Trail Camera

I am looking for a trail camera to put up for deer hunting. I am looking for a decent camera, but something that doesn’t break the bank.

Been very pleased with all my Browning cameras

At the low end of the price spectrum, I’ve had fantastic luck with the Moultrie A5 Gen 2 cameras. Sticker on the forums has had the same experience, he has several. they are low frills but very reliable, take good pictures, and you can have 2 for the price of higher end cams. They can be found on sale for $59.99 if you watch carefully. Unbeatable for the price, IMO.

In the middle range, Browning have gotten very good reviews as Randy says. I have 5 Bushnell trophy cams of various ages and they have all been good and my oldest Trophy Cam is 7 years old and still going strong 365 days a year. The picture quality on Trophy Cams is tough to beat. Usually you can find a base model Trophy Cam for around $129.00 on sale.

Theft of cameras can be an issue, so unless your cams are far away from wandering trespassers, you’ll need to invest in a security box and locking device. Also, IMO it helps a lot to mount the camera way above eye level where it is even more difficult to spot.

Running cams is an enjoyable hobby in itself. I very much look forward to ever download and seeing the new pictures. It’s addictive and as soon as you get a cam, you will want another one. And another…

Gouse

Fleet has the A5’s on sale till May 7th. $52.99!
DT

@thefamousgrouse

@sticker1

Nice tip DT, thanks.

I hate to say I have enough trail cams, but… well… for now I have enough trail cams. I’m now to a point where it takes over an hour of running around on my property to check and download the cams I have.

But the A5 Gen 2 is a terrific cam at that price. A person could easily get started with 2-3 cams for what I paid for my first cam 7 or 8 years ago.

Grouse

for some reason I didn’t get this notification, dang it!!! I would have picked up one more…maybe 2

@sticker1 @thefamousgrouse

They are back on sale at Fleet for $52.99. I forbid myself from going to Fleet this week.
DT

Dang it, I just may have to go grab one or two more

Thanks for the heads up DT!!

I was going to write a post asking about cameras this morning and ran across this one. Ran into fleet farm and grabbed a A5. We borrowed a older camera from the Gf dad late last week and both have been having fun seeing what has been coming through the yard.

First buck we have a picture of

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The Moultrie A-5’s are solid, easy to use cameras. I own 3 or 4 and they’ve never let me down.

Couple things to consider, how close are you to where you deer hunt, how many good areas do you have to set them up in and how often can you check them?

Started off with 35mm stealth tcams and the first digital I owned was a moultrie and have been very pleased with their cameras and their customer service and warranties ever since. The low price moultrie’s are very solid cameras and have found the no thrills cameras have way less to go wrong. Granted you don’t have sound or some other unnecessary features, but that ain’t all bad. I’d rather run 3-4 low price tcams vs a single high quality one. Batteries and sd cards are the weak links so to speak. I run 3 moultrie solar panels hooked into tcams on tripods in areas void of good trees to set them up on, then 7 or 8 are hooked into small solar panels from northern tool and old garden tractor batteries. Dead batteries are the devil with tcams. Fleet farm sells wire rope and crimps that can be used and modified cheaply to lock the tcams if a box setup is out of budget and you’re mildly handy. Extra sd cards are necessary if you run multiple tcams. A small laptop is nice to download pics in the field and takes away having to have double the sd cards to cameras. Setting cameras is a real art form. From height, to angle, to distance from a trail or a salt block, feeder or food plot takes time to get effective at. It’s highly addictive and fun, it’s like Christmas for grownups. If you can’t get to the cameras often enough, a 16GB sd card is helpful as long as the camera can accept it. If it’s on public land, go high, bring a 5 gallon bucket, tree steps, a step stool or anything to get it off the ground and lock it. I run them on public and private and have been fortunate to only have one stolen over a decade running them. A friend has had a fair amount of issues with guys screwing with them in one area but not another, so you just never know what’s going to happen once they are setup.

You may be interested in Covert’s MP8 or MP8 Black. Great camera for the price point. If you are looking for something a little more middle of the line with HD video, look at our Night Stryker or Night Stalker. Otherwise, the MP8s are great little cameras for their price!!

http://www.covertscoutingcameras.com

Bushnell® Trophy Cam HD Aggressor 14MP on sale right now at Cabela’s in the Bargain Cave for 109.88 plus $5 shipping on orders $99 and over.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/bushnell-174-trophy-cam-hd-aggressor-14mp-trail-camera/2005188.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch%2F%3FN%3D1000002937%26Ne%3D1000002937%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dtrail%252Bcamera%26Ntx%3Dmode%252Bmatchallpartial%26WTz_l%3DHeader%253BSearch-All%252BProducts%26WTz_st%3DSearchRefinements%26form_state%3DsearchForm%26search%3Dtrail%252Bcamera%26searchTypeByFilter%3DTopRated%26x%3D10%26y%3D6&Ntt=trail%2Bcamera

If you are near a fleet farm it looks like they are selling the A-5 gen2 for $45 right now…

http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/moultrie-a-5-gen-2-5-megapixel-infrared-game-camera/0000000226169

based on your feedback here I am thinking I am going to have to have my FIL grab me one to try.

