suggestions for trail cams
 

we just purchased 290 acres to deer and turkey hunt. We have seen the signs and a few live animals while walking the property but need to start the real scouting. I figure 4-6 cameras. The land is 60+ miles away and we will get there, at best, 2 times in 3 weeks to check the cameras and replace battreries. What type of camera would the group suggest for those conditions?

Welcome to the forums, always glad to see new people taking up this very addictive sport. Actually you picked a pretty good time to be buying cameras. Many of the retailers are trying to get rid of last years models because the new ones are almost ready to come out. I think there's a few questions you'll have to ask yourself before you make your purchase. Are they going to be over feeders or on trails. Is the primary purpose just to inventory what's there. Do you want white-flash or IR. If you are going over feeders or water sources, almost any camera will do since you won't have to worry about trigger speed. If you are going on trails then you willl need something with good trigger speed. You say you are checking cameras about two times in three weeks, almost any camera has that good of a battery life. If you are buying 4-6 units at one time, how much are you wanting to spend. The trend in cameras recently has been in getting the cameras smaller and smaller. A few good ones that are really small are the Scoutguards, Bushnells, DLC's, and the Wildgame Innovations X6C. Those are all solid dependable cameras and run anywhere from $120-$175.00. You can go cheaper with any of the Wildviews, Stealthcams, and some of the Moultries....anywhere from $69.00-$120.00. Here are a couple of sites to read reviews and be able to make an informed decision. www.trailcampro.com and www.chasingame.com. Hope this helps.

Blessings.....Pastorjim

Welcome also to the forum, For under a $100 I would go with the wgir4, to me it is the best bang for your buck, I bought mine for $69 and it has been great camera. A little higher end camera is the scoutguard sg550. This is my best camera and its my favorite, batteries last a long time, pics are nice and it is very small, the reviews on this cam are very good. My cam I have with the best pics is the stealthcam i890. It is a flash cam and I have had great luck with it. It is around $110. Very nice cam also. If you can find the i590 it is on sale for under $90 that would be awesome deal. Welcome to the addiction. Its a blast. Scoot

I agree with scoot12 the wildgame innovations ir4 are great cameras for the price. I can get thousand of pictures on one set of batteries. I got some pics posted just look for jlaper3 they are all from those cameras. Plus they are very simple to operate. What county did you buy land I am also from Wisconsin?

Never mind your from north carolina

I think the best recommendation I could give you would be to read QDMAs newest book

Deer Cameras - The Science of Scouting

Really hard to go wrong if you want to conduct a true proven survey method of what you have.:happy0001: Concerning game gameras - you get what you pay for! No exceptions.

I guess it all kinda depends on how serious you take it and also how much money that you wanna spend. This year I just had a ordinary camera to start out with and i got around 800 pictures of deer. Probably not a lot to most folks but thats pretty good for around here. I have seen cameras any where from 50-250 bucks and I had a 100 dollar and this year I upgraded to the Cuddeback IR and I haven't put it out yet but I will soon. But, I really don't see a lot of difference in any of the cameras. I mean they all seem like they can get the job done.
Good luck!

http://www.trailcampro.com ROCKS!

You might be getting ahead of yourself if you don't have any experience with trail cams and you intend to buy 4 to 6 right out of the gate. But hey, its your money.

I did a lot of research before christmas, including reading tons of reviews on cabelas and bass pro shops websites, and I ended up getting the Primos Truthcam 60. I bought primarily based on the reliability and features, with a price limit below $200.

Another thing to consider is the likelihood of theft. I based my purchase also on the availability and quality of lockboxes for the trail cam, which varies greatly for different models.

I am very happy with the camera so far. It takes good quality pics day and night, is very easy to set up. With an 8GB memory card, it is impossible to fill it up on one set of batteries. One set of batteries take about 3000 pics. The lockbox is rock solid; in addition to screwing the box to the tree, I used a chain attached to the padlock and wrapped around the tree. No one is getting that camera without some heavy duty equipment.

Whatever camera's You decide on be sure to ge/buyt the appropriate cables and locks for them,You don't want the new camera's to be stolen right off the bat!Most of the trail camera's have metal lock boxes that fit their certain models..I highly recomend protecting your investments for getting stolen.


The different trail camera's I would reccomend.Start off with a few trail camera's and once You find one that works the best or You like to operate more than the others You can get more of them as needed!

Cuddeback Capture (Flash) trail camera.

Bushnell Trophy Camera (Bone Collector) Camo trail camera (IR No-flash Camera)

Moultrie D55 IR Trail Camera or the Moultrie I-60 IR trail camera.

I'm thinking the 2011 Bushnell cam,
http://www.trailcampro.com/bushnelltrophycamxlt.aspx

I've heard bad things about last years model, I also heard they back them up with warranty, hopefully they have corrected their problems with this new model.

Opinions?

well I agree with a previous post about not buying 6-8 at the same time. according to the QDMA book JMAN was talking about 3-4 would be their suggestion for 250 acres. I still would only buy 2-3 to start with. I was in your shoes and could not figure out what I wanted. I also bought cheap and mid price cameras. I almost quit using cameras, the cost of batteries was awful and the quaility of the pictures was generally bad too. Most of them were so slow I got alot of missed shots. I was spending up to 40.00 a month on batteries. I figured that saving that I could buy a better camera with better battery life. You will need/want that feature also. I have heard all sorts of claims about battery life but My experiance was to go to a camera and very few pictures cause the batteries died. I had 4 different brands of cameras. I will not brand bash.
Now with that in mind I have 3 camera types now. I have a stealth cam which is ok and
I use it some of the time but I can still not stand to buy batteries. the next is a home brew that I bought ....I will not sit down to build one. It has been working on the same batteries I think 3 months. It is getting tweaked right now and I should have better quaility pictures with it. I can deal with that and each HB will do different things like a comm. camera. I do not care what they look like. I want speed, quick recovery between shots, picture quaility, and battery life. Some of the guys here can suggest a good HB builder and I will probably buy another at some time. The next camera I have is a MK-10 camtrakker. I love mine, batteries are rechargeable but they can also last for 2 months. They are fast and I have alot of posts here chech them out. I like mine so much I have been accused of selling them and working for them, neither is true. I do live close to their factory. They have made many improvements since the CG report, which in the long run was a good thing for them. I will stop now, I am sure I will stir something up.
If you do not know if you want to do cameras much buy cheap and put out feed. That will allow enough time for the cheapest cameras to get a picture. If you like it and want better quaility pass the mid range and go for a high end camera. I also consider a HB a high end camera. If you get the right builder, just like picking the right man. of a camera.
Good luck and have fun, I am addicted to cameras and everyone has an opinion. check them out close.