails
• Record the time/date of deer, elk and turkey visits to popular watering holes
• Record the time/date of deer, elk and turkey decide to bed down
• Record the antler growth, size and health of deer, elk and turkey at game feeders
• Learn that you need to buy a black bear/mountain lion tag just in case!

Digital Game Camera Tips:

• Install a digital game camera - make sure to mount the camera waist high, level with the ground, and aim away from the rising or setting sun. The heat from the sun can essentially trick the camera into thinking it senses an animal's body heat, resulting in 'blank' pictures
• Add more digital image memory capacity - use a SD Card for added memory, which can hold from 500 to more than 1,000 pictures! SD cards can be purchased from any electronics store such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City or Radio Shack. We recommend a quality brand name such as Sandisc, Kodak and Panasonic.
• Extending game camera battery life - use good quality, name brand batteries for the longest life.
• Utilize game camera time delay options - shorter delay times should be used on trails, when animals are just passing by. Longer time delays are used on food plots and mineral licks or by feeders, when the animals will be lingering in the area.

Digital Game Trail Camera Types and Accessories:

The digital game cameras combine the ease of use and the dependability with the digital game spy cameras models. Large status screen makes set-up simple and provides constant updates on camera's battery life, picture status and other settings without you disturbing the camera placement.

• Digital Infrared Trail Cameras - The ultimate outdoor scouting experience is only achieved with a digital infrared game camera. Digital infrared game cameras should have two features; provide the best infrared camera at an affordable price and record a large number of pictures and video clips that have a date and time stamp.
• Flash Digital Trail Cameras - Flash cameras offer a game camera choice for even the smallest budget. The only draw back is that deer and elk will destroy it if you put it low enough for them to kick. I have plenty of pictures to prove this.
• Game Camera SD Memory Cards - SD memory card is an easy way to expand the number of pictures your digital camera can store. Simply place the card into the memory card slot until it is fully inserted. View pictures by removing card and placing into an SD-compatible computer, TV, phone or other device.
• Game Camera USB Cables - Transfer images from digital game cameras directly to your computer.

You've scouted a ton of tanks and narrowed your choices down the top 5. You've plenty of tracks and many of them are huge! Wouldn't it be great to see who is making those tracks? Nearby scrapes and rubs suggest their might be more than one monster buck or bull elk in the area. To make things harder, there is more than tank that looks like it would a great spot to hunt. But how do you know which one to pick without actually seeing what is coming in to drink at each tank? Not many people we know have more than one weekend per month that we can spend scouting and sitting on tanks to see what is coming into drink.

The good news is that like everything else, new technology is helping more and more people scout hunting areas by installing digital game cameras armed with silent infrared sensors that sense movement and or heat to snap pictures of whatever is moving in front of the camera. Most game cameras used to be prohibitively expensive costing several hundred dollars each. Now, you can buy a great game camera at Wal-Mart for $99. Buying five of them can be expensive, but not compared to the amount of scouting you can do in a month's time.

How much would it cost to a five people to sit on five different tanks or bedding areas to see what shows up for 30 straight days? When you think about this way, $500 bucks is a pretty good deal for 30 days worth of digital photos of what animals show up and the date and time stamped photos that give you great insight to an animal's travel, feeding, bedding and watering patterns.

In addition to pre-season scouting, you can also use them to see which bucks and bulls made it through hunting season, what the doe and cow groups look like, and even when the bucks are dropping their antlers.

By identifying heavily used trails to and from bedding and feeding, hunters can simply position a camera for the best shot, hit the switch and let it do its thing. It's great - no waiting out in the cold and no need to sit on stand for hours.

Digital game trail cameras can help narrow a hunter's search during pre-season scouting. We use them extensively during August to prepare for the September bow season. A nice feature inherent with today's trail cameras is a time and/or date stamp. This can eliminate much of the guessing game and in turn, the number of hours needed to be invested on sitting on a stand.

Choosing a Digital Game Trail Camera

Like any equipment, there are decisions to be made when choosing a trail camera. The most glaring is whether you want photos, which can be costly, or digital images that can be easily erased and stored in a database. After researching at length, three units have found their way into my inventory; two print film-based cameras and one digital camera. With plenty to choose from, we considered four factors including image quality, user-friendliness, cost, and durability.

Today's trail cameras generally carry a price tag ranging from $100.00 to $600.00. Most cameras are encased in a durable weatherproof shell. If you don't mind purchasing, loading, unloading and developing film, then film-based cameras are a great way to go. I like them because images can be viewed in alternate locations and then cataloged in a photo album.

If you prefer instant gratification, you may want to go digital. With a silent infrared illuminator and motion detector, positioned correctly digital cameras work excellent during daylight hours and at night. Although the image is not as crisp as those captured on print film, these cameras allow hunters to view and save or delete images at will without having to take a roll of film in to be developed. An added bonus for future reference is the ability to catalog the images deer and elk for computer and Internet based applications.

Digital Game Trail Camera Set-Up and Use

Set up for both types of cameras is easy. The most important thing to remember is programming the time and date stamps. This is simply done by pressing a few buttons.

Powering your trail camera is an issue. Batteries can be costly, but longevity is important when outside temperatures rise and fall dramatically. Although expensive, good batteries are necessary to ensure that your camera works all the time. In the summer this is not a big deal. At warmer temperatures, cameras can run for a couple months without much concern. When temperatures drop below freezing, that's when you've got to keep a close eye on your power source. Extreme cold winter temperatures can wreak havoc on battery life. To ensure longevity, we use lithium batteries as recommended. Even with the mercury reading at double negative digits this past winter, we found that we could run the camera for up to almost a month without much concern.

Finding a sturdy fence post or tree within a few feet of the trail you want to monitor is a priority. We like to use deciduous trees that measure between six and 10 inches in diameter. Any sturdy post or tree will do as long as it doesn't have any leaves or branches that might obstruct the camera lens. Some game trail cameras suggest that their cameras have an effective range of 30 to 50 feet, but again we've found that 20 feet is about the maximum that you can pictures worth saving. The key is to position it at a right angle to the trail approximately three to four feet off the ground, so that the subject moves broadside across the sensor. This allows the camera to capture the best image possible.

The biggest concern with leaving trail cameras in the woods is the potential for theft. Particularly in populated areas, leaving an expensive piece of hardware unattended can be risky business. You've basically got two options. The first is to choose trails less visible to others who might be exploring the same woods. You may also opt to camouflage around the camera using branches and leafy cover. Alternatively, you can invest in a lock and cable for just a few dollars. Regardless of your approach, you do take a risk by leaving it in the woods.

Results can vary a great deal between locations and depending on the time of year. For instance, more images will be captured during the rut than other times of the year based on increased movement as bucks search for does. That said, if you strategically mount your camera on heavily used trails in areas with good deer and elk densities, you can expect to capture anywhere from four to 15 images a day. Most will be does, but bucks will eventually make their debut.

Digital Game Trail Camera Applications

Trail cameras can be used for any species, at any time of the year. They can be a huge asset at mineral licks, wallows, trail crossings, on field edges, bait sites, or watering holes.

If you find your time in the field is limited, but want to invest in equipment that will improve your odds in the field, give at least one digital game trail camera a chance - getting good photos of some trophy bucks and bulls is almost as good as shooting one.