I have some class 10 cards do you know if they will work with these? i heard moultrie cams are not a fan of class 10?

Good tip on the A5 lubie40. I have an A5 Gen2 and it’s a solid, reliable player. No issues with false triggers and it’s been clicking away since I bought it last summer, even all the way through the winter it did just fine.

The ONLY thing I don’t like about the A5 is that it doesn’t have a battery meter. You just have to guess or let it run dead. Since I run el cheapo bulk pack Raovac batteries, I just write the date on one battery with a Sharpie when I install them and I replace the all after 90 days in the cam.

Other options for those looking for cams for this season:

Since I’ve heard so many things about the Browning, I decided to try a Browning Commado Ops last week.

On sale at Fleet Farm: http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/browning-commando-ops-series-trail-camera/0000000244430

I don’t have any pics back yet, but I’ll post a full report when I download pics for the first time. I was impressed with the setup and a couple of cool features that IMO work better on the Browning than on other cams. Full report soon.

Grouse

I am not sure about the class 10 SD cards, but I have 2 of the A-5 gen2 that I bought last year. They have been in the field since then with no issues at all.

Here are a few sample pictures from my A5 Gen2. I think Sticker and I got ours about the same time last year.

I have mine set on the 3MP setting to save memory card space. I’d think the pics would be a little sharper at the full 5 MP setting, but to me it’s not worth the added file size.

For the price, they seem to me to be very functional cams.

Grouse

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I have 2 on order with my Father in law, little late to the game but better late than never Thanks for the reviews and pictures.

I see the moultrie A-5 is compatible with the Moultrie mobile which is something i would like to try in a yr or 2 on some land that is a little further away.

Great! I ran out and added another A5 to the arsenal. Didn’t really need another but…..Luckily there was only one left on the shelf.
DT

trail cams are like fishing rods and garage space, can never have enough.

I’ve been really impressed with the browning strike force performance for a 130 dollar camera. Never had a really fancy one to know how it stacks up to those, but for cameras in the range I’m willing to pay they have been the best I’ve had.

deertracker wrote:

Great! I ran out and added another A5 to the arsenal. Didn’t really need another but…..Luckily there was only one left on the shelf.
DT

You are right, you didn’t need another ONE, you need 3 more. Find another fleet that has them and get a couple more.

The last one I bought the wife said how many of those do you need? I replied how many pair of shoes do you need, I can run all the cams at the same time, try walking with 15 pair of shoes on

The only thing about having 5 or more trail cams is maintaining the cams, downloading the pics, transferring the pics to a computer, and going through all the pics starts to become more than a little time consuming.

I’m going to start another thread to share some tips/tricks and see what others are doing to speed up this process.

Grouse

I have 5 cams that by bow opener will have been soaking for almost two months. That’s going to be a lot of pics to sort through.
DT

deertracker wrote:

I have 5 cams that by bow opener will have been soaking for almost two months. That’s going to be a lot of pics to sort through.

Yep. And back in the early summer, I was having issues with 2 of my cams false triggering a lot. So I was getting a lot of dud pictures that had to be weeded out.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>deertracker wrote:</div>
I have 5 cams that by bow opener will have been soaking for almost two months. That’s going to be a lot of pics to sort through.

Yep. And back in the early summer, I was having issues with 2 of my cams false triggering a lot. So I was getting a lot of dud pictures that had to be weeded out.

Grouse

A glass of ice and a bottle of “the famous grouse” and you will be thru them in no time

sticker wrote:

A glass of ice and a bottle of “the famous grouse” and you will be thru them in no time

What????? You mean they’ve named some kind of liquor after me? Those b@stards…

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

The only thing about having 5 or more trail cams is maintaining the cams, downloading the pics, transferring the pics to a computer, and going through all the pics starts to become more than a little time consuming.

I’m going to start another thread to share some tips/tricks and see what others are doing to speed up this process.

Grouse

So true!

Batteries are on sale again at Menards. I and I believe Grouse use these.
https://www.menards.com/main/electrical/batteries-battery-chargers/household-batteries/rayovac-aa-alkaline-batteries-48-pk/p-1444443231251-c-14146.htm?tid=6962684208342697031

DT

Do the batteries seem to last just as long as the other brands?

deertracker wrote:

Batteries are on sale again at Menards. I and I believe Grouse use these.

Yep, those are the batteries I’ve been using for 5 years. Consumer Reports rated them #1 in a test a few years back, lasting longer than Duracell.

I just buy the bulk pack on sale like DT posted and I’m good for 6 cams for a year. I visit my property often enough that I catch the cams that are running with low batteries before they go dead, so for me going to more expensive LI batteries doesn’t make any $ sense.

Grouse