Trail Camera Tips by Jerry Springer
The Angle
A great photo of this buck was missed because the trail camera was set up to focus on
the water source in the distance. The buck was walking down a road in front of the
camera. There is a big portion of the upper part of the photo that has little value so the
camera should have been mounted lower, or angled down, which would have produced
more of the buck in the photo without missing the water source. The trail camera is a
Cuddeback Black Flash.
Most trail camera instructions advise you to mount your trail camera
three to four feet off the ground on
a tree or post, and pointed down at
a slight angle in order to get the best
photos. While this is usually good
advice, sometimes you aren’t able to
do this or there are other reasons not
to follow those instructions. Here are
some examples of why that advice is
not always best:
Not a Level Surface: The area
you want to cover is sloping — sometimes a steep slope. In this case, put
the camera at the bottom of the tree
and use the laser light that some trail
cameras have or just eyeball it from
the possible animal’s position to verify the angle is correct. You can also
use rocks or limbs to prop or wedge
behind your camera to give it a steep
angle. Some companies also have
accessories to attach to your camera
which allow you to tilt and swivel it.
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California Deer
Those Darn Cows: If your area
has cattle, for some reason there are
always one or two that are not camera shy or have an itch that they need
to scratch. Having your trail camera
mounted lower than the top of a cow’s
back or nose can lead to a tilted camera… or worse, a broken camera. It is
also not just cows as some bears don’t
like trail
cameras
either. So
if there are
cows where
you have
cameras,
try piling
brush,
limbs, etc.
around the
bottom of
the tree to
try to keep
them away,
but even that doesn’t always work.
If you can mount the trail camera
higher in the tree and angle it toward
your target, that should work as the
last time I checked, cows don’t climb
trees… but you still might have an issue with bears. These higher mounts
may require that you have a ladder
to position your camera, but the good
thing is that so will the person who
might try to steal it.
Photo Check: If you can, always
look at some or all of your photos
when you return to check your trail
cameras. If you just swap out the
SD cards you may not realize until
you get home that you have angle
problems with the camera and your
photos are not capturing the whole
or any part of the animal. The angle
could have changed because the fastening straps on the tree have slipped
over time, animals such as squirrels
could have crawled on it, the rock
or limb wedges you used slipped, or
maybe you bumped the camera when
you opened and closed it to replace
the SD cards. I have experienced all
of these.
One final tip, always doublecheck that you have turned your
trail camera on before leaving it. You
will always wonder what awesome
photos you missed the next time you
return to check it and find the power
wasn’t turned on.
Next to bears, cows can be the worst
enemies of trail cameras. They rub on
them, move them, knock them around,
and sometimes break them, plus give you
a lot of photos you usually don’t want.