Using Game Cams As An Excuse For No Existance

[salubrious]

If you're declaring a thermal camera as " the likes" of a game cam, that is an incorrect assumption. They are two functionally different items.

 

I may have rolled off a turnip wagon yesterday, but I did know that.

[coffee2go]

As for human scent alerting a bf or animal to a game cam, I have noticed this about ours.

 

I use two IR game cams continuously when we are not at the cabin.  I make them visible to deter any unwanted human activity and to let any intruders know that there may be more that are hidden.  We usually turn them off when we are present as I seem to catch much more on the audio recorders by doing that.  One camera is aimed down the side of the cabin the other is in a wooded area on the other side aimed away from the cabin. During some experimentation I found that if I leave the game cam turned on beside the cabin animals, other than deer, will use the other side.  If I turn both of them off they will travel down both sides and I will pick up animal movement and other noises from audio recorders on both sides of the cabin.  I also noticed canine and moose tracks during the winter months on the side of the cabin without a camera.  If I moved the camera to point where they were traveling, they would appear in an area not covered by a camera.

 

Bear are very aware of the camera. I have yet to catch a bear on a camera.  Apparently it is not human scent that makes them shy away from a game cam as my audio recorder would also have a scent. I have recorded them passing by numerous times some nights and even sniffing around below the audio recorders for several minutes when the game cams were turned off or removed.  This occured in audio recorders on both sides of the cabin.  If a bear can sense a camera when it is on then I have to believe certain other animals or a bf can too.  

 

The cameras work well as I have captured at least a couple thousand photos of deer over the last two years, a number of fox as well as a few humans.  I have to believe that there is some high frequency noise or odor that the cameras give off when they are activated that is not present when they are turned off.

[coffee2go]

Just wanted to add that I am aware that it has been established that there is something trail cams emit that can be sensed by animals or a bf thereby making them aware that they are there.  I just wanted to add it is my belief that in my case it does not appear to be human scent.

[Guest thermalman]

That seems to be the general consensus about IR game cams.

[Painthorse]

Can't remember if I've posted these pics before but they are a few years old, going back to when we had more activity here. I decided to use a pumpkin as bait and set the cam "directly aimed" at the pumpkin. A few mornings later my husband came in and said we needed to check the cam because he found a track way cutting across the road (we own the property on both sides). "Whatever it was" avoided the cam, got nada. But prior to checking we documented and took pics of where the pumpkin was and the cam, took pics of the trackway and am posting the best pic of one of the tracks. The placement of the foot is odd, more weight on the outer side and the inner digit appears to dig deeper into the sand than the rest of the digits.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Painthorse

[WSA]

Extremely compelling picture ^^^^ Were you able to determine length of stride?

[Painthorse]

@ WSA, we did tape out the stride but neither of us can remember the distance, the doc was saved on my old computer that crashed, hindsight should have saved the doc to disk when I saved the pics. BUT, in the second pic with the track way the coffee cop would be at the heel of one print and off more to the left up ahead is the ruler at the heel of the next print.

The third and fourth prints were basically uniform in stride distance.

After this incident is when we started using 2 cams, it's also when I realized that the cams were "not" trustworthy. Both cams would be aimed to cover a specific area and "very rarely would both cams trigger and catch the same animal". A good example would be that one cam would catch a bear "walking directly towards the second cam",the second cam triggered but lagged and missed the bear.

[Cotter]

I think folks put a lot of stock in game cam reliability.  I think those that actually work with them know they are inconsistent at best.

[Painthorse]

Very true Cotter. A friend of mine just started using the cams on a consistent basis. I've got one of mine over there that's a stealth, she has several others both Primos and Bushnell's. She calls me almost everyday frustrated.-> Bait gone no pics, tracks in front of cam but no pics.

I also think that during this time of year when it's colder out, the cams are more "inconsistent that normal" and the battery juice seems to get sucked dry quicker enhancing the problem of slower trigger speeds to no trigger at all.

[Guest]

^^^

I agree Cotter, there were over one million crimes reported throughout the U.S. in schools between 2009-2010, if cameras were the end all to witnessing crime there wouldn’t be any. Now applying that to Bigfoots, I submit there are far more camera’s in use throughout the private and business sector than in the woods and yet, it has apparently failed over a million times … Bigfoot reports are far fewer than a million so why, I ask, do some continue to rely on the camera argument to resolve proof of Bigfoot debate with cameras?   - Just Asking!

Edited February 20, 2015 by Gumshoeye

[coffee2go]

There is also the quality of the game cam.  Many people are still using the old style, less expensive type that are not stealth and have longer lag times between photos.

