How to best use a trail / wild life camera

[Lloyd90]

Ok guys, so after our last few Aldi / Lidl there are a few new people out there with these camera's and will be looking to use them.

Just looking for people's best tips when looking for spots / area's to set them up, good bait / food to use around them etc

I only bought mine tonight so apart from filming myself dancing around the living room I will need to get out this weekend and get it set up by the forestry , was thinking of putting a salt lick or 2 near by and see what it captures

Feel free to share your top tips

 

[Jagare]

Don't have it too high off the ground. A picture of the very rare Swedish forest chicken with young

 

[liongeorge]

Depends what your trying to catch but generally put on a well used path I find in woodland best. My top tip for getting a good look at roe bucks is to stick a hazel branch/whip planted right in the middle of the path in front of the camera, they can not resist messing with it.

 

[Dan Gliballs]

Make sure the area infront of the camera is clear and have it 3ft off the ground as a minimum, I run a few of these and if I don't stick to those rules I get hellish IR flare coming back at the camera during night time use.

 

[Lloyd90]

Be using it to hopefully spot a few fallow, got a spot in the middle of some heavy cover / forestry that is like an open field / meadow so hopefully find a tidy place there

 

[8x57]

I have two pinch points on my small permission where the fallow enter the property and where they leave it. The one pinch point is a gateway and there is a suitable fencepost a short distance from the gateway. The camera just confirms what the slots have been telling me but it also gives me the chance to see what times they are normally around and to give an indication of numbers and sex.

 

[willowbank]

After asking the same question some weeks back I was advised to buy the book "spies in the deer wood" which I bought from Amazon, well its packed with tips and things to avoid with trail cameras, it deals with American White Tails but the methods are just the same.

I too went out at first light to Aldi and bought 2 of the Little Acorn 5210 clones, complete with batteries and a 3 year warranty to an English company... not in China etc.

Having been playing with a friends Trophy for a week now I cannot wait to see what I have on my patch, spotted lots of slots after rain but no actual sightings yet.

Regards WB

 

[8x57]

I've got a few nice little clips of fallow from my trophy cam. I'm half expecting that muntjac, roe and boar will show up in the not to distant future as there have been various reports of all three only a mile or so away. I'm leaving the camera in place for a while, I can ever wait to see what turns up on it when you download the card.

 

[caorach]

For what it's worth my experiences have been that the aiming of the sensor can be critical - aim at the ground or the sky and it will greatly reduce your triggers. In general the camera should be at about knee height facing horizontally out from the tree or post, don't tilt up or down.

Be realistic about the flash range and the sensing range - for many cameras both are about 40 feet maximum with 15 - 20 feet being around optimum. That's only 5 or 6 big steps which isn't very far at all if you are wanting to try and cover a 4000 acre lease. Given this you have to get the deer to come to the camera and so picking a good spot is important. I have a spot where I will see over 100 photos per 24 hour period at this time of year whereas another very similar spot only a short distance away will only return 15 or 20 photos in a month.

Trust what the camera is telling you - if you aren't getting any photos then it is likely the camera is working fine but it is in the wrong place. This doesn't mean there are no deer, just that they aren't appearing where you think they are.

I've found it best to place the camera low down aimed exactly horizontal on areas with relatively low vegetation. Avoiding areas where the heather is 2 foot deep can greatly limit locations but will also give you a much better chance. If you place it high up then generally you have to tilt it down slightly and while there are some circumstances where this works in most case it has a significant impact on your sensing range.

So, for example, this location had sod all triggers despite a lot of deer using this ground and if you look carefully the centre of the photo is actually aimed about 20 feet in the air, the camera is too high off the ground and the heather on the ground is nearly tall enough to cover most deer. I think it was a bird that triggered it on this occasion:



This area produces lots of triggers - camera is about knee height and aimed straight out with the centre of the frame about where a deer would be plus low vegetation allowing easy sensing:



The advantages of a fast trigger - you can catch fast moving deer before they are out of shot and you also catch them quickly when entering shot which makes a fast trigger ideal for setting up on trails or other areas were the deer are moving:

 

[ion]

setting/rising sun will cause over exposure of pic's so face unit north if possible. If using in strong shade infrared mode may take over.

Both Lidl and Aldi units have ability to view on site so as Caorach says take the time to get trigger response right before you leave for a week. Even a red isn't much over waist high for the sensor. Been there - got the duff pic's to prove it !!

Ion

 

[Triffid]

With mine, I've learnt to turn the trigger sensitivity down to its middle setting. Else I get literally thousands of pictures of rabbits, mice, waving branches, birds etc, that you have to wade through to find the ones of deer.
​Triffid

 

[Dama]

Baiting the site with a branch from a willow tree never fails.

 

[Glendine]

An outstanding post. Advice is much appreciated.

Regards,
Glendine.

For what it's worth my experiences have been that the aiming of the sensor can be critical - aim at the ground or the sky and it will greatly reduce your triggers. In general the camera should be at about knee height facing horizontally out from the tree or post, don't tilt up or down.

Be realistic about the flash range and the sensing range - for many cameras both are about 40 feet maximum with 15 - 20 feet being around optimum. That's only 5 or 6 big steps which isn't very far at all if you are wanting to try and cover a 4000 acre lease. Given this you have to get the deer to come to the camera and so picking a good spot is important. I have a spot where I will see over 100 photos per 24 hour period at this time of year whereas another very similar spot only a short distance away will only return 15 or 20 photos in a month.

Trust what the camera is telling you - if you aren't getting any photos then it is likely the camera is working fine but it is in the wrong place. This doesn't mean there are no deer, just that they aren't appearing where you think they are.

I've found it best to place the camera low down aimed exactly horizontal on areas with relatively low vegetation. Avoiding areas where the heather is 2 foot deep can greatly limit locations but will also give you a much better chance. If you place it high up then generally you have to tilt it down slightly and while there are some circumstances where this works in most case it has a significant impact on your sensing range.

So, for example, this location had sod all triggers despite a lot of deer using this ground and if you look carefully the centre of the photo is actually aimed about 20 feet in the air, the camera is too high off the ground and the heather on the ground is nearly tall enough to cover most deer. I think it was a bird that triggered it on this occasion:



This area produces lots of triggers - camera is about knee height and aimed straight out with the centre of the frame about where a deer would be plus low vegetation allowing easy sensing:



The advantages of a fast trigger - you can catch fast moving deer before they are out of shot and you also catch them quickly when entering shot which makes a fast trigger ideal for setting up on trails or other areas were the deer are moving:

 

[2434me]

get on to Chasing game.com.Been on the sight a few years now. some fairly good info and interesting reviews.