Also, if the sensitivity is set to eliminate leaf or grass movements, it may be set too low to capture anything other than something that is standing right in front of the camera for a considerable length of time - like a deer.  If the sensitivity is set too high, it will pick up the slightest movement before the subject comes into view and the lag time will allow whatever triggered it to enter the field of vision and leave. It's often a lose lose situation.

As technology improves, prices are becoming more prohibitive making it less likely that people will invest in high tech equipment that a Sasquatch may still detect.

 

[MIB]

^^^^ couple good points.

 

I'd suggest anyone interested in trail cams should spend some time on hunting forums reading the trail cam threads, looking at pictures, getting real world reviews from people using the equipment.   Make a chart, list of cameras one one side, then pros and cons across the top.   See what common complaints arise.   See which cameras don't get complaints.

 

I don't think Reconyx makes a good camera for bigfooting.   Despite their high cost, fast shutter speed, long trigger and flash distance, way too many people who use them for game scouting comment on the high percentage of pictures where the animals are looking right into the camera.   I don't know how the deer, bear, elk, etc are detecting that specific brand, but they are, and that's all you and I need to know.   

 

It's much better to find a stealthier camera, one that normal game does not detect, and figure out how to use it effectively.   One way to address a slower shutter speed is to set the camera back a little farther so the subject stays in the frame longer.  Of course, just how far you can take that is limited by shorter trigger and flash distances, but there's a medium.  Another is to orient the camera more along the trail rather than straight across it. 

 

MIB

[Catmandoo]

MIB,  do you use trail/scouting cameras?

[MIB]

Yes.  

[Guest]

My take,

 

For every beautiful game cam pic of a deer that could definitely stand as a "type specimen" for a particular species of deer, i.e. you don't have to say it's probably a white tail because there's no black tail in this area etc, clear and unsmudged, so you can't argue it's a funny looking coyote, or "it's the back of something" or "is that a leg" etc and so on, there's a thousand or more frames of blurry crap, parts of animals, nothing in frame, only eye glow in bushes. Some of this gets deleted at cam, some at upload to computer, some at upload to internet, we see pics online that have been through 2-4 stages of cherry picking, then cherry pick again when we seek them from google image results or similar. There's 30 million plus deer. So yeah, those one in a thousand shots seem pretty common, when you bait for deer, and sometimes get a very nice picture of a deer. 

 

So take something a thousand times rarer, what do you expect to get, yah, a thousand blobsquatches, and mysterious body parts, odd blurry things, maybe eventually something good enough to preliminarily ID a new species, but a thousand times less photos of any kind, presuming they blunder around as carelessly as deer. So we're seeing pretty much all the maybes of sas game cam pics, when we don't see the deer maybes, and drawing false conclusions, i.e. any idiot can put a game cam anywhere and in 24 hours have a type specimen placeholder picture of any extant animal.... right, thought these folks advertise themselves as critical thinkers. So some of our best uncherrypicked gamecam pics are talked and speculated about, such as the Hovey pic, but an equivalent pic of a deer would only be a "seems to be a deer" pic, not one, someone would be particularly proud to post, unless in hunting discussion "Well I think there's deer in there, got this on a cam..." "Yah, looks like a deer" ... but does not give a particularly clear idea of what a deer is to someone who has never seen a deer.  Those are what we've got so far, to the people who're getting them, keep trying, we need those thousand crap shots before the good one.

 

 

In general however, I feel that cameras placed for deer etc, are easily noticed by our target subject, they are ending up I think in the same relative line of sight to it, as we place trail markers and blazes, in essence, where you can easily see it 50ft back. Up a tree, high as you can reach, yup, that's about eyelevel according to reports. Besides that, anyone who visits any "area" weekly, soon begins to spot any twig out of place, hey that log, it's been moved... and you're not even "living" there, new objects to something halfway smart would be like someone coming in your living room behind your back and putting the TV remote in the "wrong" place, yah, you're not going to notice that are you? Never mind if you cut some brush, pin back a branch, clear a patch of forest floor for the bait etc to "stage" the pictures better. That's like someone moved your remote and swapped the positions of the couch and loveseat. Squirrels and crows have memories good enough for this crap, primates undoubtedly do.

 

 

Doesn't need supernatural detection powers either, I have a decently sensitive nose, new electronics reek, they say it takes a year or two for all the plastics etc in a new car to outgas thoroughly, that's probably how long your average trail cam remains "smelly" for.